MOW
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Post by MOW on Apr 18, 2016 7:17:22 GMT 9
I've been making some changes/enhancements to the www.f-106deltadart.com/ website and it's databases recently. Some you will probably never realize or even see unless you live on a smartphone or tablet and see how Responsive webpages look. Don't think our crowd here falls into that category too much. Others will be obvious as we move forward ever growing and progressing with new technology. There was a time, not that long ago, when we could blow-off new tech for a long time and stick with status quo... if it ain't broke don't fix it. Sorry guys, but life in today's cyber world doesn't work that way anymore. If you don't get on board rather quickly, crap stops working. So... we adapt and try and stay up to date. Anyway some of what you will see is an updated, Responsive (grows/shrinks with smartphone tech) homepage. I will work on getting all pages fixed like this, but it's a process. Other things ... Alumni Registry database has a different look giving it more of a line-item first view until you click on someones profile with View Full Profile. www.f-106deltadart.com/alumniprofiles.html I'm pretty satisfied with this one. Aircraft Inventory database www.f-106deltadart.com/aircraftinventory.htmlis also a line-item view until you click View Details of a particular jet. Once in the detail view you will see a different look for that profile as well, although to get the full effect search for 580773 and view its details as that is the only one I have worked on thus far. Just type 580773 in the Search box and hit Enter... or click the search icon. Then click View Details. You will find it's history/lineage, a couple teaser photos, a url link to a search result of that tail number in the photo gallery and a Korea flag for those who went to quickly ID it as such. THIS ONE I would like some feedback on. I plan on migrating the entire old lineage pages (Erv's pages) into the database, which I started doing long ago but it's time consuming and I never really went too far. Anyway 580773 is the model to look at. New Photo Gallery www.f-106deltadart.com/piwigo/ is much more robust and flexible than my previous gallery. While it was a PITA to migrate from one to the other, and ended up with many many duplicate Comments migrating in, I am pretty happy with it. However, I realized during that process just how many photos and albums I have buried inside the gallery and not easily found. This became evident to me via Facebook where folks were finding and posting photos they found elsewhere that I have had for years and years, hell most of those other sistes got the photos from my site to begin with. When I would comment on a post or Mark O. would comment and post a link to the gallery, many of the 'regulars' would be surprised. So, anyway migration was just to get from there (old) to here (new), but now I am working on cleaning up or should I say, clearing up, those albums and photos. The new gallery allows me to physically plant photos anywhere I wish and then associate them to as many different albums as I want, which has always been a limitation previously. An example is a have a new album I now use as a 'photo bucket folder' to physically dump any and all aircraft photos into regardless of what FIS unit the tail number reflects. This new photo gallery allows me to 'associate a photo to any and as many albums as I want, so the location of the original is no longer as important as before.
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Post by pat perry on Apr 18, 2016 23:54:07 GMT 9
I've been making some changes/enhancements to the www.f-106deltadart.com/ website and it's databases recently. Some you will probably never realize or even see unless you live on a smartphone or tablet and see how Responsive webpages look. Don't think our crowd here falls into that category too much. Others will be obvious as we move forward ever growing and progressing with new technology. There was a time, not that long ago, when we could blow-off new tech for a long time and stick with status quo... if it ain't broke don't fix it. Sorry guys, but life in today's cyber world doesn't work that way anymore. If you don't get on board rather quickly, crap stops working. So... we adapt and try and stay up to date. Anyway some of what you will see is an updated, Responsive (grows/shrinks with smartphone tech) homepage. I will work on getting all pages fixed like this, but it's a process. Other things ... Alumni Registry database has a different look giving it more of a line-item first view until you click on someones profile with View Full Profile. www.f-106deltadart.com/alumniprofiles.html I'm pretty satisfied with this one. Aircraft Inventory database www.f-106deltadart.com/aircraftinventory.htmlis also a line-item view until you click View Details of a particular jet. Once in the detail view you will see a different look for that profile as well, although to get the full effect search for 580773 and view its details as that is the only one I have worked on thus far. Just type 580773 in the Search box and hit Enter... or click the search icon. Then click View Details. You will find it's history/lineage, a couple teaser photos, a url link to a search result of that tail number in the photo gallery and a Korea flag for those who went to quickly ID it as such. THIS ONE I would like some feedback on. I plan on migrating the entire old lineage pages (Erv's pages) into the database, which I started doing long ago but it's time consuming and I never really went too far. Anyway 580773 is the model to look at. New Photo Gallery www.f-106deltadart.com/piwigo/ is much more robust and flexible than my previous gallery. While it was a PITA to migrate from one to the other, and ended up with many many duplicate Comments migrating in, I am pretty happy with it. However, I realized during that process just how many photos and albums I have buried inside the gallery and not easily found. This became evident to me via Facebook where folks were finding and posting photos they found elsewhere that I have had for years and years, hell most of those other sistes got the photos from my site to begin with. When I would comment on a post or Mark O. would comment and post a link to the gallery, many of the 'regulars' would be surprised. So, anyway migration was just to get from there (old) to here (new), but now I am working on cleaning up or should I say, clearing up, those albums and photos. The new gallery allows me to physically plant photos anywhere I wish and then associate them to as many different albums as I want, which has always been a limitation previously. An example is a have a new album I now use as a 'photo bucket folder' to physically dump any and all aircraft photos into regardless of what FIS unit the tail number reflects. This new photo gallery allows me to 'associate a photo to any and as many albums as I want, so the location of the original is no longer as important as before. Patrick, "I've been making some changes/enhancements" is an understatement of all the work you have done on the F-106 main site!
To make all the pages "Responsive (grows/shrinks with smartphone tech)" to follow cell phone technology is a huge project for a website that is so full of content and pictures.
I will be surprised if this doesn't attract a lot of the F-106 FaceBook group members to join the conversation on the Forum. There was a whole new generation of F-106 fliers and fixers in the Air National Guard who would be about 20 years younger than us regular USAF guys. They'd be in their 50s-60s by now and much more apt to use FaceBook than us older troops. It would be good to hear their stories on the Forum and the main site.
The new photo Gallery is awesome and with associative links makes it much more powerful to for story telling. In fact, you may have to come to Nashville for the 2017 F-106 reunion to give a demo of the new enhancements you've made. Can I get an AMEN on that?
The new main page www.f-106deltadart.com view uses the "River" that allows one to scroll down the river and find places to go for more content. One of my other favorite sites does the same www.nhra.com/ . The NHRA home page loads slowly because it has a lot of crawls across the page. Slow home page loads are bad medicine for users.
Great job Patrick,
Pat P.
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MOW
Administrator
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Currently: Offline
Posts: 5,821
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Joined: September 2003
Retired: USAF, Civil Service
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Post by MOW on Apr 19, 2016 5:34:48 GMT 9
Patrick, "I've been making some changes/enhancements" is an understatement of all the work you have done on the F-106 main site!
To make all the pages "Responsive (grows/shrinks with smartphone tech)" to follow cell phone technology is a huge project for a website that is so full of content and pictures.
I will be surprised if this doesn't attract a lot of the F-106 FaceBook group members to join the conversation on the Forum. There was a whole new generation of F-106 fliers and fixers in the Air National Guard who would be about 20 years younger than us regular USAF guys. They'd be in their 50s-60s by now and much more apt to use FaceBook than us older troops. It would be good to hear their stories on the Forum and the main site.
The new photo Gallery is awesome and with associative links makes it much more powerful to for story telling. In fact, you may have to come to Nashville for the 2017 F-106 reunion to give a demo of the new enhancements you've made. Can I get an AMEN on that?
The new main page www.f-106deltadart.com view uses the "River" that allows one to scroll down the river and find places to go for more content. One of my other favorite sites does the same www.nhra.com/ . The NHRA home page loads slowly because it has a lot of crawls across the page. Slow home page loads are bad medicine for users.
Great job Patrick,
Pat P.
Thanks Pat, appreciate the support and feedback. One of the more minor fixes I'm still working on is what @gene mentioned to me about the duplicate Comments in the Photo Gallery, a result of my numerous attempts to get the import right and a glitch where the comments kept repeating. But I'll fix it. So you like the river menu method? I always have as well, but was wondering if it is 'too much' for users to see vs a slimmer menu that takes you to other main pages. As you say, the younger crowd is upon us who live in a different media world than us and it takes more to get them interested. Sometimes data overload is not a good thing, but for me I like 'less clicks' on a website, the fewer it takes to get somewhere the better AND the ability to get to anywhere from anywhere no matter what page you're on. I will be working on all the other page updates now that I have the main page and a template made.
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Post by adart on Apr 21, 2016 6:51:52 GMT 9
I like the new changes. Thanks again...
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Post by Gene on Apr 21, 2016 12:10:10 GMT 9
me also...
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MOW
Administrator
Owner/Operator
Currently: Offline
Posts: 5,821
Location:
Joined: September 2003
Retired: USAF, Civil Service
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Post by MOW on Apr 21, 2016 19:59:14 GMT 9
Thanks guys
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Post by Jim on Apr 22, 2016 1:40:38 GMT 9
Finally figured out it is on the other site..... cool
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MOW
Administrator
Owner/Operator
Currently: Offline
Posts: 5,821
Location:
Joined: September 2003
Retired: USAF, Civil Service
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Post by MOW on Apr 24, 2016 15:20:37 GMT 9
Copy that Jim, the main site.
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