Wiki Catalog Update/Important Site Changes

Hello everyone,

I've launched the Wiki Catalog module in a very raw state just to start getting it populated. To add/update any entries, just log into the forum right now and go back to Wiki Catalog section by clicking "Home" link, you will be able to add entries inside each of the categories.

Post any new category requests in the "Category Addition Requests" forum.

I will be adding a lot more user-friendly features and revisions over the next couple of weeks.

You can also post any suggestions that you have here.

Thanks,
Vlad.

Today's changes:

• Added Revision history for each entry. Now you can view previous edits by all users


• Changed layout of Edit Entry screen a little bit. Moved Close and refresh link further down, so it's not clicked accidentally and image thumbnails are now laid out nicer


• Added a few more new categories under Photo Equipment and History

In Forum:

Added "My Collection" link to Forums so it displays link to member's website (which should be their collection web site

All right that's it for tonight, tomorrow I may work on the wiki resources page, time permitting and then go back to catalog and add stuff like Search, etc. Also the redesign of the home page is in works to be more portal-like so to display newly added/edited entries, images, newly posted forum topics and so on, so with one glance a user can determine what's new.

After a couple days of rest, I have put in some serious time into the 3rd module of this site - the Wiki Reference section.

Thanks to Bill Parkinson's (nightphoto) ideas it will consist of 4 sections: eBay Seller, Online Stores, Collections and Miscelaneous Resources.. the first 2 you will be able to post sellers and write reviews with ratings (5 point system), the other 2 you will be able post links and people will be able to add comments about these links so it's more fun this way. Just links is booooring.. :)

Also if you have notices the wiki catalog got a few tweaks like

• The color on the right side is not gray not black, so it's easier to read


• The supersize image popup window is now regular browser popup window instead of DHTML popup (I had some trouble with image sizes in that one)


• The catagory list for cameras is now organized by Manufacturer and categories had been changed quite a bit - Thank you Bill for great suggestions!!!

I am hoping to have some kind of version of the Wiki resources up and live hopefully mid next week.

Once I am done with the programming of the site, I will go crazy with populating the catalog. So lots and lots of catalog entries are coming... I also need to sit down in my little basement studio and take detailed pictures of more interesting items in my collection and post those to the catalog.

Cheers,

Vlad

A new front page is posted.

Search feature is added to the catalog.

Hi everyone!

A few new features added today:

If you are logged in you will see after each Catalog entry on the bottom the following 3 features:

• Request Category Change - you will be able to request an administrator/moderator to move the camera to another catalog category


• Request Entry removal - for some reason if an entry is in violation of some copyright or the source does not wish to have the entry in the catalog they can request its removal. Also maybe the entry is a duplicate


• Request Image Removal - if a duplicate image is accidentally uploaded or it violates a copyright, you can request to remove it here

Vlad

The Catalog and the Forums are now finally connected together.. Now you can create a thread for a catalog entry directly from catalog and it will link back to the item back from the forums!

Oops! Sorry ladies and gents, I had left a little bug in forums when tweaking it yesterday, it would break some new posts. it has been corrected.

I've added Start and End of manufacturing years fields to each of the catalog entries. The system will now sort by these Start date first, then it will show all other entries in the category alphabetically... These fields are optional but system will prioritize the entries with the years first.

Also if anything other than year is entered into these fields the system will ignore it and will retain the original value.

Vlad.

Hello everyone.

A few important changes had been applied to the site today:

1. Fixed the bug with the optional dates field in the catalog being set to 0 and showing up as 0. Set a end date year to 0 now if you want to reset the end of manufacturing year to nothing. Bill P - thanks for catching that!

2. Large Image gallery Next and Previous links added so you can browse all images for the entry without opening and closing the pop-up window every time.

3. Next and Previous links are added to entries to you can browse the entries in the current category without going back to the list.

4. IMPORTANT! User Forum has been removed and all threads moved to General Forum which is now called "Collectors and Users Forum". - Thanks to Bill P for suggestion

Cheers,

Vlad.

Hey all,

a few additions today:

1. "Jump to" Pulldown for quick navigation on all pages in the header of the site - thanks to Yuri B for suggestion.

2. Print Entry link for Catalog Entries to printer friendly layout on white background with all images shows for print.

Vlad.

Hello again,

I've added a one nice little feature:

When adding/editing a Wiki entry, you can now lay the entry out either with a gallery (images on the right) or you can mix in the images into the entry text itself.

Here's how to do it:
First you upload images like you always do. Then from the left side of the screen just drag the image with your mouse cursor into the text window. It will show up like a little thumbnail inside the text. Arrange it in between the text any way you want. Then if you don't want the redundant images to show up as a gallery just check the box that says "Hide image gallery".

Once you hit Submit Entry button, the catalog with take the original images uploaded and replace the thumbnails in text with original large images. Make sure not upload any images higher than 800x600 resolution. So in your entry when you view it, it will have the large images that you uploaded. I decided to keep the images small when you edit it, so the image does not take up the whole text box.

See http://www.ussrphoto.com/Wiki/default.asp?WikiCatID=36&ParentID=4&ContentID=297&Item=Helios+44+Outer+Limits+%2D+by+Luiz+Paracampo
as an example of this technique used in catalog.
Vlad

A few more changes to the site:

- Added support for file attachment uploads to the catalog entry, so you can attach those manuals, PDFs etc to any Wiki catalog entry, just don't go nuts with file sizes

- Further consolidated forums, everything is now in Users/Colectors Open Forum, including the threads generated via catalog. Makes things more streamlined and easier to use. For Sale and Trade sections are also consolidated into one

- Updated Last Edited section on the front page not to include newly added items as last edited. It's much less redundant now.

Vlad

Some of you may have noticed little Google ads on the bottom of the pages of this site.. I apologize for these, but unfortunately it is a necessary evil to help keep this site up.

The hosting costs alone are around $100 a month to ServerBeach Inc since I have to use their dedicated co-located web server because of all the custom image processing components used here. So hopefully these little ads will cover just a tiny bit of that cost.. (not even mentioning all the personal time invested into this ) anything helps, as they say... I tried to keep it as less of an eyesore as possible...

Best regards,
Vlad

Good evening!

I've added a scrollbar to the what's new section on the home page, so now you can see ALL entries in the last 30 days, not only last 10. It was hard to see who added what before since it only showed last 10 items. Hopefully that helps make the interface a bit more friendlier.. Let me know if that's not too slow for some people..

Oh and also added some more ads on previously blank areas of the site (sorry) but maybe by these random bits from eBay you will find the camera or lenses of your dreams ..

Even more changes today: added sorting in the Wiki Catalog - now you can sort by Chronological order, Alphabet or Most Recently added. The sort is saved for each individual user so next time you open the site it will sort based on your select preference. This change was long overdue, I've had it on my list for past 2 months, just never got to it. Hopefully it makes the life a bit easier when browsing the catalog.

Vlad

Added Wiki catalog entry editor support for Google Chrome browser, now Chrome users can use the WYSIWYG editor properly. The editor has been upgraded to new version so if you see any issues please let me know.

Thanks!
Vlad

Thanks Vlad I use SrWare Iron a version of chrome and all is now well !

Samsung GX-10,too many Russian Lenses, A lot of Zenits, an Almaz 103 a few Yashica,and finally a Minox35GT

Glad someone see a difference

Cheers,
Vlad

I could not edit Wiki from Firefox. Had to use IE. But it may be only on my computer.

hmm.. i just tested in Firefox 3.5.6 with no issues. What are you experiencing?

Today everything working fine. Must be my PC fault.