The Austin Map Project

[Ario]

Forums are up experimentally. They still need to be integrated with the site, so that registering an account with the site will automatically create a user account on the forums as well. Hopefully eventually user data for the main site will be the same as that for the forums, but for now, this is a lot easier than creating forum scripts from scratch. A link to the forums will be placed on the site index when it's ready.

-Ari

[Ario]

I've added links to the forum up on the site and I think I've got a good enough structure to the site (especially the ability to get feedback) that I can start spreading the word to people I don't know personally.

[Ario]

Some new updates:

-Main page now displays the total number of hits for all the pictures (this is for viewing the information for a picture, not just the thumbnail)
-Modified the message on the opening page
-Picture view now includes a manual switch between image sizes
-Artist profiles now include a "view all pictures by this artist" feature

[Ario]

I've been doing a lot of general cleaning of the site's code and making things more efficient. A few new things:

-The "last updated" date on the main page now reflects the date that the last post was made on this thread
-Manual navigation between different sizes when viewing a picture
-Cookie enabled to remember user's preference on which size to view
-Ability to re-center map on any picture
-More consistency with styles from page to page; picture information is shown with the same style on search, profile, and editing pages

[Ario]

More updates:

-Passwords are now stored in an encrypted format. They are illegible to me and on the off chance they are hacked into will be illegible to others.
-When viewing pictures, a small disclaimer now appears at the bottom reminding viewers that artists maintain copy rights to their pictures.

[Ario]

I've been doing a whole lot of code reorganizing. It doesn't look like much, if anything, on the surface of the site, but it means that when I'm done, implementing more features will be very fast and simple.

[Ario]

Picture search results and the user list can now be sorted according to various values. Also, the word "Location" on picture search results now is a link to re-center the map on that image.

[Ario]

I've added a new feature, "places", or "locations", which is kind of a redundant level of organization. It allows you to browse pictures by specific listed areas, which I will predefine, and my eventually allow users to add on to. There are areas and sub-areas, with no limit, such as Parks -> Zilker Park -> Barton Springs -> South Lawn -> That Nice Big Oak Tree ... well, you get the idea. The interface is minimalistic at this point, but I'll make it more robust in a few days. Meanwhile, users can move their pictures into locations (only one location per picture). I'm going to have similar things like this for landmarks, events, etc. Other categories will let you put your picture in more than one category, but the idea of the locations is just to add more organization, so optimally there won't be any duplicate locations, just locations and sublocations.

Some features still to come:

-Better integration of the forum with the site, so you don't have to login to both, and they both draw from the same data table

-Manual jumping between zoom levels on the map so you don't have to right- and left- click or use the keyboard; this should be especially useful on the applets used to submit and move the location of pictures, which currently don't let you move once you're zoomed in all the way

-Automated error handling that will notify me directly by error when something screws up, so that people don't have to directly email me

-Integration of places with the applet: each place will be a predefined area on the map, and placing a picture there will automatically categorize it into that place

-Detailed statistics

-Standardize the site's feel and move it beyond defaults; overall make it more arty, though not to the point of cliche

-Of course, turn the map applet into a Javascript interface and add Google maps and satellite maps; this one will take quite a while

These are just the things I have on my slate for the next few weeks. I've still got a lot of ideas and such planned for after that, but these are the things I feel I need to get done before I start putting forth more serious effort into attracting actual people I don't know to the site. Thanks to anyone who's actually reading these updates.

[Ario]

-Fixed a broken contribute link on the FAQ

-Added a manual level jumping interface to the applets; this should make moving easier.

[Ario]

Several updates:

-Fixed some bugs (see other thread)
-Original size of picture now opens in the same window
-Original size link now displays image size
-When images are automatically resized, they will now resize to no larger than the original image size
-If you upload an image with no EXIF data, or no data on the date the image was taken, a message is now displayed
-Main page greeting changed; now displays the total number of pictures

[Ario]

Updates on the Locations feature:
-Fixed bug on allow users to add their pictures to locations
-Users can now add their own locations
-Number of pictures and sub-locations for each location is now displayed

[Ario]

-The site now automatically sends me an email when some script error occurs, instead of just showing you the message. This doesn't appear to work in all cases but hopefully it will enable me to fix critical bugs faster.
-When there is no date data available for a picture, instead of displaying it as some date in 1969, it will now say "never" or "unknown" or whatever, as the case merits.
-Edit picture page now displays the number of hits the picture has received.

[Ario]

I added a "browse" page which explains the various ways you can view pictures.

[Ario]

Updates today:

Locations feature
-added a move function to move picture from one location to another
-added a notice on root location page saying you can't add a picture there, and to move to another location
-added a cancel link for when adding/moving a picture
-clarified location rules: a picture may be in many locations, but never in a sub-location of a location. i.e., it can be in parks->zilker->barton and parks->zilker->umlauf but not in parks->zilker->barton and parks->zilker
-when adding a new location, it now checks to see if it already exists there
-while adding or moving a picture, you can add a new location

-cleaned up options on edit pics page
-cleaned up and added options to show pics page, especially those for your own pictures
-show pictures page now shows what locations, if any, the picture is in

-moved submit button on applets to be not over the scale bar

-added my contact info to FAQ

[Ario]

-austinmap.org now works (without the www)
-user profile homepage link now links to homepage

the javascript version of the map is underway. hopefully it'll be done in a few days.