My New Site... 'London Invertebrates'

Jason Green · #1 (**permalink**) 14-04-2009, 03:21 AM

Hi All,

After many hours each day for the last two weeks or so, I've been busy completing my own start-from-scratch website. I aim to photographically cover all of London's invertebrates. So far it stands at 255 species (all have at least one image) within 115 families from 14 orders...

- Please go to London Invertebrates - to see more

Let me know of any problems/improvements/good bits, etc.!

Thanks for reading!

Take care,

Jason

DaiTheDragon · #2 (**permalink**) 14-04-2009, 01:01 PM

Looks like it's going to be an interesting and informative site. I do have two suggestions for you. On the data base page I would like to see a thumbnail of the class or order so that idiots like me can see what type of insects are in that group.
When the pop up box appears I think you could make it bigger or at least wider. I don't like having to scroll on each image.
Only my thoughts so I hope I havn't offended you.

Dai

Jason Green · #3 (**permalink**) 14-04-2009, 01:29 PM

Nope! When I was setting the box width, I unfortunately set the template for each one too narrow

I'm in two minds as to whether or not keep the scrollable window thing, or feature all on the same pop-up together. I just chose the former method so as each species' page grows, it has somewhere to go without making the whole page too long. I've only seen it/produced it on my Linux NetBook with a 7in screen - it may look quite untidy or too small on larger screens, in which case I'll have a re-design...

Dutchess · #4 (**permalink**) 14-04-2009, 01:45 PM

Ah! So that's why you have been so uncharacteristically quiet of late, Jase

I take my hat off to you. Good luck with it!

(Perhaps your new signature could be applied to website building as well??!

)

Best,

D.

oxycera · #5 (**permalink**) 14-04-2009, 01:51 PM

well, it's an ambitious enterprise...I wouldn't have a clue how to create such a thing. It will be interesting to see how it develops; good luck.

Jason Green · #6 (**permalink**) 14-04-2009, 02:11 PM

Thanks Oxy and Dawny! Yes, ambitious... the more species that are added the bandwidth will be used. Today I have a further five species or so to add - and that's from my garden in April. What about grassland in the summer? I'll probably need more bandwidth, etc.

Thanks all, your cooments are appreciated!

Jason Green · #7 (**permalink**) 14-04-2009, 03:52 PM

Hi all,

Thanks for the comments - I am now, whilst keeping the same images and pop-up design - I will be upsizing the photos from 320x240, up to 480x360. This will mean upsizing the windows too, about 3-4 days work but will hopefully look better in the end...

camo · #8 (**permalink**) 14-04-2009, 09:47 PM

Hi Jason

I checked out your site and as number 29 and 30 I was astonished at the amount of work you have clearly already put in. A couple of points I tried to leave a visitors message but I kept getting a white but blank screen. The look of the site was very formal and I would ask who you are looking to attract; enthusiasts naturalists or friends. I wondered also if you are seeking to create a truly useful database which if you are you may have to accept outside photographs or if you are looking to just record your own activity. Your ambition is brilliant and I wish you lots of luck in what is probably a lifelong mission.

Roy

DavyG · #9 (**permalink**) 14-04-2009, 10:19 PM

Your site is impressive Jason, it looks like you've spent a long time working on it.

As already mentioned by Camo, please let me know if any of my Dragon/Damsel images could be of use.

I'll watch your sites progress with interest.

Dave

Jason Green · #10 (**permalink**) 15-04-2009, 01:02 AM

Thanks Roy and Davy

Yes, it's taken a lot of work... several hours per day, for the last 14 days or so - and that's just the skeletal stage, creating and linking pretty empty pages! I've now decided to use bigger photos as above, which means setting the pop-ups to new dimensions and adding additional width on each of the species' pages. I then need to find all 600+ images from my hard drive, crop then re-compress and re-link them as they'll have different names

I'm sure I'll be after additional images, thanks. For now, I have about 10gb of bandwidth, so I can't use too many... but when it's reached a stage when all the pages are there albeit often blank, I'll be able to say. Also, it's based around London's wildlife so it'll take some research too.

So, on to attraction. Everyone, ideally! I need to use more photos on the Database page as I hope to attract and interest those who perhaps have seen something for the first time or someone who wants to know how many other flies there are barr blubottles, but then provide taxonomic information such as groupage to enable people to stay with it as their knowledge from various sources grows. The intention is to provide the information on each species I know of, including the lesser-researched species, or those without much literature such as aphids and mites - and put all that information in the one place.

I plan on putting a small photo above each family listed, kind of to represent each group so's to enable a casual observer to get to the species they may have seen or want to learn about.

Finally, the guestbook works OK for me, so I'll look into it - it could be the fact it's embedded as opposed to being launched normally - and consider a link to open it normally, instead.

Thanks for looking all, it's appreciated!