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20-09-2005, 01:12 PM
| | Wild Member | | Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Bolton, Lancs
Posts: 150
| |  Some General Comments on the Site
First: What a great resource - a site free from pop-ups, advertising & clutter dedicated to Wild Britain - fantastic!
Two suggestions -
1: Photographs - you allow (even enourage) submission of large images, however this then leads to horizontal scrolling - my suggestion would be scaling images to say 800x600 (or possibly 640 x 480 for those with lower res screens) max, but leaving a link to the maximum size if someone wants to view that with a suitable high res screen.
2: Reference Section - Include a Fungus Library! Also have the lists sorted in alphabetic order - makes it easier to scan down to find what you are looking for, and finally though I suspect this is rather difficult to achieve  build in some form of helper for identifying unknown items -
Anyway - thanks for a great site - long may it continue |
20-09-2005, 01:46 PM
|  | Administrator and Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: On the Malvern Hills
Posts: 3,220
| | Hi BartonFlyer,
Thanks for your suggestions.
We've been considering various options with the images and will hopefully implement some new changes when we upgrade the gallery and forum in the next few weeks. Essentially, we need to ensure that we can try to future-proof the gallery, with large quality images that can then be scaled down as necessary.
We took quite a bit of advice from photographers and web-developers from the outset and found that the general opinion is that home PC monitors will get larger, until 19"/21" TFTs are the norm. As a result, the typical screen res will be 1600x1200 within a few years and so 800x600 pics would only take up a quarter of the screen and look very small.
We are able to resize the pictures from their original 1280x1024 uploads, but this requires additional room on our server for each resize, and until recently webspace was at a real premium.
However, with the new forum and gallery due in October, we're aiming to have small images for 800x600 screens, medium for the 1024x768 and large for 1280x1024 plus. So hopefully that'll match the sort of features that you're looking for.
As for including a Fungus reference library - it's in the pipeline, but it's a very big pipe We've built the templates and forms that will allow details for each type of fungi to be added to the encyclopaedia quite easily, and all we need now is a willing volunteer to take on the job 
The template for the alphabetical menus should be ready by the end of the week and hopefully have a thumbnail picture with each entry as well.
Be sure to post any more ideas/suggestions as we genuinely welcome all feedback and aim to make changes wherever possible, as soon as we can.
Cheers
Stuart |
20-09-2005, 07:06 PM
|  | Knight Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Jun 2005 Location: N.E.SOMERSET
Posts: 6,455
| | | i joined the site as a result of a search which gave me a huge ,excellent, picture,of a particular plant, let them scroll |
20-09-2005, 07:20 PM
|  | Officer of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Aug 2005 Location: uk
Posts: 924
| | A good point regarding photo size. Almost all galleries on the net have the ability to allow someone to click on a photo to view at enlarged size. Another point is that not everyone has broadband, and people with dial up connections may find a very large photo takes forever to download.
A cracking site though, it's looking good |
20-09-2005, 08:33 PM
|  | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Leicestershire
Posts: 3,564
| | | I to came accross this site via a search on the web just over a week ago & I can honestly say that it is the best site of its type available, the fact that it offers something to everyone irrespective of their particular wildlife interests is fantastic.
Being a keen amatuer wildlife photographer I enjoy sharing my images with others, after all what good is a photo if its just stuck on your own computer, it has become a real treat to log on and enjoy the fantastic selection of photos being posted by other members.
I'm sure this site will go from strength to strength, it is already a fantastic reference base for wildlife enthusiasts & the forums give us all chance to discuss & debate wildlife issues with like-minded people from all over the UK, how brilliant is that!!
Those of you who create/run/maintain this site have created something very special and should be justifiably proud of your efforts, well done & thankyou.
Fourwings. |
21-09-2005, 01:09 PM
| | Administrator and Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: On the Malvern Hills
Posts: 3,220
| | Thanks for the comments guys, it's great to get lots of feedback and see the site from different perspectives.We try to consider the various different types of visitors, but it's easy to forget that not everyone has a large screens or 2MB broadband etc, so keep the suggestions coming. Quote: |
Originally Posted by Fourwings
Those of you who create/run/maintain this site have created something very special and should be justifiably proud of your efforts, well done & thankyou.
Fourwings.
| Thanks Fourwings, but since you started adding you're great pics to the gallery, you're now talking to the man in the mirror.  |
21-09-2005, 01:24 PM
| | Administrator and Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: On the Malvern Hills
Posts: 3,220
| | BartonFlyer, you'll be glad to see that the encyclopedia lists are now alphabetical. http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/wi...clopedia/birds
As they grow larger, we'll also sub-divide them into relevant categories i.e. birds of prey, ducks, waders etc, to make them easier to search. |
21-09-2005, 02:31 PM
| | Wild Member | | Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Bolton, Lancs
Posts: 150
| | Quote: |
Originally Posted by StuartDH BartonFlyer, you'll be glad to see that the encyclopedia lists are now alphabetical. http://www.wildaboutbritain.co.uk/wi...clopedia/birds
As they grow larger, we'll also sub-divide them into relevant categories i.e. birds of prey, ducks, waders etc, to make them easier to search. | Stuart - that's terrific - now if you can just add the bit where I submit a photograph and the system matches it to those in the reference encyclopedia and provides the full ident.... |
21-09-2005, 03:08 PM
|  | Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Sunny Doncaster
Posts: 4,334
| | | BartonFlyer,
Does that not happen with you already? It does with me. Stuart has some special software called Tinkerbell and Wildone that seem to identify many of my pictures. Fantastic |
21-09-2005, 03:15 PM
| | Wild Member | | Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Bolton, Lancs
Posts: 150
| | | Boddie,
Now you mention it I did wonder how my Coprinus Micaeus photograph had suddenly had it's common name added - I just though it was magic!! |
21-09-2005, 03:16 PM
| | Administrator and Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: On the Malvern Hills
Posts: 3,220
| | Quote: |
Originally Posted by BartonFlyer Stuart - that's terrific - now if you can just add the bit where I submit a photograph and the system matches it to those in the reference encyclopedia and provides the full ident.... |
Bartonflyer,
aha, you jest, but we're already on it. The vast majority of our time is spent on building the infrastructure of the site, so that we will be able to provide these exact facilities.
Part of the 'big project' is to bundle everything together, across the entire site, in easy to navigate groups. When it's finished you'll be able look at a bird picture in the gallery and also look at snippets of the latest bird news, view birding events, view thumbnails of similar birds, read the encyclopaedia definition and link through to superstitions, quotations, facts and figures etc, etc, all on the same page.
It's a serious amount of work, but we're getting there. |
21-09-2005, 03:21 PM
| | Administrator and Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: On the Malvern Hills
Posts: 3,220
| | Quote: |
Originally Posted by Boddie Does that not happen with you already? It does with me. Stuart has some special software called Tinkerbell and Wildone that seem to identify many of my pictures. Fantastic | These two are better than software, they never crash
I've yet to come across software that works as well as Tinkerbell, Wildone, fbcpmike, John, Izzy et al |
22-09-2005, 05:28 PM
| | Administrator and Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: On the Malvern Hills
Posts: 3,220
| | The gallery has now been modified to show all pictures at a size that should fit nicely on 1024 x 768 screens. We've added the click-through facility that Helen and a few other members have suggested, so you should now be able to click on the photo and view it at the original size (usually quite a bit larger).
If you've got any more ideas or suggestions to improve any part of the site, then just keep 'em coming and we'll see what we can do |
22-09-2005, 08:11 PM
| | Wild Member | | Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Bolton, Lancs
Posts: 150
| | Quote: |
Originally Posted by StuartDH The gallery has now been modified to show all pictures at a size that should fit nicely on 1024 x 768 screens. We've added the click-through facility that Helen and a few other members have suggested, so you should now be able to click on the photo and view it at the original size (usually quite a bit larger). | Stuart - excellent feature that makes browsing much better - however if I click on any image t rty & see the full size version I then get:
BartonFlyer, you do not have permission to access this page. This could be due to one of several reasons:
1. Your user account may not have sufficient privileges to access this page. Are you trying to edit someone else's post, access administrative features or some other privileged system?
2. If you are trying to post, the administrator may have disabled your account, or it may be awaiting activation.
So I think something must be amiss? |
22-09-2005, 09:49 PM
| | Administrator and Commander of the Wild Empire | | Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: On the Malvern Hills
Posts: 3,220
| | | Thanks for letting me know Bartonflyer. I forgot to change a few of the permissions, but all members should now be able to view the original size images.
Cheers
Stuart |
22-09-2005, 11:53 PM
|  | Active Member | | Join Date: Sep 2005 Location: Portsmouth
Posts: 39
| | | Much improved. Well suggested Barton, and well implemented Stuart. | | |
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