Web page update -- December 1 2005

Posted: Thu Dec 01, 2005 2:48 pm

The software versions we are using have been updated as of today. Most of the changes should be transparent to you, unless of course they cause problems -- in which case post them here or email a description to me. I have no way to test every permutation, especially not those involved with being connected as anonymous or being logged in without administrative privileges and sometimes the system acts differently in those cases.

The one major change is that you can now select from three "themes" to view the page. The theme we have been using, and which is still the default, is known as deepblue. There are two other themes that you can select if you go into your account and click on themes. These basically control the colors and layout of the page and you may find that one of the others is preferable to you. The your account page will still be shown with the deepblue theme but the rest of the pages will be shown with whatever theme you choose. (Theme's are sort of like "skins" in some other software). Let me know if you have problems with any of the themes -- I had to customize them all and I could have made mistakes.

Posted: Sat Dec 10, 2005 7:33 pm

Well the last 10 days have been interesting from a web master's perspective. The main body of the updates went well, but the Gallery (which I wasn't updating) got screwed up in several ways. I think it is finally straightened out. Please let me know if you see any other problems.

There are a couple things I'm going to work on next:

1. The Ride Calendar: I want to go back thru it and straighten out some funky things that happen. This was my first real web programming project and I've (hopefully) learned a lot since and can make it a bit more friendly, especially for the 10 (or so) people who input and edit the rides along with Bob Cohen who downloads the monthly calendar for the Bikeabout.

In addition, I am going to create separate fields for links to other web sites. One will link to maps of starting locations, another to any cue sheets or ride maps you have (either on this site or you own site). There's a couple reasons for this. First having the links in the ride descriptions takes too much space. Also Bob really can't use the links for the Bikeabout and this way I can give him a version without links more easily. Finally having the links in the ride descriptions creates a security issue, particularly if we open the entry up to more people and I can put tighter controls on the links if they are in a separate field.

I'm open to any suggestions you all may have about the ride calendar and even though it's Holiday season now is the time to get your requests in. I don't like to be making massive changes during riding season both because they can be disruptive and because I have other priorities then.

2. I also want to install some general purpose event calendar software and create an interface between it and the MHCC ride calendar. The event calendar we were using (a) wasn't supported and (b) had security holes in it and, after we got hacked a bit last Summer I got religion about security. There is some software out there I can use, it's called NUcalendar ... you could probably Google it ... and I'll be taking a closer look in the next month or two.

3. People have also expressed an interest in having maps and cue sheets available on the page. I'll be doing a map making demo at the January 5 club meeting so come there with your suggestions. It's easy enough to just stuff some files on the web page but having them be searchable and organized is another matter. Maybe someone would like to manage this project? I don't know if I will have time.

4. That's up to you Any little nits with the page? Or big ones? Anything that irritates you? Any questions? Suggestions? Just write them in here in this topic. Don't be shy ... sometimes something you might think is difficult can be fairly easy (there may be software written that does it or it may just be a tweak I need to make) and sometimes what sounds simple can be difficult. So just let it flow ... and I'll respond.

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 10:56 am

Frank... just discovered the RSS link for the gallery and added it to my Yahoo! home page. It appears to be working properly. This will be a quick convenient way to stay up to date on all posted gallery items. I encourage anyone with interst in the MHCC gallery and a Yahoo page, or other RSS reader, to add this link. Thanks, Don

Posted: Thu Dec 22, 2005 1:11 pm

but I'm glad it works. I hadn't even tried it and was onlyvaguely aware of it. I want someday to get back to making the rss links for Velonews and other bicycling news sources work but the base software that we are doing is pretty poor and I need to look around for something more reliable. The basic problem is that when one of the news sources doesn't conform to the standards our software has a heart attack and, instead of just bypassing the item we get a "this block isn't functioning correctly message" and it stops working entirely.