Loaches Online Community Edition

[Jim Powers]

Thanks for the offer, Martin. I will probably take you up on that.
I'm hoping to find the time, soon, to give this stuff a try.

[Martin Thoene]

Whoohoo! Great additions Robin!

I have re-jigged every profile that was on the Community site.

I eXed the right-hand 400x400 idea and gone for a full page width main photo between Similar to: and Care:

This gives a much more eye-popping appearance and makes on-page use of all the fab photos.

I've done the Botia unknown01 , all on-page as the whole lot of Kamphol's pics make up an article-cum-profile and leaving out pics for someone to find on the photo-search button detracts, I feel, from the overall quality of the group of pics.

Martin.

[shafer]

I've done the Botia unknown01 , all on-page as the whole lot of Kamphol's pics make up an article-cum-profile and leaving out pics for someone to find on the photo-search button detracts, I feel, from the overall quality of the group of pics.

I like this article/profile, and it's definitely good for this particular page to have all of the images visible without having to go to the photo-search button. Good work Martin!

I eXed the right-hand 400x400 idea and gone for a full page width main photo between Similar to: and Care:

This gives a much more eye-popping appearance and makes on-page use of all the fab photos.

I don't know if I like the re-jiggered design as much as the design we had all agreed upon previously. For some pages with lots of images it looks fine, but with just one or two images, the old design looked better. Plus, now, a lot of the images aren't the pre-built sizes but are scaled oddly and don't look as crisp. Now I have to go through dozens of the modified pages, fix any problems with the image search footer, and re-approve them. I had just finished this all last night at 3am, and only had 8 more to do, and now I've got 4 pages of changes to catch up on.

Jeff

[Martin Thoene]

Ach!

Sorry Jeff, I didn't realize that would make things difficult.

In most cases it's the original image pulled down to fit. I noticed if you take a 400x400 or smaller UP in size it looks awful.

All the Korean loach pics are actual size.

One difference I noticed is that doing it this way gives you less crowding of text in the first parts of the profile, because the main image is separate, plus for the viewer it's a much clearer view of the fish than the 400 x 400 picture.

I think it makes it more readable.

I've just done Paracobitis variegatus, and for a picture that shape, you end up with a weeny thing in the top right which isn't so good for instant ID purposes.

Jeff, I think it would be useful for us to know the processes that you have to go through after we do a profile and if certain changes we might do after the fact make things difficult for you.

Martin.

[shafer]

Ach!

Sorry Jeff, I didn't realize that would make things difficult.

In most cases it's the original image pulled down to fit. I noticed if you take a 400x400 or smaller UP in size it looks awful.

All the Korean loach pics are actual size.

One difference I noticed is that doing it this way gives you less crowding of text in the first parts of the profile, because the main image is separate, plus for the viewer it's a much clearer view of the fish than the 400 x 400 picture.

I think it makes it more readable.

I've just done Paracobitis variegatus, and for a picture that shape, you end up with a weeny thing in the top right which isn't so good for instant ID purposes.

I just think it looks a little awkward having part of the profile summary, a big photo, and then the rest of the summary. I think 400x is sufficient to see if your identification is even close, and then they can use the photo search.

The problem with pulling an original image *down* to the smaller size is that the web browser has to download the entire original image and scale it appropriately. We have a wide range of image. Some are pretty small (500-600 wide), but others are huge, which is great if you want to see fine details. I'm a big fan of having the largest image possible available. EXCEPT that, if you do as you're suggesting, on some pages the viewer will have to download the 1MB large original image, and that will take forever, especially on a modem. The whole point of the photo search and thumbnails page was that the computer took care of the resizing and served out the appropriate images at the appropriate scale. And, I didn't have to do anything manually, or doublecheck any pages. It just worked.

Now I'll have to check every image that someone puts on the species index, see what the original size is and how large the file is, and decide if it's "Good Enough" (as in not too large to be slow). If not, then I'll have to download it, put it in my image editor, scale it down, upload it as a new file, and insert it in the page. This is a huge pain, and is why I wanted to disable the flexible resize feature. It's too much work to ensure a consistent result.

It's ok to use the original size if you don't need to resize it (or resize it very much). The Korean loaches are all fine.

Jeff

[Martin Thoene]

Right now I (sort of) understand the reasons.

So, if I go back and replace the big, full width images (in the same positions) with 400 X 400 will that work?

Is there an option that you can input into the size choices for 600 x 600? That would fit wouldn't it? I just checked the Leptobotia elongata profile and one of those was 567 wide, and it's inside the frame limits.

I'm just trying to think of a way to get the biggest bang for the buck at the least technical difficulty for you. I think it's good for users to see detail "up-front" because not everyone may choose to click the photo-search option.

I want to go do some more profiles, but I would like to know what's best ASAP because I don't want to create problems for you.

Martin.

[shafer]

Right now I (sort of) understand the reasons.

So, if I go back and replace the big, full width images (in the same positions) with 400 X 400 will that work?

Is there an option that you can input into the size choices for 600 x 600? That would fit wouldn't it? I just checked the Leptobotia elongata profile and one of those was 567 wide, and it's inside the frame limits.

I'm just trying to think of a way to get the biggest bang for the buck at the least technical difficulty for you. I think it's good for users to see detail "up-front" because not everyone may choose to click the photo-search option.

I want to go do some more profiles, but I would like to know what's best ASAP because I don't want to create problems for you.

Martin.

If I could add a 600 wide option, that would be ideal. I've wanted it several times myself. But I have no idea where in the code I would need to add that. I'll look around...

Just go ahead and make some new profiles. If the original size works, that's great. If not, use 400 wide. Don't bother editing the old pages, and I'll fix them up later once we reach consensus on how it should look. (I thought we HAD reached consensus!) It's not that hard to resize the images later. (I can edit them in HTML mode and resize them faster than deleting and reinserting the image from the photo browser)

ALL: Did you like the old profile style or the new profile style better?

Jeff

[Martin Thoene]

Yes, let's hear what people think. Nobody really much gave any feedback before did they? I can't remember.

I found that 400 x 400 worked with portrait photos (i.e. didn't crowd the text too much), but it looked bad with landscape pics. ....and most of the pics are landscape.

Martin.

[shafer]

Ok, I added a 600 wide option in the code which is the largest image size that we can put on a page. (Any image wider than 600 pixels will make the page scroll horizontally on most viewer's monitors, which isn't a good idea). I also added in 300 in case we want it later.

BUT, THERE'S A CATCH. The new 600 and 300 options only work on NEW images (uploaded after this point) because it makes all of the sizes when the image is first uploaded. So, if you need to edit an old page and use an old image, here's the trick. Go find the image in the Photo search, and view its page. Click the TRANSFORM tab and rotate the image (and then rotate it back). Editing the image makes it regenerate all the thumbnails, including the new 600 wide size.

Do you think we need more available sizes? These are the current options. I think they're sufficient (now that 600 is available), but I thought I'd ask before we upload even more images!

'original' : (Whatever the file is...)
'large' : (768, 768),
'medium' : (600, 600), --- NEW!!
'preview' : (400, 400),
'small' : (300, 300), --- NEW!!
'mini' : (200, 200),
'thumb' : (128, 128),
'tile' : (64, 64),
'icon' : (32, 32),
'listing' : (16, 16),

Jeff

[shafer]

Yes, let's hear what people think. Nobody really much gave any feedback before did they? I can't remember.

I found that 400 x 400 worked with portrait photos (i.e. didn't crowd the text too much), but it looked bad with landscape pics. ....and most of the pics are landscape.

Martin.

Yeah, there wasn't a lot of feedback, but maybe that was a good thing.

400 was slightly too wide for the text; I agree. We could try 300 wide instead (in the original design), but then it's even harder to see the loach, and you were already unhappy with 400.

[Martin Thoene]

Those options will work. I've only used 400 or 200 though. Couldn't really see the point of the others apart from original- size and tweak then it.

I LOVE the "trick"...... Would you like me to mod the pics I screwed around with or do you want to check them?

I'll upload new stuff and put the main pic at 600 x 600 then. 300 might be useful.

The only thing that worries me is that all this fine tuning of overall appearance gets negated by text moving around when the page is viewed on different monitors. That's a bit of a PITA.

I'm finding i can view a page directly and it appears one way. If I'm not logged in it appears another way and if I link a page on the Forum and then view it via the link it looks different yet again???

I linked the Weather Loach yesterday and it had huge gaps everywhere when I checked the link from the Loach Forum.

Martin.

[shari2]

Nice to see Robin here! Are there pictures with her profiles? Can't see them when I open the profile...

As for the pics in the new location, I do like it with the B. uk 01 but I agree with Jeff that one pic profiles might look better with the original format.

As for picture sizing...well...I tried to follow Martin's directions but didn't get too far this morning after working all night. I will keep trying, but am working again tonight so it may not be till Monday afternoon.

[shafer]

Those options will work. I've only used 400 or 200 though. Couldn't really see the point of the others apart from original- size and tweak then it.

I LOVE the "trick"...... Would you like me to mod the pics I screwed around with or do you want to check them?

I'll upload new stuff and put the main pic at 600 x 600 then. 300 might be useful.

The only thing that worries me is that all this fine tuning of overall appearance gets negated by text moving around when the page is viewed on different monitors. That's a bit of a PITA.

I'm finding i can view a page directly and it appears one way. If I'm not logged in it appears another way and if I link a page on the Forum and then view it via the link it looks different yet again???

I linked the Weather Loach yesterday and it had huge gaps everywhere when I checked the link from the Loach Forum.

Martin.

No, don't mod the pics you changed earlier today. I think I've found a way to regenerate all the thumbnails at once, so I'm going to try it later and see if it works. You can just concentrate on new items.

When you're not logged in, the page should be a little bigger since it doesn't have to display the edit bar and such.

The weather loach page looks fantastic. I changed the image down to 600 pixels (it was too big at 800 before, which perhaps was making it look odd for you). Anyway, it looks fine for all reasonable monitor sizes on my end, and the 600-wide image is just perfect to fill the width.

I'm even starting to get used to having the main image in the middle of the summary section, although I still miss the upper-right thumbnail...

Oh well, at least we have the new 600 option for the body images, which will come in useful.

[Martin Thoene]

I just did Traccatichthys pulcher and the 600 is nice.

Martin.

[shafer]

I just did Traccatichthys pulcher and the 600 is nice.

UPDATE: You don't have to transform the images anymore. I regenerated all the thumbnails. (Let me know if you find any broken thumbnails. I was running out of memory on the server and had to adjust the settings. The correct settings for storing small pages suddenly don't work so when when it processes several hundred images at once!)

Martin: Yes, the 600 is nice. I just did Homaloptera tweediei. The original image was 1000 wide, 600kB to download, and then resized to 580 pixels. Kinda slow to download. The new correct 600-pixel option is only about 50kB. Much better for the viewers.

Anyway, I'll go through and make this update on all the old pages. You can just continue on the new stuff.