CD-Media

[Brandon Martus]

I'm enabling CD-Media .. things may show errors or be generally screwy for the next 30-60 minutes. Bear with me.

CD-Media is up! Finally!

I think it was last June when I made an announcement, letting you know that the days of not being able to search the white papers and picture galleries was over! 9 months later, ta-da.

First, I'll answer some FAQ:

Q: Is it done?
A: It is in a state that more than replaces the current photo/paper system.

Q: Can I use it?
A: Please do -- the old ones are gone.

Q: What if I find a problem?
A: Send me a PM with a detailed description of what you were doing, what browser you are using, what OS, and any information you can provide. Exact error messages are extremely helpful.

Q: How do I edit information?
A: If you uploaded the image/paper, then you can edit it. Click the title, description, or excerpt and the edit form will appear. Click 'Save' or 'Cancel' and you're done.

Q: What's a tag?
A: There is a bunch of info about tags in the FAQ (link up top). A tag is basically a keyword (or very small phrase) that will help group similar images, and make things very easily searchable. You can add a tag by clicking the tag button ().

Q: How do I get a Who-Am-I picture?
A: Upload an image. Give it the "Who Am I?" tag (double-quotes are required). Click the nametag ().

Q: How do I change my Who-Am-I?
A: Click the nametag () on any of your images, tagged with "Who Am I?".

Q: I see an incorrect tag -- what do I do?
A: Click the vote button (). Four unanimous votes pushes the change .. otherwise majority rules after 2 weeks (time/amt subject to change).

Q: What is the naming scheme for tagging a team (or team's bot) that appears in a picture?
A: frc47 .. frc234 .. frc229 .. frc111 .. fll25 .. fvc23 .. etc.


I have a lot of improvements and enhancements planned, but I wanted to get this out and start getting some feedback, bug reports, and make life easier when searching for things.

A few of the features that are new or improved, compared to the old systems:
1) Upload multiple images at a time.
2) Attach multiple files to a white paper, without having to zip them up.
3) Searching.
4) Tagging.

What now?

Tagging. The White Papers are in desperate need of tagging.

Voting. Keep an eye on new tags .. when voting is available, the icon will show up. I will make a page, eventually, that you can visit to vote on pending tags.

Feedback & Suggestions. Let me know what is confusing, what needs improvements, what you like, what you don't like, what's broken, etc.

Improvements:

1) Already, I see that the tag cloud (the list of tags, where the more common ones are larger) is going to need to change. I wasn't thinking when I did it, and will be redesigning it tomorrow night. It kind of works, but not really.

2) When creating the square (small) thumbnails, it may chop it weird -- I'm working on a 're-thumbnail' option that lets you choose whether to take the sqaure chunk at the top, middle, or bottom of the image.