CD-Events gets a (partial) face-lift

I sat down and made some updates to CD-Events this weekend. It’s not done yet, but it’s getting there. I just wanted to point out some of the new things that you’ll see.

Menus – there are now some menus up top, similar to CD-Media’s menus. These will more than likely be expanded and rearranged before they’re made final.
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Home Page** – the home page now has information on it, rather than just a link to the events listing. It will show the featured event(s) on the left. An event is featured when it is the next one that is happening – if there are more than one on a day, they will all show in a random order. Right now, most events don’t have much written about them – so if you’ve added an event to the calendar, go update it with information about the event! If you are in charge of the event, but don’t have the ability to edit it, send me a PM and I will give you access. You will also see a list of upcoming events and upcoming popular events on the home page. Both lists will show whether or not you’ve marked yourself as attending or not. The icons may change – if anybody has any ideas, let me know.

**CD-Media Integration **-- Three random photos from an event will show on its detail page. These show up based on their tags – so tag your photos properly! The tag gets associated to an event manually, for now, but eventually you will be able to set that up if you are the owner/maintainer of the event (coming soon…)

More coming soon … feedback always appreciated.

Looks awesome Brandon, keep up the good work!

Yeah, this is way cool. The homepage looks much better than two links now :stuck_out_tongue:

Was wondering how easy it would be to implement a thing in the bottom of the sig that says “I’ve Attended” and then list the number of events that you have attended (like Elgin Clock’s Sig). These new improvments made me think again about it.

Very very cool. Love the random pics btw… Very creative.

Jacob

Question: What events are appropriate for listing in the CD-Events and/or the calendar? Are they just FIRST sponsored events (or off season FIRST type competitons), or can/should they include other events where FIRST teams are demonstrating and promoting FIRST?

Suggestion: add a sticky FAQ or Help to the calendar and CD-Events sections to describe the content guidelines.

The reason I ask is that there are some events comming up in the Pacific North West which will have FIRST team participation, but are not competitions (or primarily FIRST events). For example FIRST teams will be providing info and giving demonstrations at:

May 10 - NW Youth Career Expo, Oregon Convention Center
May 11 - Oregon State University Engineering Expo (Corvalis OR)
May 19 - PDXbot 07 - Portland Robotics Society

If this is the sort of thing that is appropriate for the CD-events or Calendar, I would be happy to post the info.

Events that should be in CD-Events are any FIRST-related gathering. It doesn’t have to be officially put on by FIRST, nor does a competition necessarily have to happen. FIRST Competitions (FRC, FVC, FLL, JFLL, etc.), off-season events (BattleCry, IRI, PARC, etc.), demonstrations, and fundraising events are what you’d find. So based on these guidelines, the events you have listed are acceptable additions.

Things that probably don’t need to be in there are things like single team meetings, small gatherings of people not necessarily FIRST-related other than its participants (lets all go bowling…woo), etc.

If you’re not sure, just add it – they all go through a moderation queue, anyway.

FAQ: Good idea … it’ll be added eventually.