CD-Media Progress

Announcements
1

CD-Media? What’s CD-Media?

I have this discussion via PM or IM all the time:

**random user: **hey, how do i search the white papers?
**me: **you can’t yet. i have to rewrite it to do so.
**random user: **hey, how do i search for an image?
**me: **you can’t yet. i have to rewrite the image gallery to do so.

So now, imagine this: the ‘Picture Galleries’ and the ‘White Papers’ link up top move around, both at opposite ends of your browser window. Facing each other, they both take off at 47 pixels per second. Nobody chickens out – ka-boom. Introducing: CD-Media.

Photo Gallery. Searchable. Taggable. Noteable. Favorites. Discussion on the image detail and in the ‘Extra Discussion’ thread. A ‘Who Am I’ management screen – giving you the ability to change your picture whenever you want, etc.

White Papers. Searchable. Taggable. Favorites. Discussion on the white paper detail and in the ‘Extra Discussion’ thread. Multiple Attachments per white paper.

You can watch my custom status for a very rough and ambiguous status. What will it look like? Click below for a sneak preview, which may or may not totally change. It’s a picture of the ‘everything’ tags page. More popular tags are larger than less popular tags, etc. This screenshot should give you a tiny idea of some of the features and how they’re broken apart.

http://photos15.flickr.com/19354013_a11f9b8a67_m.jpg](http://photos15.flickr.com/19354013_a11f9b8a67_o.jpg)

**When can you use it? ** I’m aiming for the end of July, but probably more realistically in August.

**Will the old gallery & white papers still work? **No, all data will be migrated to the new system. The old links will work, but redirect to the image/paper in the new system.

**What about all the old images … they aren’t tagged. How will they get tagged? I know you guys are bored in the off-season … now you won’t be. :slight_smile:

What’s this ‘tag’ thing you keep mentioning?** Flickr, technorati, and a bunch of other new(ish) sites are all using tags. Basically its one or more keywords (or small phrases) that classfiy something. For Flickr, images; for technorati, links.

So, there – I am doing stuff, see? :slight_smile:

**edit **you can watch things happen to CD-Media now.

2

Once again, the man is upto something amazing. All this sounds amazing Brandon. Keep going.

3

Heh, woot =D

If you need any help on the programming aspect of it, I’d love to help. I’m advanced in OOP PHP.

4

[quote=“Brandon Martus”]
What’s this ‘tag’ thing you keep mentioning?[/quote]

Flickr, technorati, and a bunch of other new(ish) sites are all using tags. Basically its one or more keywords (or small phrases) that classfiy something. For Flickr, images; for technorati, links.

And Gmail, don’t forget Gmail. The tags are the same concepts as labels, correct?

5

Yes, same as labels. I was tempted to not use the Categories anymore, but I figured we’d have a repeat of the Fixed-Width Fiasco of '05, and I would get burned at the stake, or something. :slight_smile:

Speaking of GMail, we’ll also be using Ajax like Google uses on GMail, Google Maps. Flickr uses it. It’s the new thing. I just tested out something quick, and was successful. This is going to really cool. :slight_smile:

6

I’d reaaally like to see this when it’s done =D now

7

Brandon is my hero :slight_smile:

I’ve been wishing for searchable image galleries forever. Can’t wait until this comes out.

Awesome work, Brandon!

8

I don’t think Brandon is actually doing this, I think he has CD-47 Bot and Archiver locked in a closet doing all this while he has fun :-p

just kidding this is going to be awesome Brandon :smiley:

9

It would be cool if it’s possible to see a live version throughout its development.

10

I suppose that could be allowable. Now you’ll get to see my sloppy development techniques. I just ask that you don’t IM, PM, or reply here with “hey, this is broke” or any suggestions until after I ask. Chances are I know about the problem or haven’t finished it yet. Once I’m ready, I’ll ask for your suggestions to improve it. I want to get it mostly working, first.

Tonight, I’ve been working with Ajax for the first time. I’m using it to show the White Papers in the lists (it will eventually do the pagination & sorting without a page reload). The CSS is pretty messed up, so … enjoy. :slight_smile:

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/media/

11

So… will the tags work harmoniously with the custom captions for each image?

Like… if I submit a pic with the word tetra in it, can I then search for pictures with the word tetra in the captions?

12

You’ll be able to search the titles and descriptions in addition to just browsing via tags. You’d have to tag the picture with ‘tetra’ for it to show on the ‘tetra’ tag page.

The cool thing about tags: On a white paper about transmissions, one of the tags it has is ‘transmission’. We could then provide a link to possible related pictures (like, those tagged with ‘transmission’). Or CD-Swap items tagged with ‘transmission’ (what? tags on CD-Swap?). Or Spotlight items tagged with ‘transmission’ (what? tags in the spotlight system?).

13

One side question: How are we supposed to keep track if you lost count? :wink:

(This is going to be leet. Or something like that. I can’t wait.)

14

It was late, and it’s hard to count the lines in all the little templates.

Since I’ve opened up the page for you all to look at, my custom status may just indicate which part I’m working on (or just worked on) so you can see what’s changed.

15

This is way cool. We all appreciate what you’re doing.

Does this mean I don’t have to change my screen name to Random User??

16

You been spying on me (us), Mike?

http://www.chiefdelphi.com/forums/pictures.php?s=&action=single&picid=11534

17

I’m scared.

By the way, Brandon–was that you I met in Atlanta? Or did CD47-Bot make the trip to Hotlanta as well?

18

Ok, that’s incredibly hillarious.

Great job so far on this system, you have way too much free time, or I guess poor CD-47 Bot and Archiver do.

19

I made some progress today & tonight, so I figured a post to update would be good. Today I …

  1. Let CD47-Bot and archiver get some sunlight; the sunlight did them good, because they proceeded to …
  2. … give you an option to view the site at either 980px or 100%. CD-Media will be best viewed at a fixed-width of 980px in any standards compliant browser (read: not IE4, IE5, or IE6)
  3. … make the searching work. Right now theres 7 or 8 documents and 7 or 8 photos (but not real photos) in as test data, so the searching is pretty lame right now. Once there is a lot of data, it *should *
    bring back good results. 1. … make the weighted tag list layouts look different. They were added to the photo & paper pages, too. Again, with more data the tags lists will look better (more complete, etc).
  4. … brainstorm some ideas with Joel J. of 173/229; Joel had some great ideas and input.
  5. … started a FAQ section for CD-Media. Got any questions? Start PMing them to me. If they won’t be answered by future development (ie: a feature that isn’t there yet, and you’re curious) I will add them to the FAQ.

Things left to do, in the order of attack … I think:

  1. pages to Upload Photos & White Papers
  2. Single Item pages
  3. Scripts to import old data.
  4. Tagging of Items via Ajax interface (which includes a user-moderated voting system)
  5. Editing of Item details (via Single Page detail & Ajax)
  6. Who-Am-I Photo management page
  7. Photo Notes

So … yeah. Lots done, lots to do.

20

Nice list there. :slight_smile:

I feel for the Archiver there… that’s why I feel like a lot of the time. :smiley: