I’ve been playing with the TBA API lately, and I had an idea.
What if a user’s team number, in their profile page and above their posts, became a link to the TBA page for that team. It seems to me that I often want to find info about a user’s team, and having a convieniant link to that info could be extreamly useful.
It’s just a random idea I had. I don’t know if it would be worth implementing.
I think it would be helpful…and I can’t see any reason it couldn’t be implemented in a few lines of code, especially given all the stuff Brandon has already done to CD’s copy of vBulletin
EDIT: from an aesthetics perspective, i’d say a piclink (like the one when you quote someones post) would be better, next to their team number, as a blue linktext would compete with your username
This sounds like a good idea. I’ll see what I can do between work and regionals this weekend.
It seems like CD-Media could use this as well–if it’s a team tag (frcXXXX) or a regional (palmettoregional), what about wedging in a link to that information on TBA or the FIRST site? If there were other teams who’ve tagged their own photo galleries the same way as CD, perhaps throw them in as well.
I just tossed Brandon two images that could be the links. I am not sure which one works better, because making things the same size as normally-sized text is really tough. Also, little images are a bit tricky to click.
Team 177 http://www.thebluealliance.net/images/tiny_lamp.png](http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/team.php?team=177&sbutt=Go)
vs.
Team 177 http://www.thebluealliance.net/images/tiny_tba_link.png](http://www.thebluealliance.net/tbatv/team.php?team=177&sbutt=Go)
They’re both tiny, but that’s the constraint of the problem. If anyone else wants to take a hand at it and come up with something better, http://www.thebluealliance.net/images/ is your playground, and I have PSDs if you want them.
I used the tiny TBA-> one … we’ll see how that goes over.
It can always change.
That was fast!
That was rather fast. It it quite nifty as well.
what if there are two teams listed?..like in yours.
I figured this might happen, so I went looking.
Try linking to some people’s TBA button when they have a FVC title.
Not so good.
Any way to filter the TBA icon for just people with FRC titles?
listing 2 teams isn’t really an option on CD it is a hack of sorts when entering the team name. People enter this in the team name field to get 2 teams: <team 1 name) & FRC #<team 2 number> (<team 2 name>
*carrots are omitted.
Oh, I learned something new today 
I think the TBA-> one needs to be shorter by a pixel to match the cap height of the surrounding text.
EDIT: I’d just like to add that I really like this idea, and I think it adds a clean and simple bit of usability to CD. It may also lead the way for more interoperability between CD and TBA, which would also be a great thing to see.
Bravo. This could prove to be very interesting.
That was a fast update, Thank You very much Brandon Martus!
I love it. This is awesome.
Thanks Brandon.
I really like the idea of linking team numbers to TBA pages, but I find this new image to be just a tad obtrusive. How about just making the team numbers clickable? Set the style to be the same as regular text, but make it underline on mouseover so people know it’s a link. It would be a little more Easter-eggy, but also a little more visually appealing.
I think it’s better as an image, it makes it easier for people who aren’t used to the site. (just want to check for info)
With an image, a quick glance shows its a link to TBA, but an underlined link doesn’t catch your eye.
I’d prefer a link instead of the image. It’s nice to know it exists, but now I’d like to go back to more or less how things used to look. The TBA-> is starting to become a bit of an eyesore already and I’ve just seen them for about 2 minutes.
When I logged on today and opened the first thread I wanted to look at and saw the TBA-> I said “cool quick idea and works well with CD”
I Like it. Should stay how it is.
-Mike
