Re: testing the gallery?

At 08:15 AM 4/28/01 -0700, you wrote:
>Hi everyone,
>
>I'm not sure if we are supposed to offer feedback
>about the pinhole day upload here on the list, but in
>looking at the pages for viewing the submissions, a
>couple of things came to mind.

we'll take it any where we can get it - the more the better!

>1. Will there be an attempt to achieve some uniformity
>in the size of the images? Obviously they can't and
>shouldn't be identical in size, and I know these are
>test images, but it is conceivable that people will be
>sending images of very different physical dimensions
>and resolutions (which will change the size on
>screen). It will be difficult to adjust each photo as
>it comes in. I haven't yet looked at the submission
>page, if there is a size recommendation there, then
>maybe this is not a problem, but tiny images followed
>by ones so big that you have to move your browser
>window to view them may be disconcerting to viewers.

The requirements for image files are specified on the page "How to Scan" at:

         http://www.pinholeday.org/participate/?page=scanning

Those who go to the site are instructed to read this page from the page
"How to Submit" at:

         http://www.pinholeday.org/participate/?page=howsubmit

The requirements for submitted files are restated on the actual submission
form.

(Colin also pointed out a discrepency between the how to submit
requirements and the submission form which I am resolving now.)

>2. If the response is good (hundreds of photos or even
>a hundred), then the linearity of the display could
>become tedious to viewers. I got tired of hitting the
>browse button after about 20 photos. That might mean
>the photos at the beginning get a lot of attention
>while those at the end get ignored. One way to help
>might be to have thumbnails (someone has to do a lot
>of work, of course). It might help just to say
>somewhere how many photos there are in total. Or could
>a random selector be added?

The only alternative option we have for browsing by submission date "at the
moment" is the search option. But we definitely agree with you,
Colin. This is something we are aware of and plan to expand on. We plan
to have more options for browsing ready by the time the gallery starts to
fill up. Thumbnails isn't in the plan as hundreds of thumbnails would take
quite some time to load. But we do plan to implement options to view the
most recent additions first, and to view by country, city, or other
categories. Also, the "Participants" listing is by country and will soon
include links from a person's name, to the photo. This should help some.

I would like to take this opportunity to explain why the gallery exhibit is
not as full-featured as it needs to be. The gallery is based on a good and
complete design and programs written by Larry Fratkin. Larry's design and
programs included the kinds of navigation that you are asking for. In the
past couple of weeks I made the decision to convert Larry's design and
programs to the language used by the rest of the site, and to use a
database to store the submissions. Anything that is lacking in the gallery
program is a result of my lack of implementation of Larry's design and much
of what he had already worked out in another way. I hoped to have more of
it finished by now. But, I am continuing to implement more options and I
believe I will have more in place by the time it is needed, hopefully by
Monday or Tuesday.

I thank Larry for the work he did in designing the gallery and working out
a lot of the programming. I only hope to catch up to what he had already
worked out in the next couple of days.

Thanks for your feedback, Colin.

And thanks also for the additional feedback you sent to the team after you
actually tried the submission form :)

Gregg

_____________________________________________________________
Pinhole Visions at http://www.pinhole.com
Worldwide Pinhole Photograhy Day at http://www.pinholeday.org
Received on Sat Apr 28 12:37:11 2001