Board Enhancements....

[Mitchell Baker]

I've had a few minutes to try to make some enhancements to the board...
New editor installed.
New advanced attachment system.  

More on them to come....
Check them out and let me know what you think. 

--Mitch

[Mitchell Baker]

You can now drag & drop your attachments....

[Mitchell Baker]

Just added a "Recent Topics" block on the front page.  With this you should be able to see if there is a new post at a glance.
--Mitch

[Roly]

Hello All,
Nice to see the improvement efforts by Mitch, will try some of the new tools.
It would be nice to hear what the other "Board Members" are doing.
Going to the USSMA website to find out what's going on is really not reaching out to the members, the customers.
It's what we have though and those interested will check the activity out. It's been a couple of months now since I have made the time to check out the USSMA goings on. Maybe "face book" is the answer.
Best Regards,
                   Roly

[Mitchell Baker]

Thanks Roly,
So are you following USSMA on facebook?  I have been linking the qualified and registered pilots to there with every post.  Anyone can link a post to facebook anytime they want. It's the same with the facebook page, unless people follow it and post to it, nothing will change. Our newsletter editor is about to quit because he is tired of it taking 2-3 months for people to feed him input.  Nothing is going to work if the members are not going to participate. And yes, the Board needs to get more involved with posting.  I would love to turn over the day to day crap for the web site and just work on the back end to bring new things live. And I get burned out...
See-ya
Mitch

[Flyfast1]

Not sure whether this is the right thread for this question, so please feel free to move it if there is a better place for it.

On the front page of the USSMA Website, is there a way to keep all the events posted for the current year on the USSMA Events Calendar on the lower right?  Unless I am missing something, it only lists the events for the current month and to see events for the current year that have already been held, one has to navigate into the forums.  It would be nice if all the events for the current year were listed on the USSMA Events Calendar so that one could simply click on the link for a particular event and view the thread, that presumably would include the announcement, pictures and results for the event.  Then perhaps once at the end of the calendar year, the events for the current year could be archived and the events for the upcoming year added.

-Ed B.

[Mitchell Baker]

Thanks Ed.

Close to how the calendar works. It is setup to display 6 months ahead and 1 week past events.  It was setup that way with the thinking that the one week would be enough time to allow the CD to post the event results, pic, etc.. then it would show up in recent topics list on the left side of the front page.  I did that so the calendar links would stay relevant.   I can set it to maintain them for 12 months either side of current date.  The link does take you to the Event post, which as I said before I was hoping for the CD to keep posting info on the even there.

There is also a very flexable article system which any member can submit an article.  Not as  easy to find, and that can be changed, but if  you hover your mouse over the TinyPortal tab, a menu will appear, move down and hover over the My Articles then click on one of the two choices which appear, Write HTML Article, or Write BBC Article.  (BBC Article uses the same formatting syntax as a normal forum post.)

An example, all the links under the 2014 Championships Announcements are articles.   One even submitted by Curtis, and if Curtis can do it, most anyone else should be able to as well..

The system is very flexible, in fact we have more flexability  with this site than we would with most any other provider.

At one time I had a block setup with links to articles I kept up on each qualifier, but trying to get the info proved to be more hassle than I had time for. If someone(s) wish to pick up the torch and take ownership of that task I would be more than willing to assis and teach them what they would need to do. I would really love to get out of the content business.  I formly believe that the webmaster should not be the primary content manager, but should provide the techie support and assist the content managers with new items for the site.

Thanks again for the suggesting and I am very willing to assist anyone who wants to learn how to keep parts of the site updated.

See-ya
Mitch

Not sure whether this is the right thread for this question, so please feel free to move it if there is a better place for it. On the front page of the USSMA Website, is there a way to keep all the events posted for the current year on the USSMA Events Calendar on the lower right? Unless I am missing something, it only lists the events for the current month and to see events for the current year that have already been held, one has to navigate into the forums. It would be nice if all the events were listed on the USSMA Events Calendar so that one can simply click on the link for a particular event and view the thread, that presumably would include the announcement, pictures and results for the event. Then perhaps once at the end of the calendar year, the events for the current year could be archived and the events for the upcoming year added. -Ed B.

[Flyfast1]

Mitch, thanks for the information.  I do think it looks better, especially for visitors to the Website, to have all the events for the current year listed in the USSMA Events section on the lower right of the main screen.  Right now, for example, just one event (the championships) is shown on the front page.  It's more impressive to see all the events listed on the front page of the Website and it is not intuitive to scroll through the Recent Topics window on the left to search for event information.  I think most users would assume that the Recent Topics window provides access to discussion threads, not event announcements/information.  It's also easier to see the events and dates on the front page when planning time off work for the next year.

On an unrelated topic, do you happen to have any photos from the static judging when pilots posed with their planes?  I'd really like to get the photo taken of me posing with my Spitfire.

Thanks,
-Ed B.

[Mitchell Baker]

Thanks Ed,
I will check into that and see if I can get up to speed on the programming of the block and see what I can do.

I will have to look, forgive me, but refresh my memory on which champs you are talking about.
See-ya
Mitch

[Flyfast1]

Mitch, the 2013 Championships last year at Woodland Davis.
Thanks,

-Ed B.

[rcphotog]

Ed,
You can see all of the pilot portraits in the master folder Mitch created. I believe your two (Spitfire & BF-109) portraits are on the first page.
Go to the tab =Community - select Images/Videos - select the first album 2013 Champs, Davis - select pilot pics (51 photos)
select - view full size and then right click and save.
Since I took the majority of those pics, I do remember taking most everyone's portraits.
I did not have the opportunity to take the portraits of those contestants entered in the Pro/Am classes. Only those models that were judged. So there were about a dozen flyers that I never got to. I tried to find those pilots later on during the following days of the contest to take their portraits.
Also, I was using two cameras - Mitch's camera and my camera, so I may have additional pics of you posing in my collection. I'll check to see if I took any other portrait type pics of you.
Ken.
lets see if I can post your pic here:
I removed the orange cone. This is the pic taken with Mitch's camera.

[Flyfast1]

Ken,
That's exactly the photo I was looking for!  Thank you very much!
Unless I am missing something, my menu does not have an Images/Videos option.  Under the Community tab, the options I have are: Forums, Downloads, Chat, Calendar, Members and Search.  I tried logging out and logging back in and it's the same, so I am not sure what the issue is.
Thanks again for the photo!
Ed B.

[Flyfast1]

It is a permission issue.  When I log out and access the USSMA Website as a guest, I have access to the photo/video option.  When I log in as a member, I do not have access to the option.
-Ed B.

[rcphotog]

It could be an issue with your brower settings?
I would start by clearing your cookies/temp files and log back in.
When I visit as a guest, I can still see and use the above tabs for most functions.
However, when I log in, I see additional features as do all logged-in members.
One thing for all "users" to remember, = you must be logged-in to see photos posted to the discussion forums.
I am currently using Windows XP SP2 ( a VERY outdated operating system) which also limits me to Internet Explorer 8. I have not had good results when using other browsers like Firefox or Chrome.
My point is that I'm sure I'm not the only one still using XP out there and we must remember that some or many website features / functions may not be available to us until we upgrade our browsers.
I'm supoosed to be getting a new system soon so I'll be back in Bitness;)
Here is a screen shot of what my browser shows me regarding the buttons/tabs above.

[Mitchell Baker]

Ed 
I'll check here shortly on you're settings. 
--Mitch 

[Mitchell Baker]

Ed,

You should be able to see the two links to the image gallery.  The reason it was not viewable is it is still a work in progress.  Ken was given access a while back to help me trouble shoot.  I had imported all the images and categories from the old system I had in place.  Just FYI, the reason for the switch, is the old system, which since I new it better was easier for me to setup and maintain, was no longer supported.  We will get few bugs which are left, flushed out.  I don't think you can upload or great a category yet, but I will get that working soon.

See-ya
Mitch

It is a permission issue. When I log out and access the USSMA Website as a guest, I have access to the photo/video option. When I log in as a member, I do not have access to the option. -Ed B.

[Flyfast1]

Mitch,
That fixed it.  I now have the images/video option both on the main menu and on the Community tab pulldown.  And I have my photo!
Thanks,
-Ed B.

[Mitchell Baker]

More updates.  The User Gallery is now available for folks who want to add and save pictures for all to see.  
Click on Images/Videos (Either along the upper tabs or under the Community tab).



This will bring up the Albums page.



Click on the User Galleries album.

This will bring up the User Galleries.  Click on the Create My Gallery link on the right side of the page, circled in red in the image below. If you already have a gallery and you just want to add images to it, you can just click on the the gallery that is your.



This will bring up the Create My Gallery dialog box. Enter the name of your gallery and a description, both are required.

If you don't see the Create button, use the scroll bar to bring it into view.

You will now have a new empty gallery and can add images.  Click on the Add Item or Mass Upload (limited to 20 images at a time). There is also a limit of 2048kb (2MB) file size for each image. Types supported jpg, jpeg, gif, png and ico.
Will give more on adding later.  
Enjoy, if you have any questions, please let me know.