Hugh vn > 2014/11/09 12:38

Uploading photos - in keeping with a map based approach - every photo must have one only geo-location before publishing. And a date taken, a photographer, a title, and a description.

Its usually obviously effective to record the geo - point from where the photo was taken, but sometimes that doesn't indicate what the photo shows. (especially with telephoto lens, and views from high places like helicopters) but I think "where the camera was" should be the norm and "whats the main feature" a secondary approach at the discretion of the uploader.

I think all geo located photos (alpine flowers or the key route drawn around the bluff) are a valid illustration of the guide - encourage contributers to avoid 'pretty' pictures wasting the storage space you're paying for and stick to 'useful' pictures that illustrate the route orfeatures, but in the end pretty versus useful is in the eye of the contributer. (eg hut photos aren't a lot of help in following a route but they're valuable and will draw a lot of people to your site)

For now - I'd avoid displaying photos in-line in text descriptions. Route sections, trips, articles .... all can select photos to be associated to them. Even specific places in the text descriptions can 'link' to photos and when you click on a link or a thumbnail display them in their own window. From the photo display window enable forwarding/reversing through all photos associated with that item. The order is the same as the route - use the geo location to determin the order.

Searching - find associated photos by the geo location - a 'nearby' style search.

A button selects wether to show photos on the map -( just an icon that is a link to the photo window)

Don't print photos by default, but allow the print/user to choose one or more photos to print when they wish.

Madpom > 2014/11/08 17:21

Yes. Still musing on quite how to do photos. But they will be coming soon.

My problem is that there are 2 types of photos:
1) Pretty pictures
2) Photos that are integral to the route description - e.g. photo of a pass with route-line drawn on it.

The former (pretty pictures) are easy to implement, but of cosmetic value. I make the 'links' section actually work so that anything on the site can be linked to anything else on the site. As-per tramper's 'related items'. Then I show any photos linked to the current item in a scrollable bar of thumbnails, clicking on each of which open the image full screen.

The latter (route-information photos) require more thought, and are essential to the site. They need to be viewable together with the text (preferably inline at the point they refer to) so the user can read the description and look at the route shown in the photo at the same time. They also need to be included in the printer-format version of routes (when I get printing of route guides implemented)

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I'm suggesting I tackle this in 4 steps as follows:

1) Implement upload of photos and display in their own page (prerequitise before I tackle any of the rest)
2) Implement a tramper-style 'inline' photo display in route text descriptions by typing in the the id of the uploaded photo in squiggly brackets. E.g. {{1338}} to show photo no. 1338 inline in the description
3) Work on a search-and-insert feature to allow the user to browse for the photo, select it, and insert the link (the {{1338}}) automatically
4) Implement related-items ('links') for pretty pictures

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Thoughts very welcome .... I'm not yet happy with this approach.

Specifically: do you agree with the need for 'route-information' photos to be inline? Or would showing them in a separate window be enough/better? Or maybe switching between photo and map (problem is photos generally are landscape and my map panel is portrait)?

And should they be included by default in the printer-formatted version of the route description (when I enable that)? - in which case the simplest approach is that they would be inline with the description for both screen and print format, so that both print and screen versions are the same.

And: how do I get the message across that this feature (inline photos) is intended only for photos that describe the route, not for pretty pictures of beech trees and waterfalls? A user does not want to print out their route guide and get dozens of pretty pictures included in it - just the stuff that matters.

Hugh vn > 2014/11/02 15:10

Keep the guide map (and photo) based. The text descriptions are often redundant to anyone who can read a map.

I'm choosing routes at random to enter as testing - are there other areas you'd suggest I focus on?

Good user interface design needs lots of protecting the user from their own mistakes. Haven't seen the red border in action yet but its a move in the right direction. Maybe the 'error' message needs to be on a modal pop up?

keep up the good work
Hugh