It's under 50% done, and more than a couple entire sections are still invisible behind cleverly hidden construction barriers.
However, what is done, is visible. What is visible has preliminary testing, and should all work 100%. I've employed a rather unique blend of two systems with this site. If you don't know what that means, that's just fine...it's techie stuff for how the back-end is put together. I am curious about comments to those who recognize what I did though.
For everyone else, the purpose of my little piece of digital real estate is two-fold. First, it is to fulfill a dream of combining the more useful feeds from all over, into a clean, simple and easy to use interface to quickly see something. No fancy effects nonsense..No triple columns with small features a zoom is needed to appreciate (altho zoom is com...err..nvm heh) and no rows of ads below the pop up ads around the pop over/under and around your screen ads. Just a clean and simple resource.
The other purpose will become apparent soon when the other 50% of the site is turned on in the not too distant future. Right now, that's where all the banging and sawing is going on..and stuff could fall and hurt a visitor. Gotta wait for that to be opened soon. (smile)
Anyway, Charles said it was okay to share and get some feedback, so who am I to resist? I hope I've made something handy for everyone.
Thanks for the feedback! It may not look like as much work as it represents, but believe me..oh, it is.
I think I did the 'ol Thomas Edison approach on this one. I didn't find what worked. Naww... That would be entirely too easy. I found every way of doing things which didn't work, and oh yeah, by pure luck, stumbled across the ways a few technical things DID work. Lady luck likes FCC or something....
At least all the development work is almost over. Whew... It makes the tedium of posting everything left something I'm looking forward to for getting done.
Okay folks.. No big secret that I'm making something I hope will compliment HH while helping the community here in terms of a website. It is considerably more, and much of it is the stuff only someone looking for the data could love (A lot is there for support and verification of stories within areas that keep coming up regularly in news, but not so interesting otherwise).
What I do want to ask though is how important having a stable and friendly place to upload images to post and use, is for folks?
I know it has been a major thing to me, as I am accustomed to using a wide variety of graphics in my posting. No place to upload them where they'd stay and could be sorted and such has been a major thing missed from TOS.
I'm just curious how it ranks in overall importance to others as I get into finishing a couple things?
I'm not asking 'what can I make for you', by the way. I read that back over and can see how it could look that way. I'm not assuming anyone in particular will add my site to their bookmarks when I have all the kinks worked out. (updating pages actually updating like they are supposed to at the moment..but I digress)..
In general terms though, since I'm building this to a wide net audience, is having a place to put pics that can be hosted on other sites as well as the one they are stored on, important?
I'm finding lots of software that comes close, but none yet quite do it for a multi-user environment with real features built in, so what I first figured as something nifty to add is becoming real serious work to accomplish. Hence..the question of how much value that feature holds to people on a site?
Post by Pennylemon on Nov 21, 2014 14:34:44 GMT -6
Wow Wrabbit, this is wonderful. Under normal circumstances, as you mentioned, attempting to follow and compare data means clicking back and forth between tabs and scrolling through bookmark after bookmark. Even at under 50%, what I'm seeing here will eliminate most of my individually bookmarked pages. I love it !
To your question of a single place to store and easily access images would be incredible. As it is I use at least four separate sites and programs, some for hosting some for editing. When it comes down to the basics, access and perhaps the ability to resize would eliminate the need to transfer images back and forth.
You've done some great work here and I can see this becoming one of my main go to sites. Nicely Done !!
Post by whitealice on Nov 21, 2014 14:35:42 GMT -6
Actually, I'd say having a place for graphics to be uploaded to would be pretty important, especially if what you're going to be sharing is data. When I'm talking to a friend about some aspect of the nation's economy, the first thing I do is make a graph using the excel data and then upload it to get utterly lost on imgur.
I'll also say that I used to run a blog (I'm a slacker these days) and those posts that included data in a graphical form actually received a whole lot of traffic. What's the old saying? A picture is worth a 1000 words?
Thanks! By the way, I just made code updates on every page across the site. The spacing issues that were triggering scroll bars should now all be fixed and updating should work now. Every feed ought to be updating on a 15-30 minute basis. At some point and when I find another afternoon to dedicate to it, I'll get back to that and set page by page cache hold times as the feeds best fit. A lot of little things that may have caught someone's attention..or not..got fixed in the 3 sections currently up this afternoon.
So if someone was on it earlier. a lot changed for working properly now. :)
Thanks for the idea about Excel loading by the way. I believe I have the ability to integrate that, as excel isn't as hard as some other formats to find something to work with. (If only I could find an easy way to put an Access DB online). I can post spreadsheets with about 95% function into the content of the site now, and I havent started putting all that up yet. I just hadn't thought of adding that to the image/file vault area for members too.
Post by whitealice on Nov 22, 2014 16:37:25 GMT -6
Yep, pure data sources are very nice and I always find interesting things while generating graphs via excel. One of the things that I try to do is to create non-biased versions of popular graphs. Most graphs that are created from real data are still tainted with bias through a variety of means--the biggest being color. For example, this one might appear with the color red for the last few years just to really draw the eye to it. It sounds weird but color does have an effect on how something is viewed and the tendency is to doll it up and emphasize. I create neutral boring graphs to counter that. Then again, you always knew I was a weirdo. :)
That just sounds like a fair way of doing it, to me. :)
At the moment, I still have piles of pre-formatted material to insert and get online that built up over time. When I get through all that, then I do have a few hundred CSV files from www.data.gov (a GREAT site for a bit of everything in statistics if someone likes turning it into useful information). I need to get the raw data tables for the Obamacare costs this cycle too. I have last period's costs, but just haven't gone to looking for this one yet. I suppose it ought to be there.
It is safe to say that it began as Joomla 3.x, but each day sees it being modified further away from that original CMS. That is what I love about Joomla though. It is so flexible. I've been using it on and off since 1.x and I'd say it still has a learning curve to it, but nothing like it used to be. It would also be fair to say I've spent a couple years now learning how it does NOT work for this or that though, so I guess its about time I landed on how it DOES. lol....
I am using the CMS for the base structure, navigation and some of the real powerful additions that can be integrated seamlessly, but content is being created by WYSIWYG Web Builder. A lot of programs claim to be point and click with no coding or knowledge necessary, and over the years I've tried a good dozen or more of them from Frontpage to Dreamweaver (which, to be fair, never even joked about being no-code..but claimed to have a visual interface ..kinda..sorta...). This is the ONLY one that actually does produce entire pages/sites, with a HUGE variety of things to drag/drop in on an MS Office style interface, and simply work. Period. The color theme tabs are out of WWB, but it has over 100 of what would otherwise be called pro- level 'scripts' that just drop-in like building a power point page.
I've done a few things on the back end in caching, refreshing files away from user page requests and the like, to try and get those last little delays out of the CMS and loading feeds like I have, but the overall system is blending those two...which are designed quite thoroughly to work alone. The trick has been a way that gets the best of both worlds without conflict. I figured that out quite recently, really.
Wait until I get the split-slider before and after image gizmos up. (grin) I'm working on getting a few of those set up with automated file retrieval and loading from the gov servers which store all that imagery for major storms that come vs. normal satellite images the slider hides/reveals for land below. They're really nifty to see and use, anyway. (Maybe not so much to try and describe)
I know it has been a major thing to me, as I am accustomed to using a wide variety of graphics in my posting. No place to upload them where they'd stay and could be sorted and such has been a major thing missed from TOS.
I agree, that is one feature I miss is the 'upload' storage available on 'TOS'
I've made a new folder on my PC just for Hernando's images I use but still, not readily accessible
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