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  1. In Memory of LAJ_FETT: Please share your remembrances and condolences HERE

RMFF.net - The Official Website Thread

Discussion in 'Denver, CO' started by Grimby , Apr 16, 2008.

  1. Grimby

    Grimby Technical Consultant & Former Head Admin star 7 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Apr 22, 2000
    After long last, the new web site is finally ready to be unveiled!

    I give you..... http://www.rmff.net][/url]THE ALL-NEW RMFF.NET!


    First of all, a quick blurb on what I've been doing since I started this overhaul. With the council of Obi_Wannabe, it was decided that we switch to a more modern Content Management System to run the site, and Joomla was the easy choice. A CMS like Joomla is a great way to run a web site, but it really doesn't look and feel like your own site unless you customize the layout. This is where I've been spending my free time. As you can see, the web site looks pretty damn close to the Photoshop mock-ups I did last summer. What went into accomplishing this was a tremendous amount of research, coding, and agonizing over the shortcomings of crappy browsers (like Internet Explorer 7 :mad:). I'll spare you the techno babble and whiny programmers rant and just say that I'm glad it's over and done with. :D

    What you will see on the web site at this moment in time is a shell of what it will soon become. There isn't much content up other than a blurb about StarFest and a couple other things. What I will be doing over the next few weeks is migrating in all the stuff from the old site - the old meeting notes and images, etc. as well as the old gallery images. It is my hope that with the help of all of you, we can make the web site into a central hub for news and an archive of all our activities.

    The other major part of the web site is the gallery. Some of you have heard me gush over how cool this new gallery is and how awesome it's going to be once everyone starts uploading their images. Well now is the time to test it out!!! Once you have registered on the site, you can upload all of your photos with ease.
    [hr]
    Here is the structure on how the web site works:

    [li]I myself am the site administrator (duh!). Contact me here via PM if you have any questions about the site or run into any problems.[/li]
    [li]Anyone can register an account and upload photos, but only certain users can create articles (i.e. your RMFF elected officials).[/li]
    [li]Unfortunately, you will have to re-register on the new site if you had an old account. No way around this. :([/li]
    [li]In the near future, the site will be opened up for anyone who would like one to have their own blog. (Details forthcoming)[/li]

    So there you have it folks. Please poke around on the site and see what you think. Please post here any questions, comments, death threats, etc. about the site and I will do my best to address them. Please keep in mind that overhauling a site like this and trying to make it run correctly on every modern browser on the internet takes an obscene amount of time and dedication, and I'd like to think I've done my best. :D

    Over the next few days, I expect to be finalizing the gallery layout, ironing out any bugs in the system, and fixing any miscellaneous layout inconsistencies. Next week though, we will be running a contest in the gallery to both get everyone familiar with how to use it, as well as encourage everyone to upload their photos. Stay tuned. :)
     
  2. Obey Wann

    Obey Wann Former RMFF CR & SW Region RSA star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jan 14, 2000
    Lookiing good so far --thanks for all your hard work and dedication!!!
     
  3. mirax80

    mirax80 Retired Midwest RSA star 4 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Aug 20, 2003
    Fixed! LOL! [face_laugh]

    Srsly Grimby - that's one smexy revamped website there! :D
    Good job! :cool:
     
  4. jthornto

    jthornto Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 20, 2005
    Looks nice. Groovy.

    The links to the random picture don't work. "G2_WrongItemID"

    Registration worked.

    I'd suggest changing the link "Forum" to "Board" or "Fan Force board" or something like that. You call it forum in the menu and then board under events. Consistency would probably be best.

    Trying to upload photos...


     
  5. cyodarun

    cyodarun Retired RMFF CR star 4

    Registered:
    Apr 23, 2002
    Very nice Grimby....just finished my registration :D
     
  6. catz44

    catz44 Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jul 25, 2004
    :_| Its beautiful.... Thanks!
     
  7. Zoom_Cthooga

    Zoom_Cthooga Jedi Master star 6

    Registered:
    Jun 30, 2004
  8. Grimby

    Grimby Technical Consultant & Former Head Admin star 7 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Apr 22, 2000
    This was working earlier in the week. I'll have to investigate...

    Good point. I'll fix this.

    Were you able to upload any photos? I see you created an album but nothing inside of it.



    For reference, here is a quick run down on uploading photos:

    1. Create an account on the main site and log in
    2. From the main gallery page (Rocky Mountain Fan Force gallery), choose "Add Album" from the left drop-down menu.
    3. Add a title and description.
    ---- Name - a simple unique name for the album that is used on the server (i.e. grimby1).
    ---- Title - the title of the album (i.e. Grimby's Sock Drawer)
    ---- Summary - this is a brief blurb that will show up under the thumbnail and title on the main page (not required)
    ---- Keywords - keywords to be use by the site's search engine (not required)
    ---- Description - This is the description of the album that will show up on the album page under the title. (not required)
    4. Enter any or all of this information and click "Create" at the bottom
    5. The next screen is a bunch of settings that are already setup for you. You don't need to mess with this.
    6. From the menu on the left, click "Add Items"
    7. There are several choices in the tabs here for uploading photos. I have not tested them all out yet, but the main ones to keep an eye on are "From Web Browser," "Upload Applet," and "Gallery Remote"
    ---- If you have a whole set of photos to upload, I recommend either using the upload applet, in which you can drag and drop your files in and upload them all at once, or downloading and installing the gallery remote program which does the same thing, but with a lot more features.
    ---- Once your photos are uploaded, you can rotate them if needed, or edit their names and captions.
    8. You need not worry about resizing your images, the system will do this automatically and offer different sizes for viewing on the site. :)


    Gallery Remote
    This is the crown jewel, folks. And once you have it installed, you need not mess with the rest of the above again. Simply open the program, log in, and add your photos to a new album. Inside the program, you will be able to see a preview of each image, rotate and crop if necessary (from some digital cameras, it will automatically rotate the image for you), and add quick captions. When you are ready, it will upload them all directly to the server.

    Download Gallery Remote here and start using it!

    Gallery URL info (you will need this to log in from the program):
    Alias: whatever you want
    Username/Password: obvious
    Gallery type: Standalone
    URL: http://www.rmff.net/rmff/gallery2/
     
  9. gra-co_o_hun

    gra-co_o_hun Jedi Master star 5

    Registered:
    May 5, 2005
    Registered! It looks great Grim! I will dive into all corners of the site when I have more time but I like what I see.
    Tim's dedication looks real good.


    The only thing I ran into was when I click on the random image on the right at any point, I get this pop-up...

    "_G2_WRONG_ITEMID"

    I'm using Safari so I don't know if that's it or not.


    Super Job! Like the way you used the logo!
     
  10. jthornto

    jthornto Jedi Master star 4

    Registered:
    Jan 20, 2005
    I tried uploading five 3 MB files, but it didn't take. I'll try the crown jewels.

     
  11. Jedi_Dajuan

    Jedi_Dajuan Administrator Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Dec 30, 2002
  12. Grimby

    Grimby Technical Consultant & Former Head Admin star 7 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Apr 22, 2000
    Unfortunately, it appears there is a 2MB file size limit that is controlled by the server and not the gallery itself. I will have to see if there is a way to change this. In the mean time, what you can do is set up Gallery Remote in the preferences to resize your images to 2MP before they upload. This is the maximum size they are saved on the server anyway.
     
  13. Jedi Girl of Corellia

    Jedi Girl of Corellia Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 23, 2000
    Grimby when setting up Gallery 2 on my family's genealogy site I believe there was a mysql setting for default file size... At least I think there was, it was over a year when I set it up.

    Look great BTW! I'm going to try and upload some pictures when I get a chance :)
     
  14. Jyn

    Jyn Jedi Youngling star 3

    Registered:
    Aug 9, 2006
    2mb is a limit for IIS/Windows through HTTP.. I don't know what the server the site's on is running, but that's probably what's going on. It takes some fancy mods to the system or some real creative programming with the upload software to be able to do more most of the time.
     
  15. Grimby

    Grimby Technical Consultant & Former Head Admin star 7 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Apr 22, 2000
    What I read online last night was that the server's php.ini file sets the limit to 2MB. Possible solutions include adding a php.ini to the gallery folder to change it, or modifying the .htaccess file. I'll see what I can manage to break after this weekend. :p
     
  16. Jedi Girl of Corellia

    Jedi Girl of Corellia Manager Emeritus star 6 VIP - Former Mod/RSA

    Registered:
    Jun 23, 2000
    Well, I couldn't wait, I uploaded a bunch of photos :)
     
  17. Obi_Wannabe

    Obi_Wannabe Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 17, 2002

    It's a linux server, i'll see what I can figure out tomorrow. Way too tired right now.
     
  18. Obi_Wannabe

    Obi_Wannabe Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 17, 2002
    The 2MB limit has been increased, i'm not gonna tell you by how much. Remember this is a web gallery, there's no need to be uploading 10MP files. So don't go hog wild.
     
  19. Obi_Wannabe

    Obi_Wannabe Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 17, 2002
    This is a good suggestion, 2MP files would be perfect.
     
  20. Grimby

    Grimby Technical Consultant & Former Head Admin star 7 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Apr 22, 2000
    I am currently working to fix a bug with the user accounts. There was a conflict between the main site and the gallery with the accounts and people not able to log into the gallery to upload their photos.

    Right now, if you try to log in from the gallery, your password may not work. However, if you log in from the main site and then go to gallery, you should be logged in. I should have this glitch fixed by tonight. In the mean time, if you are trying to use Gallery Remote to upload your photos and it won't let you in, you can use the password recovery in the gallery to reset your password and all should be well.

    There are a couple people who registered via the gallery. If this is you, you will need to re-register through the main site. My apologies. I have now made it so that you can only register on the main site so this doesn't happen again.

    Again, my apologies for the inconveniences, and I will get all this fixed tonight when I get home.
     
  21. Grimby

    Grimby Technical Consultant & Former Head Admin star 7 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Apr 22, 2000
    OK, it turns out the patch I installed to fix this glitch doesn't actually address this glitch at all! :oops:

    There is no fix for it at this time, so it looks like we're stuck with it for the time being. What's happening is that the main site and the gallery (which are two separate systems) have conflicts with the way the passwords are stored. When a user registers on the site, it is supposed to mirror the user information over to the gallery the first time they access it while logged in. Unfortunately, the password on the account gets messed up and the only way to fix it is to manually reset the password using password recovery from the login screen. My hope is that this is only a one-time thing and that the system doesn't attempt to "sync" the user accounts on it's own, which would screw the passwords up again.



    tl;dr version:
    If you are having trouble logging in to the gallery to upload pictures or logging in from Gallery Remote, you need to manually reset your password using the gallery password recovery feature. If you can't seem to get it to work, let me know. :)
     
  22. SITH__CHICK

    SITH__CHICK Former RMFF CR star 7

    Registered:
    Mar 25, 2002
    So how is downloading pictures working? Someone has posted DH's toy collection, I'm sure he will post his collection since he is the one that took the pictures, so who gets credit?
    Same with our 600+ pics of Celebration 3, we gave copies of those pictures to a bunch of people, since they have them on their harddrive, does that mean it counts for them?

    Ben, we need a 'HOME' button on the gallery, you get in there and can't ever get out, it frightens me [face_skull]
     
  23. Grimby

    Grimby Technical Consultant & Former Head Admin star 7 Staff Member Administrator

    Registered:
    Apr 22, 2000
    The big giant RMFF logo is the home link. ;) But I can still add an actual HOME button if you like.

    All of your pics that are up on the site now were the ones from the old gallery. Those aren't really counting towards anyone's total, otherwise Michael would be in the lead with ~3000 pics which are mostly not his anyway. ;) Upload what you have and they will all count toward your total as long as they are in within the rules.
     
  24. Obi_Wannabe

    Obi_Wannabe Jedi Grand Master star 5

    Registered:
    Mar 17, 2002
    Can I pass colors on to someone else? :D
     
  25. ZOOfo-Dyas

    ZOOfo-Dyas Jedi Knight star 6

    Registered:
    Oct 3, 2004
    Website is down...it says for the webmaster to contact Lunar Pages