GAYNOR McCARTNEY
Apprentice geek - amateur photographer - User with just enough understanding of techy bits to mess things up.
- I use my galleries to share photos with family and friends and visitors to my websites – mainly community based information sites.
- Interested in user friendliness and clear instructions.
Author of the:
- Uselect colorpack (which works with PGtheme) and a lot of image frames
INTERESTED PARTICULARLY IN
Gallery for the semi-geeky hobby photographer and family users. - some like eye-candy.
- User-friendly documentation and search engine.- If instructions are easier to understand, more of us will get up a level of the geek-ladder, have more fun, and be more use to you all.
- Themes and Skins (as recently described by Jay), Image frames, and Colorpacks – with simple method and clear instructions for Users to adapt and make their own.
- Google Maps especially making them and their instructions more user friendly so that I and others will find them intuitive.
Gx THOUGHTS
- Gx will be unique if, while being stripped to basics, it has sufficient flexibility to:-
- appeal to beginners - with minimal need for help.
- be exciting and provide reachable challenges for those ascending the geek ladder
- and inspire developers.
- Classify Modules into “Basic+ Modules” = beginner level, “Useful Addon Modules” for semi-geeks, and “Advanced Modules”
- And did I mention – User friendly – :)
FEATURES I THINK IMPORTANT for the Basic Gx:
- security (not an entry point for viruses etc)
- Gx needs to be navigable by people "stuck in the last century" - bells and whistles are no use at all if a customer can't find their way around the basic site. That means:-
- # instructions in layman's language for the basic functions,
- # a clear glossary of ALL technical terms. I am not the only granny who learned what I needed to know when I needed it, without techy terms or formal training.
- # Intuitive Naming of features etc. G2 has misleading terms eg in Options /Edit Album/theme tab – the “Choose Theme” button– should be “Save This Selection”.
- # Index Page for Modules / Features in Codex, each linked to its module in Downloads list, kept up to date, with clear descriptions of What they do, How they do it, How difficult, etc, so people can be well informed before downloading them.
- # Popups within text, linking to the Index Page for Modules / features
- Search - Meta data search. If there is good tag support, a simple search across title, caption, description is enough. (as in Josef's list) This would allow us to Choose “search official documentation” – without the masses of forum items, or to Choose to “search forum thread names”.
- Multiple image up/down-load G2.2.5's 2 uploads then adding singly is really frustrating. Someone suggested another programme that had a simple, concise list for uploads. Great.
- Buttons, eg a star next to their title, to open Blocks – for Album / Item Actions drop-down menus so the page is not cluttered with them.
- Support for GIFS as well as the other formats mentioned. Gifs are essential for image frames, clip art, or transparent effects. I use them a lot in website work, and for sharing with others.
- Documents upload/down-loadable – best way I know of sending text or spreadsheets to friends, while encouraging them to not open attachments. Placed in a private album they are, I hope, safely private. Could be a module.
- Permissions and choice of Public/Private for individual albums. I can see an argument for items too.
- Protected albums to be hidden from search engines. (I don;t know how)
- Simple method to Add links to Bread Crumbs (eg Return to Website). This is available in PG theme. Also A “See on Map” button there when Google Maps is installed in the Gallery so visitors realise the feature is available,
- and an “Add Map Marker” button for admins .... I think it would be too complicated to allow other users.
- Share individual images / albums from database on multiple albums. (Could this be done for multiple galleries on same web-hosting plan ???? eg I have several domains and sub-domains on my hosting plan, and could have galleries on several of them.)
- Sizes – I am happy with full size, thumb, and one resize. I need people to be able to send me huge images so that when cropped they are clearly-focussed etc.
- Graphical distinction between photos and albums (image frames).- 2 frames... eg a book for albums, a mounted exhibit with a shadow for images, and a Frames on/off button - extended by a Frames module where people like me could go wild.
- Complete self-update (downloadable plugins), including the core.(thanks Josef) as an option.
- In-place Editing- simple things like rotate, brighten(+or-), add/reduce contrast, crop, delete... Often people (without editing ability) upload images that need this editing. Downloading to my own computer, editing and re-uploading takes a lot of time. Ability to mass edit would be helpful... eg parents uploading sports photos for a team site.
- REARRANGE albums and items in an album. This is a form of drag and drop, and can rearrange several items at once, seeing the thumbnails while working. New images need to be able to be uploaded as a group, then placed where appropriate in the album.
- watermarking – available as an option, could be a module
I may have missed out some of the things I have mentioned in the list threads. I'll sort those and add them here?
Gaynor.
