New News System - public test

[Martin Searle]

Folks,

I have decided to allow access to the community to my test news system that maybe implemented on this site in some form or other.

You can access the test version of the homepage at:

http://www.sprint15.com/testing/index.php

It displays the last 10 news articles posted. The data I'm using is just junk test data.

I won't provide instructions for its use since it should be obvious and if its not then I need to do something about it.

Please reply with comments in this thread.

Martin S.

[SSCBen]

Looks good Martin, very easy to use and the important bits usefully stand out.
Many thanks.
See you on Saturday for boat packing up.
Ben

[Frank]

Hi Martin,

Looks good, quick and to the point.

Will you Seasalter boys be packing any vin de vanquer, if yes save one for me.

See you at the weekend

Frank

[cedric]

Looks good

[Kevin Dutch]

Frank. I would say i'd bring some but unfortunatly i have had a few good blurry night's with mine and got none left. Ha ha

[Martin Searle]

Folks,

Thanks to those that have tested it out. Excellent you can use it without too much trouble.

I have finished a more advanced version of my Article Viewer program which allows you to view ALL the articles.

The new version allows you to sort the articles by Type and also view them in Ascending or Descending date order, it'll automatically paginate the pages and display 5 articles at a time (I may make this variable too but thats for later).

It is accessed by clicking the "More News Postings...." link at the bottom of the test homepage:

http://www.sprint15.com/testing/index.php

I plan to make this into the real news system after the nationals. I'll copy some of the old postings in but not all, just the relevant ones.

Martin S.

[George Stephen]

Martin,

I couldn't see much point in the first stage development, but the 2nd stage ability to sort is good - but why not a keyword search facility like the one on the Chat pages? Or is that your final intended development step to really wow us all?

[Martin Searle]

Martin,

I couldn't see much point in the first stage development, but the 2nd stage ability to sort is good - but why not a keyword search facility like the one on the Chat pages? Or is that your final intended development step to really wow us all?

George,

Thanks for your comments I'll provide some background into my thinking:

Why Re-Vamp News:

The news articles were getting to be a real pain to create, also when there is a stand alone article I have to create a complete page from scratch which takes some time and is a bit repetitive plus also it means you have lots of little files cluttering up the system and they are difficult to keep track of. The new system dynamically creates the pages from the text entered into the system and thus for me this is pretty much a copy and paste job now from the text I get emailed.

There was also a need to store some of the articles that were dropping off the bottom of the page when it got too big, since its currently just a static page manipulating and storing this info was an issue since putting them onto another static page wasn't really a solution. The new system caters for this need with the viewer program.

Thus I have to admit re-vamping the news mainly saves me lots of time in the long term. But it does allow Bob and others to be able to put up an article if they so wish without having to ask me to do it, I haven't told Bob how to work it yet so he doesn't know that.

I also tied it into the events system so that most of the Event News is automatically published when I make changes to the event, its also why the event news can be a bit brief. This again saves time and ensures something is put up since I can forget to do so if I'm in a hurry. I can edit the automatically posted articles if need be. The events system will also delete unnecessary event news articles once the event has been sailed when you don't need to know about the Notice of Race for example so the end result should be much neater.

Future:

The article viewer may well have a basic word search facility at some stage in the future its something that crossed my mind today when I was writing the present viewer page. I see it as developing as needs arise and also as my knowledge of web programming grows.

Martin S.

[Bob Carter]

Sounds good to me. Well done.
Cheers
Bob
PS I'm please that we are keeping you occupied - I bet you wonder what you used to do with your spare time!!

[George Stephen]

Martin,

Thanks for the detailed explanation - I can see now why you want to change it. Your time and effort to maintain the Site's reputation as the best Class Association website (as did Jonathan before you) is much appreciated by all of us.

If my first comment seemed disparaging, it was not intended - I was concerned that you were devoting time that could be better spent practising for the Nationals, and the remainder of the Traveller Series....

Yes, the latest version is easy to use, and when it means that updating can be achieved more quickly, it has to be a move that will keep the Sprint 15 Website ahead of what some people think is competition....


George