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| General photography discussion Any questions, comments and thoughts about photography in general. |
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#11
07-09-10, 10:29 PM
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Adam, I have just had a look at the Photography Friends site and I believe you could have something worthwhile there but at the moment it does look rather uninviting because of the lack of members, photos and colour scheme. I am the kind of person who doesn't usually sign up to anything unless it already has a good following and looks visually appealing (although this isn't as important; it is the quality of the material contained within it that's comes first). However, saying that, presentation is key and it is the look of the site that ultimately decides whether or not anyone is going to stay on there long enough to be curious and look around. You have to sell the site to people visually, if that makes any sense.
 Firstly, what I have to say is not to be taken as an attack on your efforts, because it isn't; I know what it's like to set up websites and the hard graft involved in making them visually appealing and user friendly. I must say though I am not a web developer or programmer, just a guy who has learned the hard way myself and had a lot of help from a colleague who knows more about websites than I. 1. When the site fills out a bit more it will look a great deal more interesting but the rather low-fi look and feel of the site still makes me want to close the page immediately simply because it doesn't grab my attention at all.  2. The blue and grey colours and the bold menu fonts do not scream 'welcome to this site, have a look round and join our community'. Colours are very important as are the font types and I am thinking maybe a better looking theme would go a long way. 3. The white background is fine and looks clean. The other option is to incorporate black. You need to choose something that really shows off and compliments people's photos and both black or white are good candidates. (I see you have black in your djsupport site) 4. It's always a good idea to ensure that all your links lead to pages with information and not This page has not been set up yet. People will switch off straight away if they can't read up on the Terms, Disclaimers, Privacy Policy. A lot of people want to make sure they are not sighing up to something that will harm them in some way, regardless of whether it is free or not. People are cautious and quite rightly so. Put your site into maintenance mode and fill out all the pages before making it live again. 5. If you can, move the login box. It's too much in your face. The top of the page is what grabs people so put some welcome text here (only short) with recent uploads or a slideshow, photo of the day etc. or anything that get people's attention straight away. Eye catching is key. 6. Don't just limit your demographic to the UK. 7. Delete some of the test stuff you have added and upload a a lot more of your own work. I run a wiki, a forum and now recently a photography site, which I set up as a bit of fun to show friends and family some of my photos. I too work full time and know how difficult it is to juggle work and home and there are times when I feel like I monopolise the computer. I think the site could be great but it does need some attention. I will be happy to offer other suggestions if you have any questions and I'll sign up for a test account. The above is just a quick run down on what stood out to me. Hope this helps. 
Last edited by kerchi; 08-09-10 at 09:09 AM. Reason: Spelling 
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#13
08-09-10, 08:58 AM
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You are a busy bee, no wonder you don't have time to work on one of your sites. I thought it was difficult to juggle time between three! I have some questions....
Have you put the word out on other photography forums? Have you also considered Joomla or Wordpress as possible programs. I have recently started using Wordpress, which was a little strange to me at first but it's not bad. I know it is primarily for blogging but it does a lot more than that. The interface once logged in is better but I did find the 'Friends' and 'Friends of' a little confusing initially. Is this really needed? Does it matter which way a 'friendship' was created? Is there a 'photo' widget that can be added to the dashboard? In your 'spotlight' section you don't actually mention about uploading even though its obvious the capability is there. I will try and get some stuff added to the site tonight or tomorrow so you have other content. 
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#14
08-09-10, 11:28 AM
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I only know this forum
I practice photography in my spare time so don't always have time for forums (as I run one )The friends bit confuses me slightly in that if I add a friend they get added straight away... I am looking into the 'friends' part to see what my options are, Photo widget? yes Im sure there is one there I have one im sure of it! The spotlight section and alot of the information sections need content I havent done it yet... The frontpage now says to new visitors this site is under testing conditions Oh and about the photos with a non-black background did you realise there is a Slideshow feature clicking that will bring up the members photos in a full screen photo slideshow with black background!
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#15
08-09-10, 12:35 PM
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Oh and did I mention during my Idle time my computer is donated to science lol
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#16
08-09-10, 08:54 PM
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Ok, I have added some photos to see what it looks like. I must admit I do like the interface for uploading images, it's simple and easy to use, which goes a long way if you want people to upload their photos. It was effortless to add titles and tags etc. so really there is no limit to what can be added and this is what I like about it. I hope you have enough server space!
When you get your empty pages filled out a little that will better and another step closer (you can have a look at my wiki ones if you like), however, I do have another suggestion and that would be to include a help section, maybe to go next to the privacy link on the bottom right. It doesn't have to be too detailed but some help files with some screen shots should be added in case people do struggle with certain aspects of their setting, uploads, pages etc. I spent a lot of time on my wiki help pages, which I am really pleased with and I think I covered all the main issues. I really think you should mention the slideshow option somewhere that isn't hidden behind a login. The slideshow itself is great and looks the part. I have seen this one before so I know it works well. Black does make it look so much better, will you consider maybe changing the colour scheme for the whole site? Could you make the 'latest images' twice the size, this I think will grab attention and get people looking. The latest activity does take up a lot of space and the Spotlight should maybe be at the top somewhere. I couldn't bookmark anything, there is an issue with /mod/bookmarks/add.php. Access in not granted due to lack of permissions. I will keep looking around the site and add some more images.
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#18
08-09-10, 10:17 PM
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Just looked at the wiki. You do have some competition as there are a few photography wikis already and they seem to use the more familiar Mediawiki software. I use mediawiki and have found it to have many more advantages over dokuwiki, which I used to have until I converted over. It was a steep learning curve but I enjoyed using mediawiki and experimenting with a variety of syntaxes and creating my own templates to make it more visually interesting.
Do you think you have taken too much on with all your sites?  Anyway, look forward to seeing any changes you make to the photography friends site.
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#20
09-09-10, 07:09 PM
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Have you looked at the .css files. You should be able to change colours in the main .css file. As I haven't used elgg before so I don't know how it works but generally speaking this is the place to tweak the colours and fonts etc. but you most likely knew that what with running several websites.
What other themes are available, if any? There must be a selection to choose from. This is one of the main wikis I found: http://www.techniphoto.com/wiki/inde...itle=Main_Page The other one was for Pros and aspiring Pros so not ideal for beginners. I really like the idea of the wiki as well because there is so much that can be done with them. A really good wiki, whatever the subject, has to be done properly but would be an awesome resource. I feel quite at home with them (when the program works!!!)
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Tags |
| elgg, project, social network |
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