Project Directory Rough Demo
Part of the ongoing site enhancements for this year's goals include exploring opportunities to build out functionality beyond the form, or find ways to incorporate more into the form. Work on the new form is underway, and mmuyskens is currently running a demo over at http://forum.biohack.me/discussion/comment/20658#Comment_20658. Any feedback will be exceptionally welcome (and a HUGE thanks to those already providing feedback)!
Meanwhile I've been spending a little time looking into the problem of project documentation. It can be really difficult to keep up with a project as the thread for it continues to grow, and unless the master post is constantly updated, progress can easily be lost & forgotten. Important details might be two, three posts in. Or pages in, even! Took a glance at hackaday and I've been spending some time trying to build a similar site/tool that might be useful for the sort of work we see here! So, I've got a demo up on my testbed!
http://machinesofbirds.com/wp/
This is a very rough demo setup, and is still being updated and tweaked by the day, but I'm at a point where I'd like to start soliciting some feedback.
Quick rundown of where things are now:
Projects are a custom post type that include a description, category, tags, gallery, list of materials (with the ability to link to sources for them!), step by step instructions, press links, resource links, associated project logs, and comments.
I have a co-author system in place, so users can be added to a project. When added, this gives the user ability to edit the Project page, plus post logs regarding it. When users make a new post, they have the opportunity to assign it to any project they're listed on as an update to that project.
The member directory is still in need of some work, but it has a handy dandy map! Supplying this information is 100% optional, and can be as accurate as a full address or as vague as just the country. No more need to post 300 threads figuring out where people are :)
In addition to a member directory / map, I also have a groups/labs system in place. (UPDATE: the link isn't appearing in the dashboard for new users yet, but you can hit http://machinesofbirds.com/wp/groups/create to try making a group, meanwhile!) I'd eventually like to tie this in to the projects as well, but for now it's just similar to the member directory except for groups of people. Hopefully this will be useful in finding collectives, labs, and clubs near you!
Lastly I also added an event system. I'm hoping it will make coordination for events like cons a little smoother, with the ability to use the 'ticket' system for roomshare planning an additional benefit. Also useful possibly for groups to hold small events, weekly hacknights, etc.
It looks very rough right now, but most of my wants are with the actual system structure. I'd love to know how you'd feel about putting your projects into this structure.... if there's any sort of meta detailing I've left out that you'd like to have part of a project page or any kind of tweak that would make the system feel more usable. This is in no way meant to be a replacement for any discussions here; instead it's a sister system specifically for documenting projects, and providing a directory for some ongoing work as well as the whos and wheres.
Meanwhile I've been spending a little time looking into the problem of project documentation. It can be really difficult to keep up with a project as the thread for it continues to grow, and unless the master post is constantly updated, progress can easily be lost & forgotten. Important details might be two, three posts in. Or pages in, even! Took a glance at hackaday and I've been spending some time trying to build a similar site/tool that might be useful for the sort of work we see here! So, I've got a demo up on my testbed!
http://machinesofbirds.com/wp/
This is a very rough demo setup, and is still being updated and tweaked by the day, but I'm at a point where I'd like to start soliciting some feedback.
Quick rundown of where things are now:
Projects are a custom post type that include a description, category, tags, gallery, list of materials (with the ability to link to sources for them!), step by step instructions, press links, resource links, associated project logs, and comments.
I have a co-author system in place, so users can be added to a project. When added, this gives the user ability to edit the Project page, plus post logs regarding it. When users make a new post, they have the opportunity to assign it to any project they're listed on as an update to that project.
The member directory is still in need of some work, but it has a handy dandy map! Supplying this information is 100% optional, and can be as accurate as a full address or as vague as just the country. No more need to post 300 threads figuring out where people are :)
In addition to a member directory / map, I also have a groups/labs system in place. (UPDATE: the link isn't appearing in the dashboard for new users yet, but you can hit http://machinesofbirds.com/wp/groups/create to try making a group, meanwhile!) I'd eventually like to tie this in to the projects as well, but for now it's just similar to the member directory except for groups of people. Hopefully this will be useful in finding collectives, labs, and clubs near you!
Lastly I also added an event system. I'm hoping it will make coordination for events like cons a little smoother, with the ability to use the 'ticket' system for roomshare planning an additional benefit. Also useful possibly for groups to hold small events, weekly hacknights, etc.
It looks very rough right now, but most of my wants are with the actual system structure. I'd love to know how you'd feel about putting your projects into this structure.... if there's any sort of meta detailing I've left out that you'd like to have part of a project page or any kind of tweak that would make the system feel more usable. This is in no way meant to be a replacement for any discussions here; instead it's a sister system specifically for documenting projects, and providing a directory for some ongoing work as well as the whos and wheres.
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Comments
I'm aware the link to the forum is simply that a link but that initial "hey you found biohack.me!" Page needs to go. It's a useless i between that you've actually put into a very concise page.
I will get to looking at it on something other then my tablet so I'll be able to see a few more finer things and be able to pick at your too soon enough ;)
Thoughts?
It is planned to be a separate section, but instead of landing on a listing page we could have the primary landing as the forum, with the collection of links up top for the projects and procedures and people directories, wiki, eventual documentation sharing if that gets going, etc. Or maybe in the eventual sidebar? And have each of those sections share the same 'meta nav' or at least share links to each other, so getting between is easy enough.
I wasn't originally planning on having user blog posts have much function outside of per-project logs, but adding a place to view non-project blog logs would be pretty nice, and I can see some use in that. So, working on adding it now :) as well as trimming down all the profile editing access.
I made some tweaks to the profiles, and while the custom background image is gone... that was having mobile problems and even duplicated profile setting access. All profile actions should be streamlined to the dashboard now, and the user control side menu reflects this change
What was the specific error you got when uploading to your post? I changed your role to author (and set the default new user role to author, too) which means you should no longer need approval for posts :) which means that /awesome/ post you made can now be published! Though it won;t really show up anywhere yet till I get the non-project posts displaying. But that's on the way now!
Thank you so much for chewing through all this! Your feedback has been super helpful! Hopefully I can make this a reality for the community very soon.
Also got a button that showed up for logged in users on the Labs page to let a user create a lab. Having an issue forcing it to display in the dashboard, so I'm hoping this will be a valid workaround
Off the top of my head I don't remember the exact error message I think it just simply wouldn't finish uploading the photo. I'll see if I can find it again.