User control panel?

[Hansen]

Hello,
I'd like to commend you guys for an outstanding site!
I think it would be a good idea, if the user control panel is accessible from the entire website and not just the forum section. Also, I think it would be helpful if you were able to save e.g. particular articles of interest in shane's world etc. to your favorites within the user panel? (Maybe it is, and I just haven't figured it out?)
Hans

[Jools]

Hans,

Firstly, thank you for the positive feedback - we try our best!

So, well, you may have noticed that the forum and the rest of the site while similar, do have a few differences in style and layout - with the exception of the "my cats" and "my aquaria" pages. That's because some pages are "aware" of who you are (if logged in) and some are not.

So, in order to do things like have options around what you see on the front page, for example, or other user preferences, I'd need to introduce and reformat every affected page. This is a huge amount of work and, importantly, ties us to the forum software even more tightly.

Having said that, it is something I have thought about doing for a very long time. I've just not seen the "killer" reason for doing it although that might change if we could have a wider discussion about this.

For example, if you wished to "like" species in a style similar to a "facebook like", or have the front page customised to show more species akin to those you have said you keep, or perhaps maintain a list of what articles you've read or other you'd like based on those you have read. These are all things that become possible if we go down this route.

I think, however, we'd need some help technically with this, so it's something Mats might be interested in too.

Jools

[Jools]

Hans,

Another thing just came to mind, why would you want to store what articles you want for reference? Is it difficult, do you think, to find them again?

Jools

[Hansen]

Hans,

Another thing just came to mind, why would you want to store what articles you want for reference? Is it difficult, do you think, to find them again?

Jools

Jools,
I think there's tons of invaluable information within this site. Some of the information of particular interest to me, have I found almost as "stumble upon" when doing a search. Some of the information might be in Shane's world articles, and some in forum threads (e.g. like tips and tricks). However, when I need to go back and check what exactly the information was (my brain remembering vaguely "I read something about this @ planetcatfish") I have to reproduce the "stumble upon" procedure.
However, I understand that the change would be a major task to make this change. The forum-stuff can be bookmarked etc., and I'll just create a bookmark folder within my browser for planetcatfish only, containing links to articles etc. These articles will have the same url, or do you change/archive the articles and ulr's over time?
Thanks for your speedy reply,
Hans

[MatsP]

Links to articles will remain the same throughout the lifetime of the article (and articles are rarely deleted - sometimes they get replaced, but that is such a rare occurrence that I don't think it really matters much).

--
Mats

[Jools]

Hans,

Despite Mats answer, URLs do change over time, but we've only seen three such changes in nearly 15 years and indeed the format from before the last change still works. So what he says is correct at least in terms of the last eight years or so.

Also, in addition to bookmarking which traditionally restricts you to one browser on one computer - a lot of people use third party web sites such as digg it and stumble upon for this kind of thing.

It's a bigger, wider thing this. While you have an idea about what you've seen a need for, there is a much larger concept of being able to interact with the site in a consistent manner.

Jools

[MatsP]

Hans,

Despite Mats answer, URLs do change over time, but we've only seen three such changes in nearly 15 years and indeed the format from before the last change still works. So what he says is correct at least in terms of the last eight years or so.

Thanks for the correction, and yes, I know sometimes things do change generally. I've only been active on this site for 6 years

Also, in addition to bookmarking which traditionally restricts you to one browser on one computer - a lot of people use third party web sites such as digg it and stumble upon for this kind of thing.

Which is a real pain when for one reason or another you can't use the same computer as you used to find the thing... For example when your laptop is broken and "information technology services" in their infinite wisdom gives you a completely different machine instead of fixing up the one you had...

It's a bigger, wider thing this. While you have an idea about what you've seen a need for, there is a much larger concept of being able to interact with the site in a consistent manner.

Jools

Not to mention that someone who likes similar things to me (say for example trying to breed Leporacanthicus) may also enjoy to read MY favourite articles, where someone breeding corys may find the favourite articles of Kim M or CoryWally, etc ... So it's a good way to "promote" articles.

--
Mats

[Martin S]

Not sure if this is related, but on another forum I frequent, I always check my subscribed posts first to see if there are any replies, and it keeps a history of all posts that I reply to or start myself, which I can tidy up by deleting or updating the subscription opions etc.
Maybe I've missed it all these years, but I'm guessing it's not something that is currently available on PC? This would act as a repository
for posts made and replied to, and so if there was a post you liked, you coud subscribe to it and therefore be able to find it again.
I think the site I mentioned uses vBulletin software, so not sure if it's possible with the forum software you use, Jools?
I hope this makes sense
Martin

[Jools]

Maybe I've missed it all these years, but I'm guessing it's not something that is currently available on PC?

It's in the user control panel under "manage subscriptions" and "manage bookmarks". However, it doesn't address the requirement here as it is limited to forum posts and not wider site content.

Jools

[grokefish]

Being able to comment on it would be cool.
Any chance of that happening?

Here is my comment for this Month--------Loved it, such a change to see something I really know bog all about, good choice Jools.

[Suckermouth]

I want this fish and I want it now. I was also pleasantly surprised to see a catfish I had never seen before.

[Jools]

It gets harder and harder to find a species (that I've kept) to write about that isn't just another cory, pleco or syno. So, this one popped into my head and, as I am rather pressed for time (you'll note this was a month late!) a short article on a short fish came out.

As to your question Matt about a comments feature. This is linked to the enhancement request someone else posted about filing away articles ("my favourites") they liked. Outside of the my cats, my aquaria and forum pages, the rest of the site is not linked to the forum security model and so is not interactive. Simply put, a "like" or comments function on any page is a lot of work and actually also needs some research in terms of server load too.

So, not something I plan to do anytime soon. I REALLY must finish off the breeding data pages and get them online before I do much else.

Jools

[racoll]

I want this fish and I want it now. I was also pleasantly surprised to see a catfish I had never seen before.

Ditto. I enjoyed this one too!

[Jools]

Glad you liked it chaps. Stunning.

Jools

[grokefish]

It gets harder and harder to find a species (that I've kept) to write about that isn't just another cory, pl*co or syno. So, this one popped into my head and, as I am rather pressed for time (you'll note this was a month late!) a short article on a short fish came out.

As to your question Matt about a comments feature. This is linked to the enhancement request someone else posted about filing away articles ("my favourites") they liked. Outside of the my cats, my aquaria and forum pages, the rest of the site is not linked to the forum security model and so is not interactive. Simply put, a "like" or comments function on any page is a lot of work and actually also needs some research in terms of server load too.

So, not something I plan to do anytime soon. I REALLY must finish off the breeding data pages and get them online before I do much else.

Jools

Hooray!!!!!!!

[MatsP]

Jools, let me know if I can help with the breeding stuff - if nothing else, by trying out the new pages - you know I'll find the obvious bugs! ;)

On the other hand, I can't do HTML layout for toffee, but I think you have a good handle on that...

--
Mats

[sidguppy]

great article

haven't seen Tridensimilis in years......

they probably sort out much better than they used to.
by-catches are exceedingly rare today.

but be careful. Like Jools (and Marc!) I've kep this particular species

in my case it is at least 15 years ago, but it might be over 20.
this wee little fish WILL attack your other fish.
I've kept a few individuals and all of em went feisty on the other tankmates; in my case they scaled down to even attacking cardinal tetra's, wich were a wee bit smaller than themselves.

even if well fed, they have the unsurpressable urge to snack on mucus

I don't think it's a true lepidophage, but a mucus-phage.
no idea how you would call that ;)

[MatsP]

I've merged two topics discussing very similar things...

--
Mats

[Jools]

The UCP is now accessible from cat-elog species pages and will (slowly) be introduced to other sections of the site.

Jools