So many small updates are applied to the site daily/weekly, so rather than writing a blog for each one, I thought it would be easier to note the smaller ones in a monthly developments thread - and leave the blog reserved for large feature announcements.
By noting them here, it will hopefully make it easier for you to leave any feedback and suggestions you have, and keep track of what's going on around the site.
So far in September:
A-vs-B now has its own dedicated page, with an autoloading "Top AvsB" photos beneath the larger version of A-vs-B. The link to A-vs-B was added to the menu bar, replacing the link to the Mobile version of MadcowModels.
A new Whats Trending section was added. This section displays the most popular/viewed members, photos, forum threads and castings from the past hour.
In an effort to drive casting discovery, a "Similar Castings" section was added to the bottom of castings detail page. This displays castings which are looking for the same member type, and remuneration type as the casting you're currently viewing.
The member updates section has seen a lot of updates this month, mainly based around how similar updates are displayed.
1) When one of your saved members saves several members, the update will now be collated to show that "ABC has saved N members". The update will contain a link, showing who they've saved and a button so that you can save the member too. The aim of this is to enable/promote profile discovery.
2) Similar to the above, when several members reply to a thread you've been active in, it will now display "N members have replied to XYZ thread". The update will contain a link, showing who has posted in the thread.
3) When a member uploads a single photo, a "Comment" link will display below the image, which will display any comments that have been posted on the image as well as allow you to post a comment on the image.
4) The "Recent castings" section now displays castings relevant to you. So, if you're a photographer, you'll see castings looking for photographers.
1) Message Drafts: whenever you're writing a message to someone, it will now save as a draft every 2 minutes. If you close the page or are logged out, when you come back, your message will be sitting in the text box ready.
2) Design tweaks: The area surrounding the Send button has been tweaked, to provide a smarter/sharper look.
3) The send-a-message script has been updated. When you send a message, the message form will reset rather than disappear. This is designed to be useful if you're sending a batch of attachments, as it now stops you from needing to refresh the page.
1) A weight category has been added for models to fill in, if they so wish.
2) General design tweaks/tidy up + removal of the "additional sharing" options to speed up load times, as they were rarely used as it was.
1) Deactivating accounts: If you wish to take a break from modelling/photography/the site, you can now do so without having to delete your account. In the "Options" panel of Your Control Panel, you can deactivate your account. This will hide your profile, castings, images, and it will stop you from being able to be messaged.
2) Your options panel has been tidied up, so that the various sections are accessible via tab, rather than all being displayed rather messily on a single page
3) Email options: You can now restrict what emails you want to receive from MadcowModels. If you turn off the messaging emails, you will still receive the reminders should you leave the message unread
1) An option to add a watermark and/or your username to your images has now been added. You can view a sample album + more info about this, and how it works, here: www.madcowmodels.co.uk/James/album/609
2) Album "catch all" grid. If you have albums set up, and over 75% of your images were added to your albums, then the normal image category grid would not display - potentially leaving 25%~ of your images unviewed. This has now been updated so that all of your images that are not in an album will be displayed underneath your albums.
3) View by uploaded date fix. Because of the way the gallery script handled albums and the gallery grid, if you had albums set up and 75% or more of your images in albums, when someone tried to view your images by upload date it would just default to the normal album view. This has now been updated so that the view-by-upload-date grid will display underneath your albums, and you will be scrolled down to it automatically if you click through to it.
Example: www.madcowmodels.co.uk/James/photos/05052012
1) "Trending Images" have been added to the bottom right of the home page.
2) The images on the Recent Activity section have been updated. They now use a similar script to that of the "Member Updates" section of "Your control panel", and what this does is resizes the images depending how many are displayed in that update. So, if 1 image is uploaded, it will be displayed larger than if 2 images are uploaded, to try and fit everything on 1 line, providing a cleaner and more aligned look.
1) Several of the forum boards have been merged and reorganised. The Photographer chat and Model chat boards have been merged to create "Member Chat".
1) A month ago, a process begun to recreate all of the avatar/small versions of the images on MadcowModels. The images are slightly larger, and this change is now reflected on the image search results page, where larger versions of the avatars are now displayed.
There have been various design updates around the site to give listings are more uniform look, for example, the castings design on the home page is now similar to the one on Your Control Panel.
Script performance is something thats always being worked on and optimized. This month the photo pages have been worked on, and they now run around 20% faster than last month.
Its been a busy month..! :p
James
By noting them here, it will hopefully make it easier for you to leave any feedback and suggestions you have, and keep track of what's going on around the site.
So far in September:
A-vs-B updates
A-vs-B now has its own dedicated page, with an autoloading "Top AvsB" photos beneath the larger version of A-vs-B. The link to A-vs-B was added to the menu bar, replacing the link to the Mobile version of MadcowModels.
"Whats Trending"
A new Whats Trending section was added. This section displays the most popular/viewed members, photos, forum threads and castings from the past hour.
Casting updates
In an effort to drive casting discovery, a "Similar Castings" section was added to the bottom of castings detail page. This displays castings which are looking for the same member type, and remuneration type as the casting you're currently viewing.
Control Panel updates
The member updates section has seen a lot of updates this month, mainly based around how similar updates are displayed.
1) When one of your saved members saves several members, the update will now be collated to show that "ABC has saved N members". The update will contain a link, showing who they've saved and a button so that you can save the member too. The aim of this is to enable/promote profile discovery.
2) Similar to the above, when several members reply to a thread you've been active in, it will now display "N members have replied to XYZ thread". The update will contain a link, showing who has posted in the thread.
3) When a member uploads a single photo, a "Comment" link will display below the image, which will display any comments that have been posted on the image as well as allow you to post a comment on the image.
4) The "Recent castings" section now displays castings relevant to you. So, if you're a photographer, you'll see castings looking for photographers.
Messaging
1) Message Drafts: whenever you're writing a message to someone, it will now save as a draft every 2 minutes. If you close the page or are logged out, when you come back, your message will be sitting in the text box ready.
2) Design tweaks: The area surrounding the Send button has been tweaked, to provide a smarter/sharper look.
3) The send-a-message script has been updated. When you send a message, the message form will reset rather than disappear. This is designed to be useful if you're sending a batch of attachments, as it now stops you from needing to refresh the page.
Profiles
1) A weight category has been added for models to fill in, if they so wish.
2) General design tweaks/tidy up + removal of the "additional sharing" options to speed up load times, as they were rarely used as it was.
Accounts
1) Deactivating accounts: If you wish to take a break from modelling/photography/the site, you can now do so without having to delete your account. In the "Options" panel of Your Control Panel, you can deactivate your account. This will hide your profile, castings, images, and it will stop you from being able to be messaged.
2) Your options panel has been tidied up, so that the various sections are accessible via tab, rather than all being displayed rather messily on a single page
3) Email options: You can now restrict what emails you want to receive from MadcowModels. If you turn off the messaging emails, you will still receive the reminders should you leave the message unread
Images
1) An option to add a watermark and/or your username to your images has now been added. You can view a sample album + more info about this, and how it works, here: www.madcowmodels.co.uk/James/album/609
2) Album "catch all" grid. If you have albums set up, and over 75% of your images were added to your albums, then the normal image category grid would not display - potentially leaving 25%~ of your images unviewed. This has now been updated so that all of your images that are not in an album will be displayed underneath your albums.
3) View by uploaded date fix. Because of the way the gallery script handled albums and the gallery grid, if you had albums set up and 75% or more of your images in albums, when someone tried to view your images by upload date it would just default to the normal album view. This has now been updated so that the view-by-upload-date grid will display underneath your albums, and you will be scrolled down to it automatically if you click through to it.
Example: www.madcowmodels.co.uk/James/photos/05052012
Home page:
1) "Trending Images" have been added to the bottom right of the home page.
2) The images on the Recent Activity section have been updated. They now use a similar script to that of the "Member Updates" section of "Your control panel", and what this does is resizes the images depending how many are displayed in that update. So, if 1 image is uploaded, it will be displayed larger than if 2 images are uploaded, to try and fit everything on 1 line, providing a cleaner and more aligned look.
Forum
1) Several of the forum boards have been merged and reorganised. The Photographer chat and Model chat boards have been merged to create "Member Chat".
Image Search
1) A month ago, a process begun to recreate all of the avatar/small versions of the images on MadcowModels. The images are slightly larger, and this change is now reflected on the image search results page, where larger versions of the avatars are now displayed.
General tweaks
There have been various design updates around the site to give listings are more uniform look, for example, the castings design on the home page is now similar to the one on Your Control Panel.
Script performance is something thats always being worked on and optimized. This month the photo pages have been worked on, and they now run around 20% faster than last month.
Its been a busy month..! :p
James
Opinions expressed within this thread are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of ModelFolio, nor its associates.
ModelFolio accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for the content or accuracy of authors comments.
ModelFolio accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for the content or accuracy of authors comments.
