Trying out groups...

Hi Paul,

Further to your Ning Creators post ( http://creators.ning.com/forum/topics/contingency-planning-what-s-yours=show?commentId=6651893%3AComment%3A1291930&xg_source=msg_com_forum), I'd be interested in trying out groups, although I'm not migrating from Ning (yet), just before I setup 25,000 profiles! At least, I'd love to know what they feature - I guess my holy grail is image galleries that users can add photos to. Unless I'm missing something, once a gallery is created in a Jamroom profile, only the Creator can add to it.

This is something that is possible in Ning 3.0, so might have to be able to be dealt with anyway....

Tim
updated by @iamtimbo: 07/09/16 09:21:02AM

Hi Tim
Is this for your 'UK Cities' site?
As you say, Galleries can only be added to by the gallery creator, but they can be displayed globally.
What you would need to do is add a custom field (see the Form Designer docs.) to the gallery create form that would be a select field with all the profile names that are in fact city names. Then, when creating a gallery, a user could name in something like "Here are my photos of Leicester" and select Leicester from the custom field.
Then on the site front page you could search for 'Leicester' and all user galleries/photos tagged in this way would be displayed.

If you still want to try out the Groups module, let me know.
Paul


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist
updated by @paul: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

Without going too in-depth (as a couple of backers don't want too much of the info in the public domain yet), essentially, a town profile has (say) ten galleries (one for for pubs, one for churches, etc), and if someone has a photo of the Fox & Hounds, they can upload it to the 'Pubs' gallery, or whatever.

If I can DM you, I can send you a link to the Ning 3 prototype.
updated by @iamtimbo: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

That could could still be done the way I outlined above by specifying two custom select fields, cities and pubs/churches/whatever.

Send the link to support[at]jamroom[dot]net and I'll take a look.
Paul


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist
updated by @paul: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

I've emailed. I'm playing around with the Form Designer. It's so powerful! I've established a set of criteria choices for each image. I need to learn your Shorty code system to work out how to use the info it's now collected. This will take me some time....
updated by @iamtimbo: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

The jrCore_list function is the main functions used for most of the media listings etc. in a Jamroom skin.

https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/documentation/development
https://www.jamroom.net/the-jamroom-network/documentation/development/89/jrcore-list

Unless your looking to do something else?

Hope this helps!


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Douglas Hackney
Jamroom Team - Designer/Developer/Support
FAQ-Docs-Help Videos
updated by @douglas: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

Hi there - just stumbled across a limitation to my grand plan - it was going so well!

I have realised that a Standard User cannot add galleries to a Profile they didn't create - well, unless I manually add them, whoch would be too time consuming.

Before I go mad trying this, would it be possible to try the Groups module after all - if only to eliminate it from my plans?

Tim
updated by @iamtimbo: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

But as I explained above, they can upload Galleries and tag them with one of the City Profiles, then the City Profile page(s) can list all galleries appropriately tagged.
Is that what you are trying to do, or am I missing something?
You can try the groups module but I think if Groups were Cities, you'd still need to do the same thing.
If you want, I'll knock something up to show you how its done.


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist
updated by @paul: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

A light bulb may be coming on. Do you mean tag the galleries with a City Profile like their @town-name tag?

I completely misunderstood the dynamic nature of the tagging - as I'm the only person on my network I haven't had much need to 'mention' anyone else, so didn't really realise what it could do.

This sounds very interesting - if I'm getting you right! If you have time to jot an idea as to how it might be done, that would be extremely helpful. I have just about got my head round the Form Editor and the options within it (I think).
updated by @iamtimbo: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

I've just very quickly tried this and it works

Create a profile quota called 'Cities'.
Create a couple of profiles, Leicester and Nottingham (do both of these actions in the Profile Tools section).
Create a simple template that lists profiles in the 'Cities' quota.
Next to each 'profile_name' (the city) add a link that takes you to http://yoursite.com/gallery/create/gallery_city_id=2 or whatever the city ID is (this is done dynamically with smarty templates).
From the gallery create form go to Form Designer and create a select field named 'gallery_city_id'.
A very simply created custom module now provides a function to fill that select field with all available cites with the specified one pre-selected.
Fill in the gallery title and upload the images. Hit submit.
Each image is now 'tagged' with smarty variable that is the city ID - gallery_city_id
This value can now be used in subsequent gallery searches to only return images tagged with a particular city.

Pa


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist
updated by @paul: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

I'll try this out now!
updated by @iamtimbo: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

I'm not giving up, but my brain's melting a bit. Bearing in mind I have no prior experience of coding anything (apart from simple html and a bit of css), I'm struggling a bit here. Tried to use the forums, etc, so here's where I am:

i) I already had a Quota for cities (id = 2), so that's good.
ii) Got lots
iii)Creating templates. I think I see the principle of what JR needs to do. Initially, I couldn't see where you create a new template. Looking around, I found Aparna, and created a new module. In that module I adapted the item_list template to include the following:

{jrCore_list module="jrProfile" order_by="profile_name asc" search1="jr_profile_quota = 2" return_keys="profile_name"}

What I have no idea about is how to find out if this does anything like what I need it to/what you're suggesting. How can I test its output?

iv) Next to each profile name where?

v) Done

I'm sorry to appear so dim. It is clear to me that once I have my head around this - essentially I have to learn some coding - this is very powerful, and from the things that I can see from the jrCore_List tutorial, will be an excellent way to manage what will become a large database.
updated by @iamtimbo: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

Don't want to dampen your enthusiasm but with respect, I'm wondering if you have worked through some of our online documentation or checked out our video courses at https://www.udemy.com/courses/search/?ref=home&q=jamroom

Apologies if you already have done this, but I feel that with just a bit more knowledge of what what Jamroom is about, the way it works and its concepts, you'll quickly see how to realise your website. Hope you don't mind me suggesting this.

What I would then suggest is a 'specification' of exactly what the website is to do, proposed pages, page links etc. That way we can work through it and propose exactly how Jamroom can achieve it.


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist
updated by @paul: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

Not at all! I've been working through Udemy, and will continue to. I added the Google Maps module earlier - got that working a treat, and I've learned a fair bit in the process.

I will stumble on and get back to you! Things seem to have moved on since my Commodore 64!
updated by @iamtimbo: 12/29/14 09:23:54AM

Hi Paul,

Happy New Year! I'm back after a bit of a break, and trying to pick back up where I left off. I've looked back at your suggestions, and although I see how that would function (if not how to achieve it technically!), ot would ultimately keep taking the casual browser away from the town profile. I want people to be happy in their 'place', and come to know each other.

What I'm trying to emulate from Ning 3 (and indeed improve on, as galleries are so much more powerful in JR, with the enhanced descriptions and geotagging)) is a gallery a bit like this - http://wimbornerec.org/Places/wimborne/general-photos - where the contributions have come from lots of different people but are held in the same place (multiple galleries would be even better, like we have in Ning 3 and that link is just one of).

I feel like there could be a drop down in the quota view for image galleries, along the lines of 'Allow profiles from X quota to post galleries'. That would get the desired result, without allowing people to post into each other's own personal galleries. This would surely be one of the very points of the quota system.

Anyway, it's great to see how many Ningers have come over - I'll bring my Ning 2 when it looks like they've finally thrown in the towel. All looks great!

Tim

I think the best solution for this would be a Group Images module that works with the Profile Groups. The existing Image Galleries is not setup to work this way at all.

Alternately you could "emulate" this by having users upload images to their individual galleries, but have them "shared" onto the site or a profile group.

It's not something we have created at this time though.

Hope this helps!


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Brian Johnson
Founder and Lead Developer - Jamroom
https://www.jamroom.net

Hi Brian,

Yes, I guess that would do it! As long as (moon on a stick moment) the galleries were just as functional (ie with the Google geotagging option which could not have been more designed for what I'm trying to achieve - it's location, location, location with us!) and the forums just as customisable.

If you had an inkling that this might come to fruition at some stage, as I have around 1000 town profiles to create, I would happily start doing that now so that I'm ready for it (no time like the present, and all). It's quite an ambitious project......!

Tim

Hi Tim - Welcome back. I'd forgot about this project of yours!!

Brian's suggestion would work but he's talking about a custom 'Group Image' module. If you then said you also wanted Group Videos/SoundBites/Blogs/Whatever each one of those would need its own custom module. Not impossible, of course, but it would be good to come up with a solution with what Jamroom can currently do 'off the shelf'.

I don't have an answer for this atm but will think about it more. Being from the UK and interested in local history myself, I like what you are trying to do
Paul


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

Hi Paul,

I assumed as much as regards a dedicated module. I'm not quite sure what the Group module 'does' to a profile - I assume you can still have all the other functions available to JR, which probably cover all other bases.

With the prototype, as far as videos were concerned, we've left them on YouTube and just pulled them in like that - no-one uploads anything, and I guess the same sort of thing would happen. Blogs we don't have by town - I guess people could upload their own stories in their profile and link to them, if they needed to, but I anticipate most interaction being in the town forums and galleries.

I think we have enough on our plate with those, so don't see much expansion beyond that in the near future!

I'm still thinking that my original idea of having a 'Cities' quota whose profiles pull in and displays all galleries (and anything else) uploaded and tagged with that city. For one thing, this would give better SEO URLs - your site.co.uk/leicester, your site.co.uk/derby, your site.co.uk/nottingham etc. but as you say above, as JR stands if users did upload city images they would then be returned to their own profile page and not the city's. So we just need a way to fix that. I'm sure it can be done. Am thinking about it


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

That's great - I've canned my old experiment, and I'm now playing around with the SiteBuilder, which is excellent, and much more fits my tiny mind. I have got my cities quota, and I'm playing around......if yuo have any more thoughts about overcoming the issue above about being returned to the user profile, let me know!

We're hoping for a launch at Who Do You Think You Are Live (I know!) in a couple of months...!

I think it can be done with a relatively simple module. When I have a minute I'll knock something up and let you know.


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist

Superb! I'm loving the SiteBuilder, and it's proved a great way to get my head round the List functions, too. In other news, I have stumbled across a spreadsheet of all the UK towns and cities, together with their Lat/Long coordinates and counties. Is there an import function in a module that could map a CSV file to create and populate profiles with that info?

I thought I had seen something somewhere, but I may just be confusing the Ning importer....

There's no import function as such, but it would take 10 minutes to write a simple script to read the CSV file and create a profile per city/town with its lat/lng so your proposed site could be populated in no time!!


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Paul Asher - JR Developer and System Import Specialist