Archive for the 'Site News' Category

Newly posted to the members’ area of the site, a detailed set of instructions on how to share your photos with the rest of the group via our Slideshows. Now you’ve got no excuse for hiding your photographic talents from the rest of us. I look forward to seeing a lot more pictures of group events!

If you’ve visited this site at any time in the last ten years or so, you’ll probably wondering what’s happened to it. The familiar green and yellow design has gone, to be replaced by a dramatic new look.

Despite winning the President’s Award this year, the old design was looking tired and dated. Since Christmas, I’ve been working on a new layout that would refresh the site’s appearance and pull together the group’s various online activities more effectively. These efforts are finally ready for a public airing. Here are just a few features of the new design:

• Colour Scheme:  The new scheme uses a range of natural greens, yellows and browns. As well as being appropriate to our outdoor activities, these colours complement the new banner image and other pictures on the site.
• Google Search: As part of the new ethos of using freely available services instead of doing it ourselves, the site search has been outsourced to the leader in the field: Google. The prominent position of the search box might mean people use it more too.
• New Front Page: The home page has been totally rewritten, in order to better welcome people into the site. A Twitter widget (see below) and some news feeds give an at-a-glance guide to what’s happening in the group and in the wider world of hostelling.
• Twitter: We’ve been posting to Twitter for nearly a year now, but the new design makes it a lot more visible. Tweets are automatically generated whenever new content is added to the site, and can also be written manually by committee members. The widget on the front page makes it easy for everyone to see what’s been happening lately.
• Advertising: Nobody likes ads, but they do help to cover the costs of running the group. Placing ads above, below and (sometimes) beside the content of each page should attract a few clicks, and a few pennies!
• Footer: A new area at the foot of each page gives easy access to the Group’s other web outposts. As well as Twitter, we’re also on Facebook, Google Calendar and Flickr. You can also get to the group’s new Amazon store,  where every purchase earns us a small commission.

This is only phase one of the redesign. The next step will be to review each page on the site, correcting any outdated information and trying to make them easier to use. The “Frequently Asked Questions” section will be an early candidate for a revamp.

I’d be interested to hear any feedback – positive or negative – or ideas you may have for further improving the site. Please talk to me in person, by email, or in the comments section below.

A few people have reported difficulty in seeing the group’s slideshows since I changed the system last year. Even those who could see them had to put up with tiny images, and Flickr’s habit of serving them up in random order.

So I’ve changed it again! The “back end” is unchanged – the photos are still stored on Flickr and can be contributed by any member – but the page that shows the slides is totally different. Now all the slides are shown at once (in order!), and you just have to click one to start a big, impressive show. Take a look at the shots of our recent snowy ascent of Cader Idris to see what I mean.

On a related note, I’m still waiting for more photographers to come forward and contribute to the site. If it just falls on one or two people, they inevitably tire of the burden and the group suffers. Get in touch if you want to know how to help.

The Slideshows section of this website, used to show pictures of past group events, has been given a radical new look.

The initial “choose a show” pages list the available shows in a more attractive manner, including a small version of one of the pictures. Once you’ve chosen a show, the pictures are presented in a manner more like, well, a slide show. Just sit back and enjoy, and click on any picture to find out more about it.

All this is made possible by moving the picture storage off-site, to one of the web’s biggest photo sharing sites: Flickr. This has the benefit of taking the strain off leicesteryha.org.uk’s disk space, as well as presenting new ways of showing the images.

But neither of those is the main reason for making the change. The main reason is you.

If you’re in the habit of taking and using a camera on group events, the new system is intended to make it as easy as possible to share your best images on the website. Here’s what you need to do:

• Sign up for an account on Flickr. It’s free, and lets you share up to 200 photographs.
• Once you’ve got an account, join the Leicester YHA Flickr Group.

Now you’re all ready to start contributing photographs to the group web site. Here’s how to do it:

• If you have some photos that you think would make a good slide show, contact the webmaster to get a unique “tag” that identifies that event. If you want to add some images to an existing show, the tag is the last bit of the show’s web address (e.g. the tag for the “London” slideshow is “london06″).
• Upload your pictures to Flickr, making sure you tag them with the chosen word. Feel free to add other tags, geo locate your image and do other Flickrish things to it too if the fancy takes you.
• Send your pictures to the Leicester YHA Flickr group.

That’s it! Various clever (and not-so-clever) bits of scripting will automatically incorporate your works of art into our website!

I hope the group’s photographers will take up this opportunity. Like many aspects of the group, success depends on the work being shared between many hands rather than falling on one person. Let’s show the world some of our great events!

If you’re using Google Calendar to keep track of your diary, you can now import a copy the YHA Group Programme into it. Just click on this link to add it to your calendar:

Leicester YHA Group Programme Google Calendar

Of course, other electronic calendar applications exist. If you’re using one that can import event information from a standard iCal file, just point it at this address:

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk/cgi-bin/leoical.pl

Now you’ve no excuse for missing another YHA event…

The Leicester YHA Group “News” page has been remodelled to use the WordPress blogging software. This will make it easier for group members to enter news stories and to comment upon those already posted.

The set-up’s still being fine-tuned, but why not add a comment to say what you think of it?