Archive for the 'Site News' Category

Have you ever wanted to know what an area is like before booking on a trip? A new feature added to the website today could be just what you’re looking for. At the bottom of every event page there’s now a selection of photographs taken in the area, so you can see what you’re letting yourself in for!

The pictures come from an online project called Geograph Britain and Ireland which aims to collect photographs of every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland, and the Isle of Man. These images are licenced for other sites to use, which is how we’re able to use them on our site.

Photographers in the group might like to join Geograph and submit some of the pictures they take from around the country.

The turn of the year is a traditional time for ringing in the changes, so here’s a tweak to the website to mark the start of 2011!

As you know, each event the group organises has its own page on the website which includes a map of where the event is taking place. The maps are powered by a free service from Google called the Google Maps Javascript API. The changes I’ve made are a result of moving to the latest version of the service.

A couple of features have been lost in the new version. The overview map that used to appear in the bottom-right corner has disappeared, as have the grey markers that used to mark other group events. I may reinstate the latter when I work out how to do it, but I’m not sure anybody notices them anyway. What’s more important is two exciting new features that I’ve been able to add…

The first is Google Street View. Click on the orange “peg man” that appears to the left of each map and drag him onto any street on the map. You’re rewarded with a photographic reconstruction of the street in question that you can explore at your leisure. Google’s efforts to photograph the whole country might be controversial, but there’s no denying it’s a brilliant way to get a sneak preview of where you’ll be staying/walking!

The second is the addition of driving directions below each map. Type in where you’re starting from (I suggest using your postcode), click the “Show” button, and you get turn-by-turn instructions on how to get to the event. The route’s marked on the map too. It’ll tell you how to go all the way to Ratagan if you ask it to! Try the street view there too.

If you’re looking at our maps and not seeing any of the changes outlined above, you’re probably using a really old web browser called Internet Explorer 6. The latest version of Google Maps doesn’t work with IE6, so you’ll still get the old version. You might want to consider upgrading to something more up-to-date.

So, have a play, and let me know if you encounter any problems.

When I was setting up our Twitter account last year, I thought it would be good to post an update whenever the weather forecast on an upcoming event changed. It’d give some extra publicity to events in the week when they occurred, and the irregular intervals between messages would make them more interesting.

Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. What I didn’t realise is just how often the forecasts changed – meaning the feed is swamped with messages that the temperature is one degree higher or lower, or the outlook has changed from sunny with showers to showery with sunny spells.

So it’s all changed! The system now checks the programme every morning, and tweets about any events happening on the following day or in 7 days time. It also checks for the date when advance payments are due and reports them too – so you have a reminder to send Dave your cheques!

Another twittering problem has been with slideshows. It’s supposed to tweet whenever a show is added or when new pictures are added to an existing show. The problem is, now that all the pictures are hosted on Flickr, their search facility is not 100% reliable. Sometimes they give the wrong number of pictures for a particular show – leading to spurious “new picture” notifications.

So, with regret, I’ve changed the system to only report when a whole new show is added. If pictures are added subsequently, I’ll report it with a manually added tweet.

Now that we have a more useful Twitter feed, how can you use it in a way that suits you? Originally, when I was designing this part of the site, I was going to have my own “What’s New?” change notification feature. The reason I chose to route those notifications through Twitter instead is to make use of all the ways a Twitter stream can be read, without needing any extra work. So here are a few ways to keep up-to-date:

Join Twitter yourself (it’s free) and follow our feed. You can do so either through the Twitter website, or via a range of client programs.

If you’d rather get an email sent to you instead, you can sign up with a service like TweetByMail to mail our tweets to you when they happen.

If you use a news reader to keep track of blogs, there’s an RSS version of our Twitter feed that you can subscribe to.

Finally, and most simply, you can keep an eye on the Twitter box on the home page of this site, or click the link at the bottom of each page.

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?