fanhost's pages on people

[wannabe]

Wow, first thread!

This might technically be the wrong place to ask, but here goes:

I decided to check out your main page, since it only just occurred to me (after 6 months) that you might have one, and that you might have information about my favorite subject, or a list of links, or whatever.

Typing "Lacey" into the search bar, I got Lacey as a result, and was surprised she had no picture! No links to her fansites either, so I added what little I had that I knew, but now I'm listed as the sysop of four websites that I have no control over, and there are indications that these links are going to up and disappear sooner rather than later.

I couldn't find a way to put in a picture for the profile page where all this stuff was, and there doesn't appear to be a way to edit much of anything. However, you DO have a bunch of pictures, and there are hundreds of pics in the forum that could potentially be added if there's some way to do that, but the point is, with so many pics on the site, why doesn't her profile have one?

So that's three problems right there: no pic for Lacey's profile, the links I added attributed me as their owner when I'm not, and the links I added implied I would need to perform some verification step or they'd go away and they need to NOT go away.

link to the page in question:
http://www.fanhost.com/subjects/lacey-chabert

[open32]

Wow, first thread!

Ya, some parts of the new system is only about 2 days old (I dont know to much about it). That could also be the reason for the lack of a profile photo, not everyone even has a profile yet. We cant edit those pages or create profiles.

Its mostly for fans to be able to create and host there own website on fanhost, it includes a website builder for anyone who registers to build one. Webmasters can also list there own sites and create RSS feeds (im not sure if unverified ones will disappear from the list).

[mileycyrusforever]

You really need to do a good layout for our site! Look at mine! www.mileycyruweb.fanhost.net

[teenhollywood]

Originally Posted by wannabe

Wow, first thread!

Great, I was wondering if I had messed up when I set up the forum. No one was asking questions!! :-)

Originally Posted by wannabe

I decided to check out your main page, since it only just occurred to me (after 6 months) that you might have one, and that you might have information about my favorite subject, or a list of links, or whatever.

Nice timing. Actually, after months of work, I just pushed a new version of FanHost live about a week ago. The main focus was building a fan site directory and fan site hosting platform. The "people" profile pages were more of a last minute addition, so they didn't get the full attention they deserve in terms of features.

It is on the "to do" list to add a feature that allows picture uploading, both for the profile picture for each person as well as for the main pictures section. It's coming soon.

For now, if you have a specific picture that you want to suggest as the profile picture, please send me a link to the picture and I'll put it up!

Originally Posted by wannabe

No links to her fansites either, so I added what little I had that I knew, but now I'm listed as the sysop of four websites that I have no control over, and there are indications that these links are going to up and disappear sooner rather than later.

Hmm, that's a bug. I'll fix it in the next code push in a few days. The whole point of the "verification" process is to only list you as a webmaster if you complete the full verification process.

Just like you did, it's definitely okay (and encouraged) to add sites to the directory even if you don't control them.... but it shouldn't list you as the webmaster.

Thanks for noticing & for pointing it out! I'll get that fixed.

[cheekiblossom]

Hi, can you please create many different templates? Like a lot? Otherwise everyone is going to have the same looking website with only minor changes. Please?

[wannabe]

First choice
http://lacey-chabert.us/gallery/disp...lbum=97&pos=54

Second choice
http://lacey-chabert.us/gallery/disp...lbum=241&pos=2

[wannabe]

A few more notes of note:

On the main page, where you have your top 10 fansites, this appears to simply be an alphabetical list. If it is this way because no one has ranked any sites, then it needs to be possible to do so, and you may want to try drawing some attention from the forum to the front page to get people to look for their persons of choice and rate their fansites.

I went ahead and created a fansite and added some content, and I have a few observations.

Picture order needs to be editable within an album.

Poll order should also be editable - what I'm mostly concerned about is that the poll I created second is the only one appearing without a lot of digging, and I'd like the first one to be the one appearing, without having to delete it and re-post it.

I didn't upload any videos, but I imagine they will be organized the same way pictures are, and therefore need to have their position in the album be adjustable.

The number of pictures (and videos) displayed on the home page needs to be editable, as does their configuration. Frex, I'd like to make it 3 pictures, in a single column, to give the text more room.

The number and arrangement of pictures (and videos?) in the pictures tab also needs to be adjustable. Currently, it appears that 10 pictures are displayed in a 4x3 arrangement, which I find an odd choice. Considering the size of my chosen background, I'd like to be able to display more than that.

The background picture is pretty much completely obscured by the content area. I went to a lot of trouble to figure out how to fade that picture so it wouldn't obscure text, and it's practically impossible to see it with a great big white rectangle over it. Also, I'd like - whenever possible - for the whole thing to be displayed.

I don't know thing 1 about CSS, and my HTML couldn't possibly produce the current look and feel. If it was possible to edit the template to make small changes, I might be able to figure that out, but as it is, it looks like it's either accept what's there or write everything yourself from scratch.

The timestamps for posts needs to be adjustable to local timezones.

I couldn't click on my posted post to see if there was a time stamp - it kept failing and claiming it was sending an error message to someone who would fix it. No telling if it will get lost in clutter or not.

Added: It's been an hour or so since it was created, and it hasn't shown up on the front page yet, near as I can tell. Am I misunderstanding something?

site link for your convenience:
http://laceychabert.fanhost.net/

Thanks

[teenhollywood]

Originally Posted by wannabe

A few more notes of note:

Thanks for your comments. You're right on - these are exactly the features we plan to implement. The platform is brand new and with any early software, there are a lot of improvements and bug fixes to be made. I understand that you want it to do more appreciate your patience as we develop the features and fix bugs. I'm not sure why the "view article" page on your site is erroring -for now I can suggest that you delete and re-add the story to see if that fixes the problem for now.

Our plan is also to provide many templates where you can simply choose from them and it will greatly change the look & feel of your site - no CSS knowledge required. The CSS option is just there for those who wish to use it, as it does allow extreme customization of the site without needing to edit the HTML.

Lets start with this. To make your background image show through the content area, go into the "Look & Feel" section, "CSS Editor", and paste this code into the editor and then save it:

#content {
	background: transparent;
	border: 0;
}

[wannabe]

That didn't work. Are you able to go into it to admin it, or should I add you to the list of admins? Suggesting that to head off the inevitable "did you copy and paste exactly" questions.

Also, I added another site to your list, which I labeled as "lacey web" before I realized they'd made substantial changes to the site just recently. I found the place to change what I wrote to describe it, but it won't let me change it. It's greying out the URL so I can't edit it (not that it was wrong) and when I say SAVE, it insists I have to fill in this line, which is now blank, but still greyed out.

I tried to change it to:

"This site disappeared for a while, but it's back with a new layout, tons of old and recent pictures, and lots of video clips, plus a couple games and the infamous 'Six Degrees of Lacey'."

And, of course, it lists me as the admin for it, which I'm not.

[teenhollywood]

Originally Posted by wannabe

That didn't work.

Yet another bug. Fun. I've fixed it so it should be working now on your site.

Originally Posted by wannabe

Also, I added another site to your list, which I labeled as "lacey web" before I realized they'd made substantial changes to the site just recently. I found the place to change what I wrote to describe it, but it won't let me change it. It's greying out the URL so I can't edit it (not that it was wrong) and when I say SAVE, it insists I have to fill in this line, which is now blank, but still greyed out.

Please try again now - this should be fixed.

[wannabe]

Okay, the background now appears the way I wanted it to, thanks!

2. I can't edit the "lacey web" information as I am no longer listed as the admin, so you'll have to do it.

3. Would it be possible to edit the creation date that's displayed, to Sept 30, as that's what day it was where and when I did it? The date has significance is the only reason I ask. If it's something that would require a lot of grief, then I'll just have to live with it.

I stopped by again this soon for a couple feature requests that I just thought of.

4. a hit counter (or the option to have one) that everyone can see, or that just the admin can see.

4a. I'm not aware of this having been done before, but is it possible for there to be a setting to disclude hits by the administrator of the site? I reckon I make up practically all the hits with my testing over the past day or so. (I'd kill for such a setting on MY website, as I make up about 10-20% of the hits, if not more, due to checking and correcting.) I realize this is probably a novel feature, but if you have access to the programmer, it shouldn't be difficult to throw in a check against the list of the page's admins and not count them if the option is selected.

5. Assuming you can implement something to see who's logged in, whether they're a site admin, could you also display an "edit this site" link somewhere handy that will otherwise not interfere with the way the site looks to normal users? That is, the only difference between what an admin sees and what a regular user sees is that one button/link. I set the Fanhost banner to small (it doesn't turn off, like it says it does); the large fanhost banner does have a button like this. I suppose it would be best to put the button in the small banner.

6. I'm not sure if the 5-star rating system is doing anything. My idle hands clicked on a rating, but it doesn't stay there after page refreshes. Also, there's a box below that which says my site is the #1 channel, but it's not clear what this really means, or what other sites are in the running to compare this to. #1 of 1 isn't as cool as #1 of 1000. I'm also not sure if the stars or the #1 rating have anything to do with each other, or with the top ten sites listed on the fanhost frontpage, as these sites haven't changed.