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If you haven't checked out our Archives project pages yet, you need to. Thanks to many people, but mostly Ed and Kathleen (so far) we have dozens of great old photographs to practice on or use for spare parts. And there's more just about every day.
One of my next 'improvements' to this site will be changing how Archive entries are handled. Currently they're simply emailed to me, which is fine, but wastes steps and doesn't allow for feedback (keep reading).
The software I'm looking at will replace the current Archives pages, much as this new forum software replaced the old message board. It will allow direct upload to the website, bypassing my emailbox completely. This will offer two major advantages:
1. It will remove the current size restraint
2. (the biggee) It will allow username, descriptions, keywords, and other information to be entered at the time of upload, as well as categories. A volunteer archivist (initially me) would add to these keywords and keep things straightened and categorized.
This second item is important. Imagine some date in the future when we have several hundred (thousand?) Archive items. You need a dress to replace a damaged area on a portrait. You go to the Archive, type in "dress", and viola! All the pictures that have 'dress' in the description or keywords. Plus you'll see who submitted it, and whatever backstory they chose to share. Click on the thumbnail, and the full-sized version downloads to your browser.
There's a lot more features, but there's no point in going on about them now. The bad news it's not freeware. In fact it costs more than this forum software did (I still can't figure that one out). So it will be on my wishlist awaiting donations and book sale commissions.
One of my next 'improvements' to this site will be changing how Archive entries are handled. Currently they're simply emailed to me, which is fine, but wastes steps and doesn't allow for feedback (keep reading).
The software I'm looking at will replace the current Archives pages, much as this new forum software replaced the old message board. It will allow direct upload to the website, bypassing my emailbox completely. This will offer two major advantages:
1. It will remove the current size restraint
2. (the biggee) It will allow username, descriptions, keywords, and other information to be entered at the time of upload, as well as categories. A volunteer archivist (initially me) would add to these keywords and keep things straightened and categorized.
This second item is important. Imagine some date in the future when we have several hundred (thousand?) Archive items. You need a dress to replace a damaged area on a portrait. You go to the Archive, type in "dress", and viola! All the pictures that have 'dress' in the description or keywords. Plus you'll see who submitted it, and whatever backstory they chose to share. Click on the thumbnail, and the full-sized version downloads to your browser.
There's a lot more features, but there's no point in going on about them now. The bad news it's not freeware. In fact it costs more than this forum software did (I still can't figure that one out). So it will be on my wishlist awaiting donations and book sale commissions.
