Ask a Question, and Media, on the main toolbar

That Ask a Question thing is lame on the main toolbar. It has such prominence of place, yet does so little, being limited to a search of thread titles, with no parameters. You know what great information there is in thread titles. Can it at least call the regular search routine?

Do we expect to be storing media (which seems to only mean videos, and categories, a mysterious term if there ever was one)? Does that button have to be on that bar? I'm pretty sure the answer is yes to that, but again, it has such visibility and does nothing that interests us. I can't even think what to suggest to make it useful, except if we had the ability to browse all the uploaded photos and could access them from there.

 

"Ask A Question" is meant to be a quick-search, nothing more. It is meant for people not familiar with the forums.

I haven't dived into Media yet to show examples of its potential. It is more like image-sharing / video-sharing. The only reason it does nothing is because no one (including me) has figured it out yet. Lower priority than resolving other issues.

 

Now that I see that the description is not quite accurate, I'm a lot happier with it. I searched yellow flowers, and among the results were these titles:

Trying to identify plants from Rivers Inlet, BC
The Queen's plants
Artificial 'plants' could fuel the future
​

So I withdraw the comment, but can the tag line be changed to "Search forum postings"?
I see, though, that the Ask a Question search for "what plants have yellow flowers?" returns one page of results, while the Search box search for the same text returns 10 pages. I'm backpedalling on withdrawing my objection. It still gives no indication that there are another nine pages of hits that you didn't get. The results aren't the newest postings or anything. I still think it's more discouraging than encouraging for new people.

Maybe the tag line should be:
"Try out a search for a sample of forums content; get more results via the Search ... box"

My media comment was based more on the assumption that we don't really want to encourage posting of videos, do we?

 

It is a quick-search, nothing more. Power searchers can (and will) find the search functionality (and find it more useful).

And what is wrong with videos of grafting? or pruning? or sowing seeds? or characteristics to look for with identification?

 

Fine. I changed the Where is my post? text to suggest not using that.

Sounds good. I should find Douglas's video for VCBF of how to plant a cherry tree.

 

My first thought when I saw Ask A Question was it's a link to a helpline. I think it would be better to simply remove it to avoid confusion. Perhaps it could be converted for use in accessing HortLine personnel.

Is what's already there fully functional or does it require the installation of the Media Gallery add-in? I'm wondering if it's okay to try the things under Media just to see what it can be used for.

 

Yes, I think so. I don't know if I have all of the permissions set correctly, but give it a whirl.

 

I have permission from the festival to post Douglas's video on how to plant a cherry tree, but it's 71.5mb, and the limit is now 50mb. Could you raise the limit (or my limit - smiley would go here)?

 

Done, bumped it up for all people in the Supporter Usergroup. (video uploads aren't permitted for newly Registered or Verified Members)

 

I am hoping to do screen videos for some of the help resources. I guess that's where I would store them instead of putting them on some external site.
It will be a while. First I have to figure out how to get the video display - I got a recording with sound but no picture. Then I need to find someone with a better voice to narrate them.

I had a long wait to go to a new page on a new tab while my video is uploading (saying Waiting for UBC Botanical Garden, or whatever that message is, so the site, not my computer). But I opened a different browser and it seems to be ok.

 

Are the groups and their permissions listed somewhere (and I just forget where)? Is that the same as the Rising Contributor category, or is that something else? I could document both in Resources.

 

It failed the first time, so I started it again, stayed off the computer, watched it go to 100%, and then it failed again. An mp4 file, on the list as allowable. I just watched it on my computer before uploading it, but I don't have it open. The message didn't say anything more than Upload failed. I was using Firefox; will try Edge.

 

In Edge, I can't type in the Add Tags area, whether or not I have the box ticked. I can type in the other two areas (but don't want the same filename or description on every video).
Long wait to get back to my draft here: waiting for forums.botanicalgarden ..., but Junglekeeper's videos were already uploaded, so it should not have been that.

That upload failed too, but I got the screen print this time. Security error. Maybe it's personal.


I'm away from home now till around midnight.

 

Navigation still very slow.

I went to see what Junglekeeper had uploaded, clicked the Media button, and it says No media has been added yet. But on the left, it shows that Junglekeeper has uploaded two media files. That's confusing at best. The highlighted thing on the left says Media Index, so it should not be reporting on my media. I really am leaving now.

 

No, they are not, and I don't have everything sorted out yet it seems as I am still finding issues with them along the way.

The issue is likely a server configuration one: there are a number of steps in the chain to permit large upload files; the scripting language has an upper limit (because large files chew resources) as does the forums software itself. I didn't change the scripting language's parameters, that's probably the fault. However, large files aren't really that sustainable in the long-run anyway.

 

So I took it out for a spin. Off the top of my head, an album could be used for:

• Tracking the progress of an individual plant as it grows;
• Exhibiting a plant collection;
• Grouping a series of How-To videos.

I've created an album and placed a few images and embedded videos into it. Have a look if you like. It's currently set as private but you should be able to look at it with your moderator privileges. Here is a post with a few items from the album.

@Daniel Mosquin
What is the reason for restricting the deletion of media items in an album? It's currently set at 90 min after addition.

 

I can't see it. That probably answers my question about the discrepancy on the page in the two areas (post #14).
Why make it private, even for testing? Unless you don't really want to have such an album and want it deleted.

 

No good reason, though it did help me to figure something else out (I think). What is the edit time now?

 

Can you see the images and video in the post? I wanted to know if they can be displayed even though the album is private.

 

There shouldn't be a restriction for private albums. There doesn't appear to be a restriction on editing; I just successfully updated a couple items.

 

Are you asking me? I can't see anything, just get the confusing message on your profile that you have 5 media albums but the media and albums pages both say haven't created any albums:


@Daniel Mosquin, I would like to suggest that media and albums not be allowed to be private, if that's possible. There is no reason for this to be a photo storage site, a version of flickr or whatever, and it doesn't seem right to have system resources devoted to photo and video uploading that is not of any benefit to the site's users. That would do away with the confusing messages too.

 

Can you see two items following this?

Bamboo1 by Junglekeeper posted Oct 26, 2015 at 3:13 PM

Pollination and Fertilization - YouTube by Junglekeeper posted Oct 26, 2015 at 7:26 PM

 

You do have a valid point and it may well justify not allowing private albums. However a private album could be used as a staging area in which media is prepped before being moved to their final destination.

 

As noted somewhere on the Xenforo forums, "You can post a pic link from your private album if you post the direct url though". Not sure what the advantage of that over Flickr or Picasa is.

So, I can eliminate these permissions, sure -- maybe once Junglekeeper cleans out his private album!

 

I can see links, but when I click them, I get an error saying I don't have permission to see them.