Suggestion for the new Quilt Gallery

[Caroline A.]

I know change is necessary at times, but I must say the old site was much easier to use. I liked being able to go into Show and Tell get to each category easily. They were all in one place. To tell you the truth, having been a TQS member since the beginning, I now spent much less time on the site. Not worth the frustration. Sort of like getting around to Facebook. I read the forum, and maybe the Daily Blog, and that's all. Most of the time I use my android tablet and the feature that lets me enlarge a page no longer works. This was nice when I wanted to see something close up, such as a quilt.
Fi

Please hang in there - I am here as Captain John's and Webmaster Bob's "ears" in the forum to hear what members want. Updates are being made every few days based on suggestions, if they are doable. I am exploring the different features and will try to help everyone learn and make the best use of them.

I know change is frustrating, but had the old site crashed, everything would have been lost, which is why the new site was built. We really appreciate everyone's input and patience!

hugs,

Kathy

[Nancy R.]

Ok, I'll let Bob know you want the Award Category added in the Gallery.

I just went into the 2014 BOM Group and added a test photo for the December Album. After you upload the photo, you can edit the description box below the photo. It does not have the "category" features as in the Quilt Gallery section, but you can type in any info you want below the photo. Below that is an area for anyone to add comments as well.

The Group also allows discussions, not just photos and albums. When you click on a group, the wall is the default screen where you will see the most recent activity. Click on DISCUSSIONS to see various topics. Go take a look and let me know what you think.
Here's a quick link to the 2014 BOM Group: http://thequiltshow.com/community/groups/viewgroup/100007-2014-tqs-bom


thanks,

Kathy

We've been using the groups and the discussions for both mug rugs and the Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt. There are a couple of problems with this. The only way I've found to update the description for a photo is to go into the album and click on the picture to get you to what looks like a slide show with the picture you selected as the current picture. Under the picture is the description and, if you have permissions, you can change this text here. However, it's unintuitive how to save your changes -- if this is the proper way to do it then there should be "Save" and "Cancel" buttons so you can see how to save your changes and so you don't have to save them if you screwed up. Currently there are no buttons, but when I've clicked "Back to Album" and have then hovered over the picture, then 80-90% of the time, the change has been made. That's the next problem. This doesn't work all the time. When it doesn't work, I've found that I can shift the position of the photo in the album and try again, and that usually works. That's a bug that needs to be fixed. Also, the text limit is very short. I've already run into it multiple times. It looks like the photos that were copied from the gallery have longer descriptions, but we don't have much space for typing our new ones.

Then there's the question of permissions. I can modify the photo descriptions for my personal albums and for the Bonnie Hunter week 1 photos (I created that group and that album), but I can't modify the descriptions for the photos in the mug rug album. When I put the mouse over the description to try to change it, my mouse changes to a red circle with a slash through it indicating that I don't have permissions and, indeed, I can't click in the description to change it. I don't know if this is a permission problem that either the group administrator or the album creator can change so don't know if it's a problem. It looks like at least one other person was able to change the description of their photo in the Bonnie Hunter album so I suspect it's a permissions problem with the mug rug album but I can't fix that for the group.

[Janet K.]

I am going to stay away from any galleries for now. I am so sad and frustrated, I used to love looking at show and tell, and the BOM photos. I am longing for the old site. Things are getting more and more complicated! Janet

PS it is disappointing to learn that Kathy is not familiar with the old forum!

[Robin G.]

Kathy, thank you for passing on our concern about the award information. I eagerly await it's return!
I've just gone to look at the group you set up for the 2014 BOM, and I have to completely agree with Renata's comments. The way this is structured now, I will not be using this "feature." Although I haven't actually done many of the BOMs (well, actually none, but I've started 2 of them ops: ), I hope to someday. On the old site, I always checked the new photos to see what everyone was doing and get inspiration. I sometimes even made comments and sometimes that resulted in email conversations with the person who had posted the photo. The Show & Tell under See Quilts is even worse. Worthless, really. I understand the concerns about the site the way Bob had put it together over the years (and the fears about having the whole thing crash), but I have to say he was brilliant at what he does. We've been very lucky to have him all this time, and I just hope he'll be able to work with the new structure to incorporate some of the features we liked best in the old site.

[Robin G.]

I am going to stay away from any galleries for now. I am so sad and frustrated, I used to love looking at show and tell, and the BOM photos. I am longing for the old site. Things are getting more and more complicated! Janet

PS it is disappointing to learn that Kathy is not familiar with the old forum!

John may give me access to the old site to see what it was like. But, I can see what the problems are with the new galleries and know it needs improvement. John wants this site to be user-friendly and we will work to make it the best it can be. Your patience is appreciated while we prioritize all the fixes.

Kathy

[Jill B.]

I know change is necessary at times, but I must say the old site was much easier to use. I liked being able to go into Show and Tell get to each category easily. They were all in one place. To tell you the truth, having been a TQS member since the beginning, I now spent much less time on the site. Not worth the frustration. Sort of like getting around to Facebook. I read the forum, and maybe the Daily Blog, and that's all. Most of the time I use my android tablet and the feature that lets me enlarge a page no longer works. This was nice when I wanted to see something close up, such as a quilt.
Fi

I agree this seems to be harder to use by taking to long to get to what you want.

[Sherry B.]

I use an Android tablet too and after reading Fi's comments, I checked and can't enlarge either.

[Sherry B.]

Well, I was just reading the four and tapping on the right hand bottom corner of my MacBook air and it made the posts larger--hmmm... didn't know it could do that. Now, if I can only remember that.