wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Uploading may now begin
G. Donald Bain 2004-Dec-22 02:10:00
I hope everyone had an enjoyable and productive time shooting for the
World Wide Panorama over the last five days.
The upload server is now ready. The deadline for submissions will be
Wednesday, December 29, a week from now.
We are very grateful to Markus Altendorff for his brilliant work in
programming this upload and editing process. In preliminary trials it
has worked very well. It was designed to allow you, the participants,
to more easily upload and edit your own entries, and allow us, the
organizers, to spend more time promoting VR photography and taking our
own pictures. The application is very powerful, but should be fairly
simple for you to use.
The information below is also on the WWP site:
http://geoimages.berkeley.edu/wwp/Practical/UploadEdit.html
The WWP Application runs on a development server. This server is
different from the final one which hosts the World Wide Panorama web
sites. The application runs in PHP with a MySQL database and allows
editing only during the production period - from shortly after the
close of shooting, until we publicly release the site. When the event
is deemed complete the WWP Application will export all of the web pages
as a static site to be copied over to the GeoImages server which hosts
the public site. This is done because the pages will not be changing
once the event is closed and a static site is easier on the server and
easy to back-up.
NEW THINGS
With this new WWP Application are a couple of new things that we're
pretty excited about.
? First of all, there will be a 'Photographer Profile' page. You will
have a separate page linked to all of your WWP entries (including
thumbnails) where we would like to encourage you to upload a picture of
yourself, a biography, and links to your website.
? Another addition is a comprehensive listing of all participants
throughout the history of the World Wide Panorama. Everybody who's
submitted something, even if for one event, will be listed on the 'All
Participants' list.
? The maps that Markus built for the Bridges WWP event will continue.
They are automatically generated when you enter your geographic
coordinates. Multimap (http://www.multimap.com) is a good place to
find approximate geographic coordinates if you didn't use a GPS or a
map when you did the photography. The maps will also be added to the
first two World Wide Panoramas as well (if you find your coordinates to
be incorrect on any of these already published events, please email the
WWP admins with a correction - #removed#).
? The captions have now been moved below the panorama. This will make
sure that the panoramas will show up in the same place every time no
matter how much text you put in your caption.
? There is now the ability to add an extra page or more of text should
you desire it. There will be links for a 'Behind the Scenes' story of
the shoot and/or links for captions in alternate languages. How you
use this feature is up to you.
HOW TO GET STARTED
GETTING AN ACCOUNT
How you get started depends on whether you've participated before or
not. If you have already participated in the World Wide Panorama, all
of your information has been transferred to the new database and an
account has been set up for you. Please send an email to the WWP
admins (#removed#) with a desired password (you can
change at any time) and one of us (Markus, Landis or Don) will get you
started.
If you have not participated in a WWP before, but are ready to
contribute to the current event, send an email to the WWP admins
(#removed#) with a bit more information. We'll need:
? Your full name as it will be listed (e.g., Landis Bennett)
? Your family name as it is sorted alphabetically (e.g., Bennett)
? Your contact email address - we won't make this one public.
We'll send you an email with the server URL and your new user name and
password in order to get started.
LOGGING ON AND EDITING YOUR PROFILE INFORMATION
When you receive the email with your login information it will send you
to the opening page of the WWP Preparation Server (we call it
'Equinox'). There are two links there, one marked 'Edit', one marked
'View'. The 'Edit' link will allow you to do everything you need to
upload your textual information and your VR's.
Click 'Edit' and you will be asked for your user name and password.
Then it will take you to the new 'All Participants' list. Find your
name and click on it to see your own 'Photographer Profiile' page.
This is the place where you will edit your personal information that
carries over from event to event as well as where you go to 'join' an
open event (like the current Sanctuary event).
If this is not your first time participating in the World Wide Panorama
some of your information will already be filled in for you. Your
company website and links as well as your public email address are
specified on this screen. You will also see thumbnails with links to
your previous contributions under the 'Contributions' heading.
There are numerous green boxes with the word 'Edit' or 'Join this
Event'. This is how you can change or add your information. For
example, you should add some information about yourself (your
biography) below your picture where it says '(enter descriptive text
here)'. You add your picture by clicking the 'Edit' box underneath the
picture. All of these buttons will pop up with a text box and a little
more direction.
Add your picture, edit/fill in your company name, add a biography,
edit/fill in the URL to your company website, edit/add your public
email address. Make sure you use the gray box at the bottom to change
your password to something easier for you to remember. You may also
change your non-public contact email address if you need to.
All of this information applies to every World Wide Panorama event.
Once the web site is finished and transferred to the server, the
previous events may be updated with your personal information as well.
This means that if you change your email address or website URL, all of
the previous events (the Original WWP, World Heritage, and Bridges)
will be updated with that new information.
JOINING AN EVENT
Now that you've filled in all of your personal information it's times
to join the current World Wide Panorama event. You'll see a gray line
under 'Contributions' that says 'No participation in wwp1204:
Sanctuary' followed by a green box marked 'Join This Event'. Click on
that box.
A place holder is created for a new thumbnail and a link is created for
your contribution. Follow that link to a page that will let you enter
all of the specific information for your entry as well as allow you to
upload your files.
You can enter all your data one field at a time by clicking each green
'Edit' button, but there's an easier way. At the top is a gray box
with a link in it that reads 'all-in-one text editing page'. Click
that to get a page that will allow you to fill in all the information
at once. Fill in all the text boxes with the appropriate information
(skipping the upload of the panorama(s) until last). Be sure not to
miss the information in the gray box at the bottom including the
'Geographic Region' and the 'Size of Panorama Display'.
Once you finish filling that out, click the 'Send Data' button at the
bottom. This will take you to a new page with links to other pages for
you to edit. You'll want to select the first one -
'Go to the panorama page' in order to upload your panoramas.
A gray box exists where the panorama belongs. It has 'No QuickTime
movie available' in big red text. Above that are two green buttons:
'Edit Small Panorama' and 'Edit Fullscreen Panorama'. Click on one of
those and follow the instructions to upload your panoramas.
That's all there is to it. While we are in the open submission stage
you can edit your information any time, including changing the QTVR
files, coordinates, and any text.
NOTES
When new information is added or changed, the WWP Application will set
your entry to be approved by Markus, Landis, or Don. Until it is
approved, it is taken off line from the preview site. This is to avoid
any problems that might arise from information being improperly edited.
We will most likely be routinely approving these entries on at least a
daily basis. Until it's been approved, you will still have access to
all of the information and can see it and edit it at any time.
The thumbnails are still created by with a script that is run under
direct supervision by one of the admins. It is not automatic. We will
most likely do this once most of the files have been uploaded. Until
that happens, there will be empty boxes where the thumbnail images
belong. This is to be expected, please don't alert us to the missing
file.
Any questions specific to your account should be addressed to the WWP
admin email address at #removed# Any general
questions can be referred to either this address or the
#removed# mailing list.