Alex Harries's diary

I've just been pressured into signing up for a facebook account. I'm trying to figure out if I can add more than one e-mail address to the same account as I've had a few invites to a few different e-mail addresses, and until now I've avoided signing up thanks to the "MySpace effect" (or, for the uninitiated, "let's all get ourselves a free but really crap-looking* webpage with Rupert Murdoch's advertising all over it which forces everyone in the world to register for an account just so they can read my really boring blog entries and find out just what a sad-case I am**").

* Yes, I know some MySpace pages look very pretty, but they're definitely in the minority.

** ... and yes, I've spotted the irony in that statement, coming from someone who writes a blog about his work pushing pixels around a website without seeming to actually *do* anything at all. Ever...

So, anyway, I have a Facebook account. Now all I have to do is figure out how, if it's at all possible, we can (a) integrate it into peoples' profiles (have a "my Facebook name" field? An optional "my latest Facebook news" feed on peoples' profile pages? Or...?), and (b) (assuming it turns out to be worth the hype, which it might just be...), to find a way of dropping some hints into UPSU.net about how cool it is, especially since it's aimed squarely at the more transient student communities (and rightly so).

"What I Dun This Crimbo" 

While I'm working that all out (ok, so I'll probably forget about it for a month or so and then come back and rush into it instead), have I mentioned some of the other things I've been fiddling with over Christmas? No? Open wide and say "ahh" then...

• Introduced an "account dashboard" kinda thing - sign in and go to upsu.net/profile to see a summary of your account.
  
  This was the first step in my plan to start creating a coherent, navigable set of webpages which "belong" to each member and is one of the many (currently around 30) tools I've created in the "UPSU Toolbox" - my attempt at a collection of toys to add a whole load of functionality to UPSU, including the beginnings of the tag search system.
  
  
• Changed the way peoples' profiles are found -they're now at upsu.net/people/<username> instead of upsu.net/community/members/<member ID>.htm - much more Google-able.
  
  
• Changed, added and generally hacked about with the URL rewriting system (an endless job, I think...), while simultaneously introducing a stripped-down template layout (not entirely dissimilar in design principles to Flickr's layout if I must be honest) and re-writing a lot of the profile handler code to make everything look vaguely familiar, if not quite uniformly laid out, for example the profile pages, profile picture pages, photo upload pages, and so on.
  
  This means it should be a lot easier to navigate around peoples' profiles, with URLs like "upsu.net/people/alexh" for my main profile, "upsu.net/alexh/picture" to see my photo in full size (not that anyone in their right mind ought to be doing that - it's like one of the less pretty scenes from Deliverance, I'm told...), "upsu.net/people/alexh/blogs" to see my blog entries (although I haven't done that bit yet as it's part of the profile handler re-write, mentioned below...), and so on...
  
  
• Spent an inordinate amount of time separating out what information people maintain for their account (private information - name, address,in...
  
  About 1079 more words in this entry

I'm mainly working on the NUS registration system (which is the process you go through to sign up for an NUS card and/or account on UPSU.net) at the moment, but having fried my brain a bit last night working on endless far-from-standard user flow/interaction diagrams (and having had a visit from Portsmouth's enterprising social underclass to give me a sleepless night*), I decided to tie up a couple more loose-ends on the site today.

One thing that's been bugging me for a while has been the pathway - a "breadcrumb" trail of links which live on the left of the grey bar at the top of the screen - which should let you step backwards from where you are in the site towards the homepage. Because of the way we've organised the site, the pathway system has always missed off at least one or two links, making it fairly useless in finding out where you are.

Having a look around Cambridge Students' Union's new website last night (and I must say I'm impressed with how well-written and robust their system looks, although functionally it looks a bit young yet - not as many bells and whistles, but I'm sure that will come in time) and one of the very prominent features of the site is their bread-crumb navigation system. So, having seen that, it reminded me that our pathway needs a bit of a clean-up (no particular pun intended).

After today's work, we now have a link back to the top of the major section you're in; previously, you would normally find only a link to the page you're on and a link to the homepage.

The galleries, blogs, and forums also have a little more transparency in their taxonomy - the pathway includes more logical links now, and our custom SEF URL system is better represented - the page "www.upsu.net/getinvolved/clubs/netball" now shows "upsu.net >> get involved >> clubs >> netball home" in the pathway, instead of "home >> netball" as (I think) it did before.

In fact, the pathway work on the blogs is the most important part for me, and ties nicely in to my finishing off the SEF URL system for the blogs today, which means that the pathway is now a lot more indicative of where you are in the blogs system now, e.g. "upsu.net >> diaries >> alexh >> 2006 >> 06 >> 01" - all of which are working links which actually work and everything...! (I think I'm getting a little over-enthusiastic about the little things here...).

Additionally, you can now type in, for example, www.upsu.net/blogs/joebloggs/2006/04/13 to see all entries on April 13th 2006 by member "joebloggs", or www.upsu.net/blogs/joebloggs/2006/04 to see everything of his in April.

These two (badly-explained, and probably badly-coded) features are major strengths compared to many other blogging platforms and websites in general (although we weren't intending to beat anyone, particularly - I just wanted to make sure our system works as well as possible). I'll probably cover these changes more in the future once I have a chance to really bug-test it all (it's in, it works, it's bug tested and coded as well as I know how, but that's no guarantee of service now, is it? ;o) ).

I'm off to get some dinner - I'm the only one left in the Sabb office (everyone went home 3 hours ago) and I've been here since 8am. I need a shower and a pint!

* Yup, the username "project" on that website is one of my alter-egos, and as I mentioned on the right there --> I'm an occasional spanner monkey in my spare time ;o)

More boring non-news from the coal-face at the heart of the UPSU website. Or something...

First up, our SEF URL system - which lets us use URLs like "www.upsu.net/sociallife" instead of "www.upsu.net/index.php?option= com_content &task=view&Itemid= 123&id=blahblahblah... - has been fairly extensively hacked about, so we can now create pages with whatever URL we like, on the fly, and we can also go back and change the URL of existing pages.

So now there's a list of about 200 redirects (where you type in one URL, e.g. upsu.net/clubs, and you arrive at another page, e.g. upsu.net/comtent/view/212/121) on the server which need to be converted into the new style URLs - i.e. where the page is actually at the URL you typed in, and not some obscure, generic URL that you probably won't remember. One of the first mini-sites to fully use this system is the Graduation Ball collection of pages - the next thing to concentrate on are the club and society homepages.

Hopefully it'll make the location of pages around the site easier to remember...

T'other thing I've been tweaking is another addition to our content editing system; a "Custom CSS" field, which lets content editors add their own CSS definitions to the page, inside the <head></head> tags. This means we can start using more standardised CSS - instead of the current trend to make use of inline styles. However, it's not a "proper" CSS implementation as the definitions are still loaded in the page instead of from a separate - cacheable - .css file. That's coming next... Maybe... (Watch out for the next instalment in this blog - "How I broke UPSU.net in two easy steps"... Ahem...).

After a meeting yesterday, I've got a better idea of how the NUS card system is going to be run next year - instead of there being only one type of NUS card, in it's infinite wisdom, the NUS has decided to offer a choice of a standard "Democracy" card for the current asking price, or an "NUS Extra" card which offers a wider range of discounts and offers, with a commensurate increase in price to match.

From the students' point of view, you'll either be asked to choose which card you would like when you sign up on UPSU.net, or you'll be given the choice when you come up to collect your card in October. More information about the NUS Extra card can be found at www.nusextra.com, and we'll be adding more information shortly once the details are finalised.

Talking of which, I really should go and get ready to turn off the NUS card registration system over the summer. Another thing for me to break then...(!).

Another amazingly dull post coming up... ;o)

I've been tweaking the code that decides what the URL is for the pages on the site. The changes aren't finished yet, but it should mean shorter, easier-to-remember URLs to find your way around the site, and Google & chums should be able to do a better job of indexing the site, which isn't too bad an idea either.

It also means we can override certain pages individually, so the Sociallife homepage, for example, is actually at upsu.net/sociallife and not some long, complicated address instead. All the old URLs still work, so you won't have to update your bookmarks, either.

The main reason for this is so we can get URLs for pages like the forums - which have URLs like http://www.upsu.net /component /option,com_simpleboard /func,view /Itemid,336 /catid,27 /id,549 /#549 - down to something like http://www.upsu.net/forums/v/549#549.

I've also been tweaking the search engine - the output is a lot easier to read, and you can bookmark your searches if you're that kinda person. Once I've done a bit more homework, I'll be re-jigging the way the search engine selects your search results, so (hopefully) the search results should be a lot more accurate.

Oh, and plans are now in motion for a new JobShop system which should be ready for the new academic year. The existing system is ok, but doesn't do everything we want it to. I'd like to see a system which is properly integrated into the site; Job Searches would be much easier - you'll be able to search for a job or job type, apply direct for some jobs through the site, and get further information and help with just a few mouse clicks.

We'll also be making it easier to get information and advice on searching for a job, and the jobs bulletin should be more accurate, contain more of the right information, and will (hopefully) also be customised to your preferences - more interested in admin work than customer service? Just tell us in your profile and we'll customise your bulletin e-mail before we send it out to you.

This, of course, is all assuming I don't decide to go and herd goats in the Andes over the summer instead...

Told you it was going to be another boring post... ;o)

I'm going to be re-jigging the URLs used by the diary system over the next few hours, so please bear with us if none of the links seem to work properly! Test edit