Customising UKB

[Pete Eeles]

Not before time, I've ventured into the world of cookies This is a mechanism for storing small pieces of information on a computer that allow user settings (for example) to be stored and retrieved. The first foray into this is to allow you to customise the home page in terms of the species listing on the left. I must admit (must be old age), I feel more familiar with the scientific names and taxonomic order than vernacular names and alphabetic order. Not sure what happened there!

Anyway, there's now a "User Settings" option under the Home menu that will take you here: http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/myukb.php

I need to look around the website for other items that should be customisable, and do let me know of any other settings you'd like to see. Anyway - a minor update - but thought I'd mention it

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

Well done, Pete! I've set the page to taxonomic listing and it seems to be remembering that!

That might be a good place to give the option of seeing the secondary species in the species pages. Every time I want to view the secondary species I have to select it in the family page.

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

Good idea. Will do that next This would also be a good time to crisply distinguish between primary and secondary - http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/species_ ... cation.php

Another setting is to view all of the images available for a given species on a species page, or just those that Vince has expertly selected.

Cheers,

- Pete

[Pete Eeles]

That might be a good place to give the option of seeing the secondary species in the species pages. Every time I want to view the secondary species I have to select it in the family page.

Done for the home page

Cheers,

- Pete

[Pete Eeles]

Just to let everyone know - a few more "tweaks" here and there:

1. More user settings added: http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/myukb.php

2. The entire website is now taxonomically consistent. Specifically, the nominate subspecies name is now highlighted everywhere to make clear exactly which subspecies are present in the British Isles. This will be seen on all of the species pages, the species-specific albums and in the taxonomy listing here: http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/taxonomy.php

3. I've added 3 options for viewing species distribution (example at http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/distribu ... =brassicae). Previously, only the second option below was available and it was very difficult to see the distribution if a large number of sites were overlaid (hence option 1).

- Distribution map (distribution only)
- Distribution map with sites overlaid (distribution and sites)
- Google map with sites overlaid (sites only)

4. A minor fix, but when viewing a grid square that's been filter for a given species (e.g. http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/sites_ng ... ill%20Blue), then selecting one of the arrows to change square will retain the filter.

5. Another fix - on the distributions page (http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/distributions.php), all images now link through to the distribution, rather than the species page

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

Brilliant work, Pete!

Yesterday I had great difficulty accessing the site for some period in the evening, whether I logged on as a guest or as me, and whether I did so from Switzerland or via a UK Proxy. I suspected this was because you were making these kinds of tweak at the time. All is responding instantly again today. I just thought I'd mention this in case others experienced the same difficulties or do so in the future - if my suspicion was correct it simply means Pete is currently making improvements!

Guy

[Pete Eeles]

Thanks Guy. It was actually the service provider (JustHost) - the server was down for quite a time. Will post apologies in the future!

Cheers,

- Pete

[Jack Harrison]

If it "ain't broke, don't fix it".

Why, why, why, change a perfectly good system to something that we oldies cannot understand?

Jack

[Pete Eeles]

In terms of "cookies" - you don't have to do anything Jack - you'll see exactly the same as you saw before.

The other items are enhancements that have been on the backlog for some time

Cheers,

- Pete

[Padfield]

Why, why, why, change a perfectly good system to something that we oldies cannot understand?

Having peeped into a cockpit or two I think anyone who can fly a plane can navigate the new options, Jack! It all seems very user-friendly to me. And if you don't elect to change anything it works exactly as before.

Guy

[David M]

Why, why, why, change a perfectly good system to something that we oldies cannot understand?

Having peeped into a cockpit or two I think anyone who can fly a plane can navigate the new options, Jack! It all seems very user-friendly to me. And if you don't elect to change anything it works exactly as before.

Guy

You beat me to it, Guy. I should also add that this website is far simpler than UK meteorology, which Jack also seems to be highly knowledgeable about.

[Pete Eeles]

Would this help Jack?



Cheers,

- Pete

[MikeOxon]

I believe you have added some useful enhancements, Pete, which are there if we choose to use them.

Personally, I prefer a cockpit that looks like this:

FS_SpitfireXIX over Farmoor, Oxon

More at http://home.btconnect.com/mike.flemming/flightsi.htm

Mike

[Jack Harrison]

As I don't understand cookies, I'll just carry on as before.

Jack

[David M]

Would this help Jack?

LOL! You've too much time on your hands, Pete.