Working with galleries

A question about video display and using the image fader block.

Hi guys, I could use some sighted help please. I created a video and uploaded it to one of my galleries. It displays the video thumbnail just fine. However, I didn't spesify the width or height, opting to let Composr do the work. Well, the viewer is too large. Can anyone recommend what width and height I should use on my videos so they'll fit in the allowed space? Here's a link to the gallery the video is in.

Secondly, I've used a image fader block on one of my pages and all that shows up is a block saying "Media". I've varified that there are indeed images in the gallery spesified in the block parameter. and here's a link to the page.

I get 404 errors Chip.

I hope it isnt a fluffy kitten video, i have had enough of those over Christmas.

Hahaha, no it wasn't and sorry about that. I tried to delete the message, but that seems to be disabled here. I got to messing around and totally blew my site up and had to start over this morning.

Chip McCain (2) said

Hahaha, no it wasn't and sorry about that. I tried to delete the message, but that seems to be disabled here. I got to messing around and totally blew my site up and had to start over this morning.

From “Post #1,571”, 8th January 2017, 3:50 pm

Welcome to my world lol

This is normally the point where, Chris or someone else, mentions back ups lmao.

Dont they know only programmers and professionals make back ups? The rest of us learn the hard way

Oh, sorry to hear things went wrong. If you find something inexplicably breaking then please do consider reporting it as an issue and we can try and fix. I don't like to hear of people having to start again. Even if it is user-error, I want enough safeguards and checks to stop catastrophes as far as reasonably possible.

Chris Graham said

Oh, sorry to hear things went wrong. If you find something inexplicably breaking then please do consider reporting it as an issue and we can try and fix. I don't like to hear of people having to start again. Even if it is user-error, I want enough safeguards and checks to stop catastrophes as far as reasonably possible.

From “Post #1,585”, 9th January 2017, 3:14 pm

To be fair Chris, and no offence to Chip. I think people like Chip and myself are not the normal user, I get the impression that Chip is like myself, we like to push things a bit and sometimes this is going to break something. As a user i see it as testing the boundaries, you have to push things so you know just far you can go.

I think trying to cover all the bases will lead to the normal 'code bloat'. We like composr because it is what it is, part of that is excepting it may not always play nice if you try and turn it into what it isnt. If you constantly recode to accommodate what we do, then your going to end up with just another CMS.

Just my opinion and way of saying some people (chip and myself for example), will shout out if we feel something is missing.

Alot of the time we are just as happy to hear 'no it cant do that', i think the original ethos of keeping it tight and fast is the best one. Composr is not Woltlab (thank god). But that hasnt stopped me seeing if i can emulate alot of it!

I am not trying to get Composr to be Woltlab, i am doing it to learn the system and find the ,limits. That particular install lives only on my home server. its embarrassing to see software i paid alot for, be beaten by something that claims not to be what the paid for one claims to be!

Oh definitely . I just mean there are small things we can do sometimes, to catch situations I hadn't predicted. For example, the page editing has revisions. This morning I found a user corrupted their site by accidentally putting in an invalid URL as a zone base URL for the welcome zone; so the next RC will put a little safety check when that settings read in. Just a few lines to stop a site breaking from bad data is worth it .

Chris Graham said

Oh definitely . I just mean there are small things we can do sometimes, to catch situations I hadn't predicted. For example, the page editing has revisions. This morning I found a user corrupted their site by accidentally putting in an invalid URL as a zone base URL for the welcome zone; so the next RC will put a little safety check when that settings read in. Just a few lines to stop a site breaking from bad data is worth it .

From “Post #1,590”, 9th January 2017, 3:30 pm

That is the developers way, myself i would get someone to add a note to the install information in the docs. This is why Linux beats windows, on the whole stupid people cant use it. I am not saying they were stupid……………

I think i over worry, i remember and used the Commodore PET 80! I also loved IBM DOS version 2.1  , my first real pc i got 6 months before the 386 chips cam out lol. my modem cost me 6 months wages, it had rubber cups for the phone (real phone no mobiles then) to fit in.

A 80Kb image would take 1-2 hours to download………………. I dont think JANET is much older than me .

My point is, i was told when i brought my first 10Mb HDD (yes 10 meg), You will never in a million years fill that up, it should last you a life time.

Windows 3 came on 6 floppy disks and did the job. Windows 10 is roughly 21 times more powerful in user terms, and yet many thousands of times larger in code.

I started on the BBC Micro with the 5 1/4 inch disks, I messed around with BBC Basic a lot. Also had a cassette-based Amstrad.  Then I moved onto the Acorn Archimedes, which was much better than the PC at that time.

Chris Graham said

I started on the BBC Micro with the 5 1/4 inch disks, I messed around with BBC Basic a lot. Also had a cassette-based Amstrad.  Then I moved onto the Acorn Archimedes, which was much better than the PC at that time.

From “Post #1,592”, 9th January 2017, 3:52 pm

BBC MICRO!  You were a posh kid for sure . I had a PET 80,ZX spectrum, Commodore VIC 20 (that was excellent!), commodore 64 and amiga 500.

I got my first PC with a 286 chip in it. I still have my old mother boards from the 286 to the final DX4 100

I didnt switch to pentium until pentium 2.

My first pc back in 1978 cost me roughly £1200, or around £6000 in todays money. My first car only cost me £1,400 brand new .

Chris Graham said

Oh, sorry to hear things went wrong. If you find something inexplicably breaking then please do consider reporting it as an issue and we can try and fix. I don't like to hear of people having to start again. Even if it is user-error, I want enough safeguards and checks to stop catastrophes as far as reasonably possible.

From “Post #1,585”, 9th January 2017, 3:14 pm

Well you know Chris, I've been a faithful user for some years now. While I generally keep a backup, I hadn't gotten far enough along with Composr to really worry about it much. In all honesty, it has been quite some time since working with ocP, let alone Composr, that I've forgotten quite a bit. I really wanted a fresh start and a new configuration that it wasn't a big deal this time. We still plan to have you guys to the ecommerce work for us, and I wanted to make absolutely sure when you guys come in that everything is in place.

Ok, thanks Chip .

lg11 said

To be fair Chris, and no offence to Chip. I think people like Chip and myself are not the normal user, I get the impression that Chip is like myself, we like to push things a bit and sometimes this is going to break something. As a user i see it as testing the boundaries, you have to push things so you know just far you can go.

I think trying to cover all the bases will lead to the normal 'code bloat'. We like composr because it is what it is, part of that is excepting it may not always play nice if you try and turn it into what it isnt. If you constantly recode to accommodate what we do, then your going to end up with just another CMS.

Just my opinion and way of saying some people (chip and myself for example), will shout out if we feel something is missing.

Alot of the time we are just as happy to hear 'no it cant do that', i think the original ethos of keeping it tight and fast is the best one. Composr is not Woltlab (thank god). But that hasnt stopped me seeing if i can emulate alot of it!

I am not trying to get Composr to be Woltlab, i am doing it to learn the system and find the ,limits. That particular install lives only on my home server. its embarrassing to see software i paid alot for, be beaten by something that claims not to be what the paid for one claims to be!

From “Post #1,589”, 9th January 2017, 3:28 pm

I couldn't agree more. In fact, I have a domain set aside just for testing things out with Composr. I just got a bit crazy this time and shot my self in the foot. ocP and now Composr is still the most accessible system out there anywhere for guys like me, which rely on a screen reader to get around.

lg11 said

My point is, i was told when i brought my first 10Mb HDD (yes 10 meg), You will never in a million years fill that up, it should last you a life time.

From “Post #1,591”, 9th January 2017, 3:47 pm

That gave me a chuckle. I remember back in 1989, it was late in the day on a Friday and I was in the middle of my weekly/daily backing up of my inventory when an error message popped up on the screen. My 20 meg harddrive was full. That sent the software guys, the CFO, and the accountant scrambling to find a larger harddrive they could afford. I went home at my normal time, they spent most of the weekend searching and had me back up and running by Monday morning. They bought a 40 meg. I was with the company for another 4 years and never did fill up that drive.

Ok, thanks guys for the patience. We're working at the shop, 12 to 16 hours a day,  four days a week, and then commuting back and forth from home, which is over a four hour drive each way,  the other days of the week. I'm not working on the site as much as I'd like to. Anyway, I've got everthing recreated now. Here is the gallery with the only video I've got posted so far. I don't want to post anymore till I have the issue figured out. As you'll see it is too large for the allowed space and I'm not sure, being blind, what size I should make it to correct the problem. I really appreciate your help guys.

Chip i really like the site, its a great take on the software. BUT, something dosnt sit right with it. Give me a couple of hours and i will give you my honest feedback.

Thanks LG

Chip, to me it is a little bit more complicated, i dont think its just the fact the video dosnt show completely. Now keep in mind your blind, so you have been spared having to view my design skills lol.

I am no designer, but give me a couple of hours messing with this tomorrow, i will see if i can write a detailed opinion of what i would change, and try and give you border and margin sizes etc.

For example the video box is way off, the video plays and dosnt show the far right side. the top and bottom margins (padding or whatever) are around 54 pixels. The left hand side from the white border to the edge of the player screen is alot more. But the size of the player itself is way way too big.

it flows well over the part of the screen you can see. But you have a few little problems on top of this, nothing major but some little things.

Its nearly two A M here. I live in the U K, so i will take a detailed look in the morning, i will offer some suggestions and if i can make it work, i will mock what i have in mind using dev tools. Then take a screen shot.

I know you wont see it, but maybe your wife can compare and tell you her opinion? And of course others on here.

But if it was me i would tweak a few little things to really polish it up. But its a great design overall.

regards
L G

Chip i am on a non wide screen computer, so keep that in mind.

I do have a wide screen i can use, but i found with composr non wide screen works better (for designing any way).

The dev tools didnt work out as i wanted, so i will have to mainly describe what i see. The following pic is so others can see what i am seeing, if i get a chance i will also do a wide screen shot as well.

It also means if others see something different, they can shout out Chip.



So the first pic.

The lines that are drawn in are mainly for my benefit.First of all the top of the News letter and the top black edge of the video player, are not equal height. The news letter box sticks 6 to 7 pixels above the video player. Not a big thing, but it does notice and to me detracts from the site.

The phone number is on the left, it should really be on the right hand side, just above where the open hours are. A bigger problem is the flashing coloured text you have used, i cant read the number properly like this. Yes it draws the eye, but its really  irritating. I would have the font bigger and ditch the flashing colours for it, maybe put the flashing colours on the open times.

This would at least grab attention, but to me the phone number is more important than the open times.

The actual size of the video is way too big, it dosnt show half of it on my screen. This makes me think you did it on a wide screen.



Again so others see what i see, this is how it looks to me. I will also describe it for you Chip.


size wise on my screen the actual video area (black area), should be around 550 pixels high and around 550 pixels wide.

If you can do that, i will then describe the margins within the video player, they are unequal. But that could be because only half of the actual video shows. I got a feeling the video player is going to be a mare!

The other things are all small, lets get the video sorted. Then i can tell you what else i see. Your heading in the right direction though.