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This is a pre-announcement of an upcoming LUGNET member feature where you can
make your own web pages on LUGNET.
You'll be able to do it all right from your web browser using HTML forms --
similar to posting messages from the web in that you get a big text box that
you can type into, but different in that you can go back and edit things later
and you can also add simple text formatting, links, and embed images.
Here are some examples of pages already created using this facility:
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1. Joseph Gonzalez has put together 120(!) web pages of reviews. Here's a
sneak-preview of a few of them (with Joseph's permission):
http://www.lugnet.com/reviews/?p=4980-jg
http://www.lugnet.com/reviews/?p=6090-jg
http://www.lugnet.com/reviews/?p=6894-jg
http://www.lugnet.com/reviews/?p=6986-jg
http://www.lugnet.com/reviews/?p=7124-jg
Joseph created all these pages right from his web browser, and he can edit
them whenever he likes.
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2. John VanZwieten has put together a few pages for "Datsville" -- a virtual
LEGO town built with LDraw tools.
http://www.lugnet.com/cad/datsville/
Notice that the Datsville page includes (right there on it) three LUGNET news
articles. Including news articles on webpage of this type is easy using a
special page-inclusion facility. Below the news articles several "sub-pages"
which John included into the main page. If you click on the little blue boxes
on the far right, these sub-pages "tear off" and open out into their own full-
fledged web page, for example:
http://www.lugnet.com/cad/datsville/?p=1999-09-15
http://www.lugnet.com/cad/datsville/?p=1999-09-18
Actually, what I just said is backwards -- they started life as separate
pages (and still are) but just happen to be included on the main Datsville
page. When you "tear them off" by clicking on the blue box at the right,
you're just jumping to the included page. :-)
John created all these pages right from his web browser. (I made a special
file-upload-and-automatic-thumbnail feature for John back when he made these
pages in November.)
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3. Richard Franks has put together more than 50 informational pages in
LUGNET's UK area, for example:
http://www.lugnet.com/loc/uk/?p=reference
http://www.lugnet.com/loc/uk/?p=uklug-members
http://www.lugnet.com/loc/uk/?p=events-2000-5-20
http://www.lugnet.com/loc/uk/?p=events-2000-5-20-desc
http://www.lugnet.com/loc/uk/?p=events-future
http://www.lugnet.com/loc/uk/?p=shops-online
http://www.lugnet.com/loc/uk/?p=shops-good-deals
Notice how the 'events-future' page includes a copy of the 'events-2000-5-20'
page... The inclusion is almost magic: if Richard later decides to go back
and change the text on the included page, it automatically and instantly
changes on the including page as well.
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4. LUGNET's "Spotlight" feature uses the same page-editing facility as the
examples shown above. Each item is simply a row in a table, with the left
column being an editorial summary and the right column being a copy of the
article in "brief" form:
http://www.lugnet.com/?p=2000-04-22
Anyone who wants to do so will be able to make pages just like these, very
easily: each of 250 of the Spotlight pages so far has been created and edited
right from the web browser.
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5. Cool LEGO Site of the Week also now uses the same page-editing facility:
http://www.lugnet.com/cool/?p=site-160
http://www.lugnet.com/cool/?p=site-181
as does its "Buttons & Banners" page:
http://www.lugnet.com/cool/?p=buttons
BTW, notice that 'site-181' page is also included on the '2000-04-23'
Spotlight page...
http://www.lugnet.com/?p=2000-04-23
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6. A small "NQC Code Repository" page which includes several news articles
and blocks of robot program code in a computer typewriter font:
http://www.lugnet.com/robotics/rcx/nqc/?p=code
It's a lot like the Spotlight pages, only with the editorial text appearing
above (rather than to the left of) the news articles.
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7. A collection of Gary Istok's "History of LEGO" series of articles:
http://www.lugnet.com/?p=history-of-lego
This is somewhat like a little page of bookmarks.
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8. LUGNET's Terms of Use Agreement page:
http://www.lugnet.com/admin/terms/?p=agreement
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9. Finally, an example of a small photo gallery... This is our cat Boo-Boo:
http://www.lugnet.com/temp/boo-boo/
He's wanted his own webpage on LUGNET for a long time.
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OK, so much for the examples. If you've followed along this far, you might be
wondering at this point what format these pages are written in.
It's not actually HTML but something simpler -- more of a "fancy text"
formatting. It's geared toward typesetting in that it's designed for super-
quick entering and formatting of paragraphs of text and bulleted lists, but
it's also geared toward hypertext in that it's very, very easy to make links
(even easier than in HTML).
Embedding images and whipping up simple tables is also relatively easy.
There isn't an official "manual" yet for this but you can get a sense for it
by looking at the underlying sources of the example pages. Most things are
self-explanatory:
http://www.lugnet.com/reviews/?p=4980-jg.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/reviews/?p=6090-jg.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/reviews/?p=6894-jg.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/reviews/?p=6986-jg.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/reviews/?p=7124-jg.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/cad/datsville/?p=1999-09-15.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/cad/datsville/?p=1999-09-18.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/loc/uk/?p=reference.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/loc/uk/?p=uklug-members.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/loc/uk/?p=events-2000-5-20.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/loc/uk/?p=events-2000-5-20-desc.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/loc/uk/?p=events-future.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/loc/uk/?p=shops-online.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/loc/uk/?p=shops-good-deals.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/?p=2000-04-22.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/cool/?p=site-160.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/cool/?p=site-181.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/cool/?p=buttons.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/?p=2000-04-23.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/robotics/rcx/nqc/?p=code.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/?p=history-of-lego.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/admin/terms/?p=agreement.ftx
http://www.lugnet.com/temp/boo-boo/?p=index.ftx
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The initial release of this page editing facility will support everything
demonstrated above except uploading of images and automatic thumbnailing.
That is, you'll be able to link to images if they already exist somewhere
offsite (provided you have obtained the necessary permission of course) but
you won't be able to upload images directly to the www.lugnet.com webserver.
This is a restriction which may be lifted at some future date -- mostly
dependent on the cost to us of hosting the data.
The URLs of the pages you create will include your member ID, so they'll look
a little different from the examples shown above. (JosephG and JohnVZ and
RichardF, along with a few others, have kindly been alpha- and beta-testing
the page facility as "editors" of various areas.)
We may also add a "template" collection or "page wizard" later to make it even
easier yet to make new pages quickly. Template examples would include things
like LEGO set review forms, news article bookmark lists, personal photo
galleries with narratives, FAQ entries, lexicon/acronym/dictionary entires,
etc. Underneath, it just needs a layer which maintains data in a structure
form (rather than free-form) and as a last step displays this data via a
template.
Conceivably, BTW, when the initial release of this goes up, you could even
run a simple auction (by hand) or straight sale using one of these pages as
a "home base" for your auction or sale.
We're hoping to cut the initial release of this to LUGNET members by the 15th
of May. All the guts of it are there now (as you can see) -- we just need to
tie up loose ends.
--Todd & Suz
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: Pre-announcement: member pages
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| (...) <snip> Wow, oh wow! I had some slight indication that this was developing but this is great! Beyond what I could ever imagine... fabulous! (...) This sounds great. I love the idea. Does this mean that later on, machine-generated reviews/FAQ (...) (25 years ago, 3-May-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
| | | Re: Pre-announcement: member pages
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| (...) - (...) I like this very much, but I have two questions... 1) AFter seeing Joseph's reviews here, I want to see (some of) the other 115. There appears to be no access unless I know what number sets he has reviewed. Is this Joseph's problem (...) (25 years ago, 3-May-00, to lugnet.admin.general)
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