Version 3 is ready for Beta Testing
I'm happy to announce that after months of programming, a new version of The Lens Flare is now ready to be tested.
Please visit, http://www.thelensflare.com/v3 to see version 3 of the website. Both the existing site and the new one will co-exist for another couple of weeks to give you time to get your account and gallery set up the way you want. It will also give me time to fix any bugs that you might discover.
If you find any problems with the site, please email me at: scribe at the lens flare dot com.
This new version was completely rewritten from scratch, and there are many new features. Some of the highlights are:
Increased Image Uploads: Free members may upload up to 500 images, Silver members can upload up to 1000, and Gold members are still unlimited. This used to be 100 for free, and 500 for silver members. Silver and Gold members may upload pictures while avoiding the moderation queue. In other words, if you're a Silver or Gold member, your images will show up immediately.
Lower Prices: Silver memberships are now 9.95, and Gold memberships are 29.95.
Dashboard: A dashboard section, in the upper right corner of the page, allows you to access all of your clicks within one click, almost anywhere on the site, assuming that you're logged in.
Member Specific Albums: You may create albums to organize your pictures. I've used the existing categories as a starting point (as of about 2 months ago), but you're free to edit and change this however you please now.
Equipment Reviews: Accessed from the equipment profile link, the Equipment Profile page allows you to review your camera and art equipment. This will help people decide on what camera or lens to buy and the item will become available to you as an option on your picture upload page. This will reduce the need to type out long lists of tools used.
Photography Videos: these are provided by YouTube and the list changes dynamically. The videos that I've watched so far have been really good.
Better profile: Or should I just say "Profile". Fill out what you'd like. Some of the questions are there to help me customize the site for you, some are there to display on the public side of your galleries.
Easier to use manage pictures page: For those with a lot of images, let me know if you'd rather have this page broken up into a certain number of pictures per page. Right now, it shows all pictures.
Web statistics, accessed from the manage pictures page, show the number of people that have viewed each picture over the last 7 and 30 days, and how that related to the prior 7 and 30 day period.
Statcounter.com: if you'd like to see detailed stats of your visitors, you may sign up for a statcounter.com account and add the codes they give you to your profile. This will allow you to see things such as where in the world people are coming from to visit your pages, how many visits are you getting, and 20-30 other fun reports. Statcounter is not affiliated with The Lens Flare in any way; however, they have been nice to work with and they offer a pretty good free package.
900 pixel pictures can be uploaded: You now have the ability to upload different sizes of an image, including a thumbnail, standard 500 pixel image, a large 900 pixel image, and 2 close-up detail images of 250 pixels each. With each, if you upload a larger image, it will be resized appropriately, but it loses a little of its quality. If you upload at the exact size or smaller, the resize function is bypassed and the exact image is displayed. If you upload only one picture, it will be resized for the smaller images as well. In other words, if you upload a 900px file only, it will be put into the 900px slot, resized to the 500px slot, and the 150px thumbnail slot. Sometimes, the resize looks horrible for the thumbnail if the source image is also small. For this reason, you can resize the images yourself, and upload each separately.
Replace images: When editing an image, you can upload a new image over the top of the old one. This allows you to fix an image without losing the stats and comments of the original.
New gallery structure: The main galleries such as landscape, flowers, etc have been changed to be much more dynamic. To view the new global galleries, visit the Artwork page, or click on a link within the comments and descriptions of individual pictures.
Contests: Contests haven't changed much, except that older ones are shown on additional pages, instead of being cut off, and the addresses have changed for search engine purposes. Winners of 2007 contests earned a Gold Membership. Earning a gold membership for winning a contest is now discontinued.
Artist's list: When you view the artist's page, you will see a list of the last 50 members to view any page on the site. For extra exposure on the site, visit often, and remain logged in while you're browsing the site. You can customize this page by editing your profile.
Registration pages: These are more spam resistant than the old forms, and should help keep spam robots off the website.
Comments on pictures: Only members may comment now, and comments create links to your gallery page. Don't abuse this and write a bunch of lame comments however, since deleting all comments by a member is much easier now. Security measures are in place to help prevent comments by spammers and trolls.
There are other features as well, but you're just going to have to visit the site to find them.
I hope everything is well with you and your loved ones, and that 2008 has been a great year so far. I'm looking forward to seeing you on The Lens Flare soon.
Take care,
Brian Broderick
Scribe at The Lens Flare.com
http://www.thelensflare.com
