cuda2k

As I first mentioned in my 'if I build it, would you come' thread a week or so back, I have embarked on a project to develop a website for the C&V Community. A highly searchable database of all things Classic & Vintage. It is my plan to be the technical developer of the website, but going to turn the content over to the community. I have started preliminary development, and hope to have the first parts of the database ready to be added to within a few week's time. Right now I am looking for additional ideas on how to make the current short term goals better. There will be plenty of time to add more features after I knock out the list of things I have to do already.

Short Term Goals:

1) Develop and Impliment a log-in and registration system. Log-in will be required to add anything to the website, but not needed to search. Once general registration is complete, I can manually give those who want to help add things during early development permissions to do so. (DONE)

2) Develop the View, List, Add & Edit Component screens. During early development, everyone will be able to add and edit all components being added. I plan to keep the number of members low till I get a better registration and roles system in place. (60% Completed as of 6/28)(DONE)

3) Develop the Quick Component Search screen. A quick, single page, 3-4 criteria search page. Say you want to see everything in the database that is from a particular Brand, Model, or produced in a date range. (50% Developed)(DONE)

4) Stronger Registration and Roles set. Mostly to prevent SPAM from becoming a problem, and to have some control over who has edit all permissions vs more limited permissions sets. I want as many people as possible to add valid, correct content to the database, but prevent duplicate entries and of course keep the SPAM out.(DONE)

5) Glossary of Terms & Additional Resources & Links pages. These may be worked on as time allows earlier, but will be one of the features added fairly early on. Purpose of these are fairly self-explanatory. (Glossary Completed - Ready to Add Information!)(DONE)

6) Standard and Visual Search pages for Components. Once the number of parts in the database grows, a more powerful search engine will be needed. A text based search will be provided through the standard search as well as a visual version for those who may not be fimilar with brands, logos, terms, etc.(DONE)

Those 6 goals complete Phase I of the project. Phase II will include adding Bicycles & Frames to the Database. I am focusing on Components first as they are typically easier to distinguish than frames, especially repainted or otherwise unmarked frames.

You are welcome to go check out VeloBase.com right now. And I have some test images that I created with the help of ViperZ, here's one just because Delta brakes are cool:



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Next set of goals: (Updated 11/1/2007)

1) Finish work on the Gear Calculator and Gear Compare tools. (DONE) Start work on the Spoke Calculator (On Hold)

2) Continue work on back-end Admin pages to make monitoring and administrative jobs easier and quicker. (Mostly Done)

3) Expand the Charts & Tools information page, and add new entries to the Glossary. (On-Going)

4) Head Badge Gallery & Search (DONE)

5) Additional Frame "Detailed Attributes" Including: Fork Ends / Drop-outs, Tube Sets, Lug Sets. (Preliminary Work Starting)

6) Revamp of the MyBase Page and Moving the "Recent Content" lists to a seperate Page. (DONE)

7) Improving Site Navigation and Functionality. Changes to include added navigation in Brand Directory, Visual and Basic Searches, Add Head Badge, and other areas. (In Progress)

8) Identifying and fixing general bugs, missing or non-working functionality. Edit / Delete Comments, User Profile Stats, and others. (In Progress)

News, Announcements, Updates can also be found here: https://velobase.com/Announcements.aspx

cuda2k

Warning Computer Geek Moment Ahead...

#@&% @&#%, Stupid minor config file issues making everything blow up... *walks off grumbling*






P.S. - I didn't get to ride this morning due to rain. So I've been on software land all day (~11hrs now! ) Good news is that user registration is functional, just need to get the role assignment code going before moving on to other tasks. I hope to have something deployable by week's end.

East Hill

It's very clean looking right now--and the photos are quite enticing. I'm looking forward to seeing your project get off the ground.

East Hill

iab

Looks great, nice start and I am looking forward to seeing more. Who's going to be the poor bastard to upload the info for the Campy catalogs? I'd volunteer but I don't have that kind on time right now.

cuda2k

Well hopefully we can all take a small chunk of it, so as one person isn't facing that task alone. I've been grabbing images of some of the more rare components as I see them come up here and on ebay so hopefully we'll have some interesting content right off the bat. Just as a place to go look at the wide range of parts from decades of cycling greatness.

Tom Stormcrowe

Looking good!

cmdr

Thanks Jon!

fireworks

I'd suggest using some kind of wiki/CMS for this.

The wiki might seem like a weird fit but it allows all of the editing and community based approach you need. Should work right of the shelf too. That way you can spend time on content and not on the application development.

Just my .02

cuda2k

fireworks - good thought, but the purpose of this site is two fold. 1) give the cycling community something useful. and 2) hone my skills in an area of my field that I have not had much experience in, but my work will be wanting me to utilize sooner or later. A Wiki would not have the granularity of search that I am aiming for either I would suspect.

East Hill

How much time and energy would it take to do the uploads? Would I be volunteering for something beyond my capability?

East Hill

fireworks

I'm not sure I agree. If you wanted to give something useful to the community it shouldn't be a learning project for your work.

I'm pretty sure the wiki would work. I've never had a problem finding anything on wikipedia provided it was there. The layout of the data is up to you or the group of people that will be helping you out.

Good luck!

cuda2k

Can a Wiki let you put in a serial number of a frame and return to you a number of possible identifications of that frame based on the format of the serial number? Can a Wiki have a multi-part fully customizable, wizard style search engine with reference images and dynamic page generation based on the information already given. Can a Wiki automatically re-size uploaded images to reduce bandwidth costs. I could go on with this but I won't.

Simple put I want to develop the website myself, in asp.net, as an exercise in that technology. I could sit at home and labor for hours playing with controls, and databases, and such, and have absolutely nothing of value to anyone at the end. Or I could develop a site that can be utilized by a community that I am apart of and want to give back to.

Its your opinion that you disagree with my over all motives here. But I'm sure many others will be more than happy to wait a little longer for me to build exactly what I am envisioning instead of throwing a pre-packaged up on a site and letting everyone go at it.


East Hill - once I get things up and off the ground you can make the decision for yourself how much you want or can contribute. I'm not asking anyone, unless they really want to, to go research beyind their own personal knowledge to add to the site. If you happen to know something about a part that's not already included, then you will have the opportunity to add it.

I'm going to work on the registration process a bit more today, hopefully get to the point where I can start working on the actual database of information tomorrow. I'll update here when I get something new on the website.

fireworks

Sure why not? No matter what you want to call it it's still an ad hoc search. What I'm suggesting is that you look for a CMS type project and spend time on the custom parts you want instead of on the plumbing. For example the registration. Registering users for forms authentication is in virtually ever CMS system available. Take a look at Dot net nuke.

My point is your first production version will not be the last version because you will only notice problems in production. First versions never last long. There is always something to refine. That refinement can be very difficult when it's in production.

Creating a CMS from scratch is nontrivial. If you really want to learn your better off learning how a well built existing system works and use that knowledge the next time. This will cut down on your learning curve and work.

I'm the same way; I learn best by doing. I'm only relaying this to you from experience.

You have a good idea, but you may need a more professional approach.

Anyways, good luck either way...

cuda2k

Thanks for the wishes of good luck. I have several years of experience with nontrivial software development, specifically web based data driven systems. I like the challenge and despise data conversions that would most likely be needed down the road. In any case, I'm forging ahead with my initial plan. Stubborn like that I am some times.

Rabid Koala

Looks like the foundation of a really great site!

cmdr

Jon, This project sounds exciting and I think you should go ahead with your plan. It's you're dream that you are allowing us to share in. Do it your way, we can wait until it's done right.

cuda2k

I've kind of split up development between my home machine (where data related stuff is being done) and at work where I'm working on the web pages during my lunch hour and down time. Today I threw together a preliminary view screen. Still have a few things to be added to it (Secondary Photos, Comment object still needs to be written and placed below the Additional Info section). That will be tackled after the Add Component screen gets completed.

Click For Screen Shot

cuda2k

Quick update on the progress made on my project.

1) Added dynamic detail field generation on the view component screen, which are actually captioned with real values instead of just 'Caption' as seen in the screen shot above!

2) Whipped up a basic component list page where you can select a single component to view in detail.

3) Been working hard on the Add Component screens. I should be about 2/3 the way through the Add now, though adding photos may take a little longer.

I'm hoping to have something deployed to the web server by the first of July that is somewhat functional as far as add and viewing of components are concerned. I'm beginning to shake the rust off my C# skills and things are starting to roll along a little smoother than at the beginning. I'll get a few more screen shots taken and posted later this afternoon for anyone who is interested to see more than the "In Development" page that is currently up on VeloBase.com

cuda2k

Screen shot of the current Add New Component screen. Still a few fields to add and such, but here's a general idea: https://jonpfischer.com/UploadPhotos/...seAddPage1.JPG

I have Add Component (minus Photos) now working. I love asp.net when it makes life easy...

cuda2k

I am currently in the process of doing a Alpha phase release to one of my alternate domain names. If anyone wants to be part of this inital stage of development feedback please PM me for details. Thank you.

John E

How's this?

Crank-Set
a. Brand Nervar
b. Model Star
c. Year(s) ca. 1970?
d. Group none?
e. BCD 128mm
f. BB Style (JIS, ISO, Cottered, etc) old ISO
g. Pedal Threads Eng, Fr available
h. BB Length 115mm for road double
i. Flutes (locations if any)
j. Markings (Scrolled Arrow, Campy Shield, etc)
k. Minimum Ring Sizes 38T
l. Photos https://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...4755&rd=1&rd=1
m. Comments these are worth more than I thought! A NOS set just went for over $150 on eBay.

cuda2k

John E. - I'll get it added!

Ok, Velobase.com is offically launched on the alt-domain name (just have one more script to run to make everything happy). If you want the domain name so you can register and check things out for yourself just shoot me a PM. Don't want to flood the site with too many members till I get a few more things worked out. But right now looking for 10-12 people to help give feedback and test. Thanks!

cuda2k

I've got a ton of work done on the website the last few days. If anyone wants to create a user, the live version of the website is at: https://velobase.info right now. Email me (address on website) or PM me with your log-in and I will add roles this evening.

cuda2k

Monday morning update on the project.

Here are some of the highlights of what I've done recently:

• I now have some 50-60 components added to the database, most with photos, most with some data missing and needing editing.
• The basic search is 90% functional, just some fine tuning to do.
• Started work on the Glossary which I hope to have working by week's end.
• Added a "Recently Added" and "Recently Updated" list to the MyBase page to see what has changed at a glance.
• Improved navigation between pages, added and/or fixed the 'Back' and 'Cancel' buttons. More work here to be done.

Short list of this week's goals:

• Finish the first version of the Glossary page.
• Change the Comment View formatting.
• Edit Photos page (esp after I uploaded the wrong / wrong size photos a couple times this weekend)
• Report Item page. Shouldn't have any need for this for a while, but want it function all the same.

Mariner Fan

I'm liking this! Good work Jon.