Public profile pages, photos on location map, latest observations on start page

Dear all,

there has recently been more new features introduced on the NiBDaB. Usually we don't inform about all new updates, but this time there has been a change in how the data of our users is displayed on the internet, so we decided to inform about the most important changes.

1. Profile pages are now publicly accessible. Earlier it was necessary to log in to be able to see the user profile pages (most easily accessed through the User statistics). To promote the community and make the NiBDaB a bit more open, the profile pages are now publicly available without log in. However, the profile fields "City" and "Registered since" are only displayed to other registered NiBDaB users.
2. It is now possible to browse the photos taken at a certain location on the location map. If you follow the "Locations" menu item, you see a map of Niger. If you zoom in on a certain area, the locations are displayed as different coloured markers. You can also jump to a certain location by starting typing it's name, choose it's name in the suggestion list that occur, and click "Go". Clicking a location marker will open an info bubble with some location information. If there are photos available at that location, some thumbnails are showed in the info bubble. If you click the thumbnails, a page is opened, displaying all photos taken at that location. Interesting locations to try this out are "Inselberg hills Torodi road" and "Saga irrigation area".
   In a future release, the markers for locations with photos will look different, to indicate the presence of photos.
3. By default, the observations listed on the start page are the observations that where entered most recently into the system. Since both Joost and I are entering backlog observations, there will sometimes be observations at the top of the list that where actually observed years ago. If you prefer to see the observations that where made the most recently, you can now toggle the display of the observation list between the last entered and the last observed observations through a drop down list labeled "Display" just up to the right of the observation list.
   (Tip: If you always want to see the latest observations in the list on the start page, bookmark this link: http://www.nibdab.org/db/?sort=od)

All the best, and happy birding!

Ulf & Joost

Redigé: 2012-03-01 [ULi]