Customizing forum?

[MikeAndLorena]

:idea: I suggest that Tugnuts create a new forum listing, CUSTOMIZING IDEAS. Before buying our 2007, 25' last fall we cruised internet listings. We noticed a couple photos of for-sale Rangers that revealed some ideas that would make cruising more comfortable: a dish rack on the wall, a sheet of aluminum to protect the bulkhead next to the stove, etc. I'll bet lots of Ranger owners have come up with creative ideas to improve efficiency and comfort in the cabin and cockpit.

I realize that this topic might fit in the CHAT forum, but that doesn't actively encourage posting of customizing ideas. It would be great to have a special chat/photo place to house all those customizing ideas that might include: Where to mount a paper towel rack to keep them out of reach of the stove flame; where to mount racks for bath towels and kitchen towels; options for mounting a boat hook out of the way but handy; options for stowing folding bicycles; space-saving ideas; where to stow 40-lb of dog food,etc.

 

[rick&sue]

I second the Idea, along with making it easier to include photos.

 

[SGIDAVE]

YES, adding a Customizing Forum is a good idea.

Thanks,

david

 

[Boatagain]

Oh yes, PLEASE make it easier to post photos,

 

[dwaindumas]

I agree 100%. A customizing forum makes a lot of sense, and it would benefit everyone.

 

[Bruce Moore]

Oh yes, PLEASE make it easier to post photos,

The first step in posting pictures is to request and set up a photo album.

Getting a User Photo Album for your Ranger Tug is easy but it requires submitting a request from within the site structure.

1. Sign on to the site, if you aren't already.

2. Select the User Control Panel link from the upper left corner of any page. Note: On the home page, this link is in your user menu.

3. Click the Usergroups tab, then select the radio button next to the User Albums group.
Scroll down, choose "Join selected" in the drop-down menu, and click the Submit button.

Once you do this, an email is automatically sent to the administrator (me). That message will trigger my ability to approve your request, and you'll receive an email indicating your membership in the User Albums group has been activated.

I'll let you know when it's ready and send step-by-step instructions for set-up.

You can also post images available elsewhere on the web (i.e. flickr, picassa, etc.) by using the Img button at the top of the posting window.

This will create the following string in your posting window: - then you copy and paste the URL (http://whatever...jpg) of the desired image in the middle, between the ][ brackets. The trick here is to determine the direct URL of the image. Various image hosting sites show it in different ways. Sometimes it's right up in the address bar. Other times it's listed under "Share This Image", etc.

You can determine if you have the correct URL by hitting the Preview button. If it displays, you're good to go. If it's not correct, the form will give you some kind of clue so you can go back and dig around. You'll only have to figure it out once for each image source.

I'll watch for the message, and look forward to seeing your pictures.

Cheers,

Bruce

 

[rick&sue]

That picture posting process is still way too complicated for my little pea brain... 😳

 

[Bruce Moore]

That picture posting process is still way too complicated for my little pea brain... 😳

The hardest thing to learn is how easy it is. Lots of folks have set up albums once they got step by step instructions. Give it a shot.

Bruce

 

[Boatagain]

Bruce,

I love this forum and a big reason it is so great is your excellent work as the administrator. Like many of us, however, I've belonged to other groups where posting a picture is a piece of cake. My computer skills are only adequate, knowing just enough to get me in trouble sometimes, but good enough to enjoy what's available to the average IT user.

Is there any way the picture posting process can be simplified? Reading your step by step instructions above makes my head spin. Just sayin'. 😉

 

[Bruce Moore]

Bruce,

I love this forum and a big reason it is so great is your excellent work as the administrator. Like many of us, however, I've belonged to other groups where posting a picture is a piece of cake. My computer skills are only adequate, knowing just enough to get me in trouble sometimes, but good enough to enjoy what's available to the average IT user.

Is there any way the picture posting process can be simplified? Reading your step by step instructions above makes my head spin. Just sayin'. 😉

Thank you. The forum is possible, in large part, because it is built on free, open source (volunteer coders), bulletin board software (phpBB). It's used for thousands of forums and the interface is familiar, more or less, to millions of folks who participate in one, or many, boards.

When the open source community upgrades phpBB we take advantage of the new features. Most social media sites (Facebook, instagram, flickr, pinterest, etc.) are commercial enterprises with serious funding and highly paid teams. Switching to another platform would be disruptive and expensive.

That said, we're always looking for ways to make this better.

Cheers,

Bruce

 

[steven_ickman]

I'm a Software Engineer and echo Bruce's comments. Building a site like Facebook costs hundreds of millions of dollars. Building the forum software that runs a site like this can easily run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars (us software guys get expensive.) While posting something like a photo to a forum sounds simple its not. The biggest issue is something we call COGS (Cost of Goods Sold.) It's expensive to store all those photos. Facebooks photo storage costs almost caused them to shut down on more than one occasion. That's why forum sites usually make you link to photos stored elsewhere. Yes it sucks. Yes it makes sharing photos complicated. But if you understand the cost aspects it makes sense.

-steve

Oh and +1 on a forum for Customizations 🙂

 

[Boatagain]

Bruce and Steve:

Thanks for your explanations. It makes more sense now.

I'll just have to take a few days off work, study the instructions and deal with them. 😉

 

[walldog]

An easy way to post pictures is host your pictures on a site such as Google or Yahoo and then a link to the pictures will go into a post very easily. Just be sure that your pictures are sized to no more than 700 pixels per side.

Here is a picture of the most beautiful yellow R27 Ranger Tug ever made.

 

[nzfisher]

Just a thought-

For those looking for a customized site showing improvements, you might try going to the photo albums and trying the advanced search on the general kinds of things you are looking for with the existing software. Often times you will find many examples will list in the search results based on your search topic. When posting pictures of your improvements- if you put some general single word information in the "search keywords" area separated by commas you will help make searching easier for like minded people seeking information in the future. I have borrowed many of the creative solutions for storage this way and adapted them as well as found solutions to problem installations.

Thanks to Bruce for his work in making this possible.

 

[Bruce Moore]

Then new Owner Customizations forum is live and can be found here:

Home >> Forum index < General Discussion < Owner Customizations

Cheers,

Bruce