Thumbnail support for Wiki

John T Lonsdale john@johnlonsdale.net
Sun, 21 Jan 2007 09:43:45 PST
"We probably need to come up with some criteria for knowing when a page gets

to be too big that we need to divide it. I'm not sure what that should be, 
# of thumbnails when there are thumbnails, lines?"

Mary Sue,

Thanks to you and your collaborators who do a wonderful job with the wiki;
it is an amazing resource.

I'd suggest that the best way to avoid getting pages that need dividing is
to come up with a way to subdivide them (by botanical hierarch or whatever)
before a new page is started, and apply that consistently.  Then make each
subdivision a new page off the bat, even if there's only a single entry at
first.  Of course that doesn't help with existing pages, which probably
cover many likely division points already.  I'd suggest a page is too big
when it takes an unreasonable length of time to conveniently display the
entire contents.  What is convenient?  I can hear the howls of objection,
but I think it would be a mistake to automatically take dial-up connection
speed as the lowest common denominator.  Speeds are rising, costs are coming
down and new technologies are evolving - defaulting to the restrictions
imposed by dial-up would quickly result in way too many over-fragmented
pages that would all too soon need consolidating.  You don't really want to
have to scroll way down a long page, so maybe a couple or three
screen-equivalents would be a good compromise.  This would work for all but
those species where there are a zillion cultivars.  Of course a
'screen-full' depends on how much text you put up front and how much is
accessed by mouse-over, click-through or other method.

I would prefer a quoted URL to go directly to the subject, not the page top,
but that needs some configuring if you are concerned about URLs becoming
defunct.  The latter is an issue I faced when I completely changed the basis
of my plants album on my web site.  Almost a year later I look at the web
stats and still see 404 errors (page not found) which are caused by folks
trying to use old bookmarks and saved URLs for particular taxa.  They soon
enough seem to find what they are looking for so I wouldn't worry overmuch
about keeping individual URLs good for all time.  Search routines get better
and better.

Still only 26F at noon as we are outside cleaning up the hellebores.  

Best,

John


John T Lonsdale PhD
407 Edgewood Drive,
Exton, Pennsylvania 19341, USA

Home: 610 594 9232
Cell: 484 678 9856
Fax: 801 327 1266

Visit "Edgewood" - The Lonsdale Garden at http://www.edgewoodgardens.net/

USDA Zone 6b


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