New Travelogue Area

[adam]

A new Travelogue area has been implemented, replacing the previous Trips section.

Some of the new changes and features:

1. Travelogue tab located in Gallery and member's area.
2. In addition to the trip summary, there is now a story area to write longer travelogues (maximum of 10,000 characters ~around 3 pages).
3. Management of Travelogues/Trips now takes place in the 'Manage' tab in each member's 'My Account' area.
4. A 'Publish' feature allows travelogues to be "published" by members. If a travelogue is not "published", it is not viewable on TrekEarth outside of the member's Travelogue management area. This allows one to add content over time and store changes/drafts on their TrekEarth account. When the travelogue story has been completely written, a member may "publish" it so everyone may read and view it. Note that travelogue photos are always viewable.

I believe this "Publish" feature will be useful for those traveling and who might want to add notes, anecdotes or draft stories privately, and publish it another time.

Please let me know if you find any problems or have suggestions on how to improve this new Travelogue feature. Thanks.

[Bayleaf]

Nice functionality Adam, as usual.
I've just had a play with this, and I noticed that the dates of a Travelogue are not saved when you return to edit an existing travelogue. Therefore, before you save it, you have to reset the dates. This is a bit of a pain.
Is there anything you can do here?

[adam]

"Is there anything you can do here?"

This problem has been fixed, thanks. Please let me know if anyone finds other problems, or has suggestions.

[sam]

Great feature. I just posted 3 extended travelogues. Is there a (planned) way for users to view travelogues in some order besides chronologically? (e.g. by country, by type, etc)

[adam]

"Great feature."

Thanks, I hope members will find it useful.

"I just posted 3 extended travelogues."

Those are interesting travelogues you wrote!

"Is there a (planned) way for users to view travelogues in some order besides chronologically? (e.g. by country, by type, etc)"

Yes, this will be implemented in the future. I also plan on integrating the travelogue section with the photo section more.

[mdchachi]

Just a couple thoughts about this subject that have occurred to me.

- the travelogue photos are displayed in photograph-date, upload-date order. This is somewhat problematic in that you must take care to upload your photos in the order that you would like them to appear. Since removing/reposting is discouraged there is no remedy at the moment except, perhaps, to fake the dates.

- it would be very useful to have a way to group photos in other ways. As we discussed before, something like <a href="http://www.trekearth.com/read.php?f=1&t=136&m=466&tt=flat">Themes</a> would be very useful. For example, I have taken pictures at the same festival in three different years. It would be nice to be able to present them together.

I realized recently that it would also be advantageous to be able to include others' photos in a Theme as well. Right now this is accomplished by the photographers adding links to the photo notes. For example the theme of Tokyo Waterways has essentially been started <a href="http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/Japan/photo9721.htm">here</a>. I can't really think of a good way to implement this last bit but thought I'd bring it up as something to consider.

[adam]

Themes, yes, the more I think about the more I like it. This is a fairly big addition so it will take time though.

Maybe there will be a link for each photo [Add to Theme] which will be followed by a page containing a list of all themes one has created. A 'Themes' tab would then display one's themes for anyone to view. Is this what you're thinking of?

[mdchachi]

> This is a fairly big addition so it will take time though.

Yes, of course, I understand. Monday will be soon enough. ;-)

I guess I'm picturing a Travelogue except that we control what photos are contained in it and the order of presentation. It would also allow the linking of anybody's photos -- either your own or others'. Let's say I'm a diver -- I could create a theme called Dive Locations and link in any photos of potential dive destinations.

I'm not sure if you'd want an Add to Theme link on all photos, though. I was thinking more of having a Theme maintenance screen. Perhaps photos could be selected with some sort of pop-up where you could navigate through all photos geographically or by member. I don't know... see what everybody else thinks. Even if you decide not to allow linking of other members' photos, it would still be useful for the reasons that were discussed before.

[adam]

" I was thinking more of having a Theme maintenance screen."

Since the browse functionailty already exists, I think it will be much easier to simply add the [Add to Theme] link directly. That way whenever new sorting ways are created to view photos, it will always be possible to add the photo to a theme.

OK, this seems doable now, I'll try this over the weekend. Thanks for the feedback!

[venne]

Dear Mr Adam. First thanks for your beautiful site.
As I have seen on the rubric concerning the country "Malawi"
there are only 3 pictures, so I would like to open a travelogue session ,but threre is a small problem concerning dates of beginning and end of the travel. In fact I was an expatriate with my family during 8 years, living in the deep bush in full contact with local people and nature.I was flying with helicopter for my job (I worked for Police Forces).
If you agree, I will start to add photos and comments of this nice African country. Best regards. Jean Louis.

[adam]

Well, I wish you all the best as you add a Malawi travelogue, and if you have any questions, please let me know.

[oochappan]

New to this site I saw that facility Travelogues and I was keen of using it. So I was cheking out how others handle this feature but the use of it seems rather mysterious to me .... I was expecting that it was possible to add the story behind the picture with a pop-up screen or an opening-screen with a link located by each picture and with a next picture it would be possible to walk through the whole trip with all information as a good preperation to undertake that same adventure yourself. I thought this was trekking all about.
Now I notice that people are using the description even to say hello to each other as there is a lack of this feature and you got the impression that the photo's are more important to judge and to improve independently without any threat at all. Was this the target : judging each others, mostly in a small circle or learning about travel-possiblities at the same time ? Maybe I didn't get it right ?

[adam]

Travelogues are a way to group photos taken within a specific time period to make it easier to view together. It's also possible to attach a story to a travelogue so one may write about the trip as well. That's all.

The note description for each photo is separate from the travelogue feature. As for the target of this site, different people will use it in different ways, but critiquing is a big part of it.

[Wietse]

What number I fill in or how I change the date always a message occur: No photos exist for this time period. Please remove the headline photo.
What to do

Wietse

[mustafaturgut]

I create my trovelogue but don't publish. And I don't see added photo.
I take difeerent message I do day adverb. "No photos exist for this time period"
I write a photo name at the headline photo adverb that system say "Photo ID must be integer."

How do I publish travelogue ?

Thank you

[fayeulle]

For example :

You shot URL is :
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/photo768787.htm

-----------> The ID (integer) is <b>768787</b>

Hope it's help you

JP

[mustafaturgut]

JP thank you. How do I think !!!
Best regards.

[Anneberry]

Hello hoping you can help - I tried to post to my travelogues but I can't get past the very end bit which I think is "Headline Photo" Everything I try to put in there comes up with an error message. It seems to require a number but what ever I put it says outside my trip dates.
Thanks
Anne

[bibiweb]

You must indicate the number of a photo that will be part of your travelogue. If I take the example of your latest upload (Isola Santa Maria, Tropea), the number is 861722. This is found in the URL at the top of the screen.
Hope this helps.
Brigitte

[Anneberry]

Thank you, about to try now....

[Anneberry]

It worked thank you so much

[sabyasachi_d]

hi adam

i posted a travelougue on a horrid holiday i had in darjeeling....one thing....like we have for individual pictures....can we have a critque/comment section for the travelogues as well?

the new feature is really good..

cheers

sabyasachi

[sabyasachi_d]

hi adam

i posted a travelogue on a horrid holiday i had in darjeeling....one thing....like we have for individual pictures....can we have a critique/comment section for the travelogues as well?

the new feature is really good..

cheers

sabyasachi