"Bob H" <omniverse@charter%net> wrote in message 
news:4468d8be$1@news.povray.org...
> Wow, that looks like a time-consuming task! Thanks for showing the concept 
> in visual form, too.
>
> Is this going to mean a change of the www.povray.org home page links, or 
> is it just within the Links part there?
>

Hi Bob,
The time consuming bit is updating the links themselves which is underway. I 
think that changing the categories should be fairly quick as it's mainly 
just a question of putting a new number against the 1044 records in the file 
we're working off before it gets loaded back into the database. This 
exercise only deals with the bit under the 'Resources' tab referred to as 
the 'Links collection' (http://www.povray.org/resources/links/).

> I'm just a little curious about how it might get more complex or 
> simplified once the change takes place, that's why I ask. It will 
> obviously mean many more pages to jump through, anyhow, won't it? Or is it 
> being planned as a page of link *groups* for the most part?

The categories I've suggested should reduce the number of web pages that you 
need to go through to get to individual links pages by flattening out the 
hierarchy a little bit. It could increase the number of links on a page 
(some of the existing categories only have 2 links on a page to themselves). 
The basic structure would remain the same as at present (ie. a hierarchical 
structure). The boxes listed down the left hand side of the diagram would be 
the top-level category headings displayed on the first page, with most 
categories leading straight into a links page, but a couple containing 
further categories, as is shown by the boxes further to the right.

>
> Something I wish I had tried to get changed over a year ago is the two 
> links going to my defunct AOL account where I had first used web space to 
> store things and that got outdated and I finally quit it altogether. Still 
> have it mostly mirrored elsewhere in two other places (one is 
> http://webpages.charter.net/omniverse/ using same file names as before). 
> Which leads me to ask, are the People's Pages going to be kept (and 
> updated) or removed? If updated, how will people go about adding/changing 
> it?


This is currently a one off exercise to get the links updated. There were 
282 broken links out of the 1044 currently on the site, so there was quite a 
high chance that people would hit a broken link. We've found new locations 
for about half of the broken ones and will be checking the content on the 
rest to make sure its still relevant.  I'll post a list of the ones we 
haven't found soon so that anyone who knows a new location for that content 
can tell us. Those we don't find new locations for, we'll delete.

I've updated the two links you had to the URL you've given above.

I'm proposing that the People's Pages get split into two. With a category 
where POV-Team members  (present and past) can link to whatever they want 
plus a category for 'Galleries' which would links off to the various 
POV-Ring lists as well as to the IRTC and the Hall of Fame. This would 
reduce the need for maintaining these links, but would leave nowhere for 
direct links to user's galleries. POV-Ray users would need to register their 
galleries on one or more of the POV-Rings.

Do people think this is a reasonable idea or not?

In the proposed layout, links to 'links' pages, such as one of the two URLs 
on your site that you referred to above, would go into the top-level 
category 'Related Links Sites'.

> For that matter, has a submittal form been planned? And if there is one 
> already I'm being stupid, of course, since I hadn't noticed anything yet 
> while looking the site over again.

The current exercise is intended to be something that can be completed 
without absorbing the POV-Team member's time, so won't in itself result in 
any changes to the future management of the links pages (such as creating a 
submittal form). Once we've determined the category hierarchy that we want 
to implement for the links file that we're in the process of updating, I 
think we'll be able to invite people to submit new links to us before we 
send the file back to Chris Cason for loading into the povray.org links 
database. If this is possible I'll start another thread inviting new links.

>
> Sorry if I'm asking too many questions at once. Main concern of mine is 
> only about the potential complexity your chart got me thinking of.  ;)
>
> Bob Hughes
>

I'm a bit worried that the diagram may not be clear. Looking back at it a 
week after drawing it I think I should have made it more apparent that the 
boxes on the left are just the top level of the hierarchy and that it's 
meant to be simpler than the current layout.

Regards,
Chris B.

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