I would like to suggest that the entry for an object should display a version
history and allow visistors to view old versions of objects.

Take, for instance, Wikipedia. Image pages on Wikipedia
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Camera_focal_length_distance.gif) have a
version history where you can see the names of all contributers. You can view
and revert to old versions of a file.

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"SharkD" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message 
news:web.4785c8c7767dec36f6ab856c0@news.povray.org...
>I would like to suggest that the entry for an object should display a 
>version
> history and allow visistors to view old versions of objects.
>
> Take, for instance, Wikipedia. Image pages on Wikipedia
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Camera_focal_length_distance.gif) have 
> a
> version history where you can see the names of all contributers. You can 
> view
> and revert to old versions of a file.
>
Hi,

The POV-Ray Object Collection already does this.

For example, your AxesAndGridMacro shows version 1.2 from today as the 
default, but allows you to download version 1.11 from earlier today by 
selecting it in the pulldown instead of version 1.2.

The history shows the date that the version was submitted and the nickname 
of the contributor.  You should be able to see the information change if you 
select version 1.11 because the image that I added to the version 1.2 entry 
this morning should vanish and be replaced by the 'NoImage' image.

When you select a different version the screen only reloads the image and 
the description for that one item, and doesn't refresh the whole page. So if 
the image and text against two versions of the object are identical, then it 
might be difficult to spot that the information really has updated on the 
screen.

The intention is to avoid too much duplication, so you could have uploaded 
your SphereGridMacro as a replacement for GridLines if you'd have wanted to. 
Anyone in the future wishing to download the older version would still be 
able to get to it.

Indeed, if you want to do that you still can. I could then suppress the 
separate SphereGridMacro entry if that's what you'd like to do.

ps. Although images are not mandatory there's a very strong preference to 
have both a thumbnail image and a full-sized image with the contribution, 
making it quicker and easier for people looking for stuff to see if the 
contribution is the sort of thing they're looking for. In the case of 
SphereGridMacro it would be nice to show off the range of capabilities of 
the macro in one image.

Preferably jpg or gif, but other browser compatible formats are acceptable. 
The main image should have the same name as the contribution (e.g. 
gridlines.jpg). The thumbnail should have the name of the contribution 
followed by '_thumbnail' (e.g. gridlines_thumbnail.jpg). If there is no 
thumbnail it'll use the main image, but that takes longer to download and 
doesn't always scale nicely, so it's better to also do a 160x120 thumbnail.

Regards,
Chris B.

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pps You should comment out the "Axes_macro.inc" include statement in 
'spheregrid_demo.pov' so that anyone downloading just the SphereGridMacro 
contribution doesn't get errors saying that the include file is missing. 
Another option would be to use the file_exists() function to test whether 
the person running 'spheregrid_demo.pov' has also downloaded that include 
file:
  #if (file_exists("Axes_macro.inc"))
     #include "Axes_macro.inc"
      ....
  #end

Regards,
Chris B

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Note that there is a povray.object-collection newsgroup.

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"Chris B" <nom### [at] nomailcom> wrote:
> pps You should comment out the "Axes_macro.inc" include statement in
> 'spheregrid_demo.pov' so that anyone downloading just the SphereGridMacro
> contribution doesn't get errors saying that the include file is missing.
> Another option would be to use the file_exists() function to test whether
> the person running 'spheregrid_demo.pov' has also downloaded that include
> file:
>   #if (file_exists("Axes_macro.inc"))
>      #include "Axes_macro.inc"
>       ....
>   #end
>
> Regards,
> Chris B

OK, I'll do that. Sorry I missed that before uploading (especially since the
macro contained within include file is called nowhere in the file).

One other question: how do I submit an image with the object to be shown as a
thumbnail? I looked for this in the submission form, but seem to have missed
it.

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"SharkD" <nomail@nomail> wrote in message 
news:web.478684aeaac59e47d410b38f0@news.povray.org...
> "Chris B" <nom### [at] nomailcom> wrote:
>> pps You should comment out the "Axes_macro.inc" include statement in
>> 'spheregrid_demo.pov' so that anyone downloading just the SphereGridMacro
>> contribution doesn't get errors saying that the include file is missing.
>> Another option would be to use the file_exists() function to test whether
>> the person running 'spheregrid_demo.pov' has also downloaded that include
>> file:
>>   #if (file_exists("Axes_macro.inc"))
>>      #include "Axes_macro.inc"
>>       ....
>>   #end
>>
>> Regards,
>> Chris B
>
> OK, I'll do that. Sorry I missed that before uploading (especially since 
> the
> macro contained within include file is called nowhere in the file).
>
> One other question: how do I submit an image with the object to be shown 
> as a
> thumbnail? I looked for this in the submission form, but seem to have 
> missed
> it.
>

The thumbnail 160x120 should have the name of the contribution followed by 
'_thumbnail' (e.g. gridlines_thumbnail.jpg). You can also include a main 
image which will automatically be linked to from the thumbnail. The main 
image should have the same name as the contribution (e.g. gridlines.jpg).

Regards,
Chris B.

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