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27
Apr
Website update: On it's way... Print
Written by David Traves   

Edited April 26'th 2010 - The site is complete, and all lodge reps are being contacted. Those lodges that have not chosen a rep have been contacted last week, and will not get another notice until the current training session is over.

Brethren,

   I have had the opportunity to speak with some of you in regards to the new website, and the role of each lodge in choosing a website representative to control your lodges asset's on this site over the last month. If I have not visited your lodge to speak with you regarding this, I have not forgotten you, and will eventually get there. Those that I have spoken with are excited to get going, and I appreciate the enthusiasm you have shown in regards to helping me.

   I wanted to give you a little update on where things stand at the moment.

   When I had originally set out to complete a website for the District (July 2008), I had a very simple project in mind. Nice simple clean site with about 20 users (one for each lodge, and myself) that could manage the content. This content would be primarily news, and a basic Calendar.

   That basic Calendar has turned in to a full fledged application with the help of being able to reuse some code from the past, and the basic site has turned into a monster that is capable of supporting thousands of users.

   Why thousands of users?

   Well, the project has turned a corner, in fact it's done a 360. If you notice the poll regarding if you would like forums or not is gone. That is because there is currently a full fledged forum in operation in the registered user section of the site right now. And thats not all. The following is a quick rundown of the features that this site will support when complete.

  • (DONE - May 1'st) Full User Profiles / Registration / Moderation
  • (DONE) Full Discussion Forums
  • (DONE) Single User Login
  • (DONE) A Private Discussion System. (This one is great) This is not a Personal Messaging System like e-mail, but rather a conversation system that will allow you to hold private conversations with any other member(s) of the site. e.g. If you want to have a discussion with a few members of the wardens association or all of them in regards to upcoming meetings, you can select those members to be a part of the conversation, and only yourself and those members will be able to post messages back and forth in a cross between a chat / comment / forum style. No other members will even be aware of the conversation. You can hold as many conversations as you want with as many different parties, or just 2 users can talk this way and invite another user into the conversation if need be.
  • (NOW DONE - May 1'st) Full members and contacts list that will not be accessible to the public (no worries about spam either)
  • (DONE) Full lodge assets/Article Manager allowing you to create / edit / delete your articles and manage them
  • (FUTURE) Any user can make a request to add an event to the calendar which is then approved by the lodge
  • (DONE) Registered members/Guests can post comments on articles
  • (DONE) Webmasters tools. Lodges wishing to take advantage of the power of some of these tools will be able to integrate them into their lodge sites seamlessly (e.g. You can wrap the district calendar system into your site just like it shows here, and filter it to only show your lodge's events. That way when you make changes to the calendar, both your lodge's site, and the district site are updated.
  • (DONE) A complete ticket support system to submit and track errors and other support issues with the site including feature requests. This will allow me to not miss your e-mails, and for you to track the progress of the request.
  • (FUTURE) Automatic template switching for mobile devices. Soon, when you visit the site from any mobile device (blackberry, iphone etc..) you will be presented with a much more user friendly, easier to read and navigate version of the site to check calendar events and news.
  • And many smaller features...
May 1'st Update: Full user profile system is complete and working great. All users will have a complete profile that they will update and maintain. If you need to have some of your contact information changed, you can logon and do it. Bottom of site also shows how many Users/Guests are online, and when logged in, will show all users online with a link to their profiles. The new District contacts system links to the user profiles to ensure updated information. It's fully searchable.. e.g. show me all kingsway lodge members, or all junior wardens, or the secretary of simcoe, or everyone named david etc... More to come... I'm working hard at it.

May 5'th update: completely re-wrote the structure of the navigation system and templating system from one single system with permissions, too two completely separate systems. The public site is so different than the members section that this was required. It was easier to run different applications for the same task whether public or member than trying to make permissions for the powerful applications in the members section. Simple contacts pages in the public section that will just show committee name for example. In the backend it would show usernames and names instead with much more information. both are linked so if you change your information, it will be updated globally. Not really updated... but all other systems draw information from your profile. This system is complete though... phew! With that said, even though the public site under district contacts shows (soon) it is complete. I havn't shown the links because there are no registered secreatries and committee members yet to link these profiles too.

The other major addition to the system is an electronic e.zine or magazine with some great articles. With that said, I need to see if anyone is interested in being either a district reporter, columnist, photographer etc... Would be nice to bring lots of fresh content other than news to the site for the brethren to read.

There has also been a lot of code and bug fixes. As we stand now the site seems to be working in good order. All applications and components work without error and smoothly. Whats left to do is some clean up / Finish adding any content (e.g. how to's in the help section etc...) / and layout and graphics stuff to make it look nice. The forums are fully functional and are completely bridged to the authorization of the profiling system and members area. All thats left to do is some css layout stuff, again to make it look half decent. Hope to see you all one here soon. I know its hard to wait, but I appreciate your patience. I'm hoping you'll feel it was worth the wait when you arrive. Talk with you soon.

May 14'th update: Forums are now complete and fully operational. Since the last update there is now a Lodge Rep dashboard that will allow reps to manage support tickets, new members, see a ton of site statistics and analytics, and view site/webmaster specific news.

Profile and contacts lists have been enhanced, and most smaller bugs and layout issues have been corrected.

A small group of individuals have started to work with the site in the backend to weed out any problems and errors, and ensure the quality of the material and tools are ready for the District.

The majority of the programming left to do is the registration process and authorization of new members workflow. All other aspects and feature sets have either been completed, or put on hold for a future date. (After site is launched to members)

After completing the registration workflows, I will shift my focus to the few dozen pages of content that need to be created. These include help sections and f.a.q.'s, training materials, site helper popups, spelling & grammar (which I'm glad I have help with :) ) and all of the many links and paragraphs that help you to navigate and operate the site. This is the final shift in processes before we start training the lodge and committe reps, which I am already beginning to organize. (Not a small task to train 30+ individuals). PDF documentation for lodge reps is also being created. (A manual of sorts), and maybe training videos...

Hope to see you soon! - webmaster     The above feature set is what will be operational when the members area is finished. Every member of Toronto Humber Valley District will have a login if he wishes. There is still a lot of integration to be done between these components, and a few of the main feature sets to complete. I am hoping to start testing the members section within 2-4 weeks, and allow members to start joining shortly there after.

   There are plenty of other ideas being thrown around for future plans, although they will be implemented down the road. I've had to cut of the feature set somewhere so that I could see a clear goal to launch this site.

   Some of those future features include:

  • Wiki style documentation of reference material
  • Personal blog style pages for each member if they want
  • Personal photo galleries
  • Online donation through CC processor for district charities and MFOA
  • Video training tutorials on how to use the site to its fullest
  • Integrated mailing list subscriptions (so that a user could open his profile and be shown a dozen or so different types of e-mail subscriptions he can subscribe/unsubscribe to)
  • Documents repository and downloads section
  • More webmaster tools...

   As current the site's user management and profile system is being rewritten to complement the current and future systems. This is why the District Contacts page is down. The old District Contacts page was not written with these components in mind, and will not be available until the members section launches.

   I thank you all for the amount of interest you have shown in this site. That enthusiasm has gotten me excited to bring more of these style tools to the district, and therefore have created this. I am just as excited to show you what I've done, and can't wait to see you online. I just wanted to give those that have been asking a quick update on what's going on with the site.

   When W. Bro. Mark Drew had handed me this project, I had noticed a statement on his site. That he had hoped that the project would "support inter lodge visitation within the district, and cement the bonds between brethren in the District and beyond".

   As I built this site, I started to understand the importance of that goal and really focused on it. I hope that in some small way we can further it. So simply stated, but very powerful, I hope these tools can become a cornerstone to realising Marks vision.

See you all soon,

Sincerely & Fraternally,
Bro. David Traves

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David Traves
By the way,

This is the article comments system used to discuss specific articles like the one you just read....

Have an opinion or input on the above article, maybe you disagree/agree with the above comment. Try it out and let me and other users on this site know what you think.
Bro. David Traves , April 27, 2009

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Last Updated on Monday, 26 April 2010 12:52
 

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