Front page photograph

[The Mayor]

Is there any chance of having the photo on the front page updated? As much as I like that pic of the Telford's bus in the rain it has got a bit boring.

Would it be possible to pick a photo from the 'photo's thread and have 'photo of the month' on the front page?

Just an idea!

[Ken]

Just an idea!

Yes, but a good one.

The non-changing photo has been pointed out to me previously, but unfortunately I haven't had the time to do anything much about it.

[STA 1440]

Perhaps some sort of collage with all different buses from all around Australia?

[Busnerd]

As you can understand it is a busy time of year for all of us, and Ken hasn't had a day off for some time, along with other things going on, a front page photo is the least of his worries. Obviously he would like a new front page designed but to make it a good one takes time and help from others to do, and I doubt anyone will even think about it until January.

[gld59]

The time required to implement the original suggestion should be less than it might otherwise seem - hopefully Ken (or whoever else actually does it) can just snurch the code from the fleet lists page at http://www.busaustralia.com/fleetlists/.

gld

[RailwayBus]

As you can understand it is a busy time of year for all of us, and Ken hasn't had a day off for some time, along with other things going on, a front page photo is the least of his worries. Obviously he would like a new front page designed but to make it a good one takes time and help from others to do, and I doubt anyone will even think about it until January.

Yes we all understand that, especially more since Ken already said so himself.

[Ken]

Mr Fleet Lists has very kindly implemented coding which shows a random photo on the home page, similar to what happens on the fleet list home page. Many thanks to him for doing this.

[TransitBris]

Mr Fleet Lists has very kindly implemented coding which shows a random photo on the home page, similar to what happens on the fleet list home page. Many thanks to him for doing this.

Yes it looks great now that different photos come up. Thanks Ken and Fleet lists

[Fleet Lists]

Mr Fleet Lists has very kindly implemented coding which shows a random photo on the home page, similar to what happens on the fleet list home page. Many thanks to him for doing this.

And I did that by pure coincidence as at the time I did it I was not even aware of the existence of this thread. In fact I have only just become aware of it.

However the photos are mainly NSW/Sydney based.

There are a few from Tasmania, a couple from South Australia and at the moment I think one from each of Queensland and the ACT.

I would like a greater variety but I do not have the necessary photos so if anyone can help out with other photos, it would be appreciated.

I am still adding a photo a day so I am looking for a bit more variety to keep that up.

PS Yesterday I deleted a few of the Tasmanian ones which I did not think were up to scratch. I am adding a couple of old NSW ones which would not be to the standard of today but probably as good as you get for such old ones.

[Ken]

I would like a greater variety but I do not have the necessary photos so if anyone can help out with other photos, it would be appreciated.

Can you advise the desired size for the photos? I know a couple of people who have enquired about having their pics included in the front page pics so if you can indicate what size works best they can send them through to you already resized.

[Fleet Lists]

All the photos I have at http://www.busaustralia.com/fleetlists/images/ have been reduced to 432 X 300.

All those with a three digit number and JPG in capital letters come from a CD I received from White Diesel Power a couple of years ago, the Tasmanian and Adelaide Coachlines from someone who emailed them to me while most of the others have been found in other folders in Bus Australia with I think one from The Inspector.

There are a couple of hundred on the CD mentioned above which are mainly from New South Wales and Queensland but none are recent so a few more recent ones would help.

[Fleet Lists]

I have received some photos in the last hour and have already uploaded one of them.

Can anyone guess which one it is? The contributor of the photo is not allowed to reply.

[STA 1440]

TT Admet Bomber, taken by The Inspector, perhaps?

[busrider]

Is it this?

[Fleet Lists]

Busrider is correct.

[Fleet Lists]

I have by now built it up to about 60 photos so there should be a bit of variety there by now - and I have already deleted some of the early ones.

I could keep building it up to say 90 and then keep rotating photos without people realising that a change has been made but things would actually be changing very gradually. But some people may never see some of the photos.

As mentioned before the same photos are shared between the busaustralia home page and the fleet lists home page. I have thought about using different galleries for the two but I think that really defeats the purpose of the whole thing and would complicate things unnecesarily.

One thought that has crossed my miy mind was to have 7 smaller galleries each with about 10 photos and then use a different gallery each day of the week. But again that would be hard to control

Or it would be possible to have the same photo all day (separate ones for the two home pages) and then switch to another photo on the stroke of midnight. At least this way you would be sure that every photo got about the same amount of exposure and everyone who looked on a particular day would get to see that photo. I do feel that where someone supplies one or more photos they should be able to know that it is being used where now there is a good chance that they will not see their own photo being used.

If anything I would prefer the last option with a photo used on the Bus Australia home page for a day being used about two or three weeks later on the fleet lists for a day. That way I could set up the photos some time ahead and it would work over a period when I would be away on holidays. I have got a couple of weeks away from home coming up in the next couple of months.

Any thoughts as to what would be preferred???

[mackinenator]

Or it would be possible to have the same photo all day (separate ones for the two home pages) and then switch to another photo on the stroke of midnight. At least this way you would be sure that every photo got about the same amount of exposure and everyone who looked on a particular day would get to see that photo. I do feel that where someone supplies one or more photos they should be able to know that it is being used where now there is a good chance that they will not see their own photo being used.

I think this would be a very good idea, as I do find it a bit annoying to go from homepage to fleet lists and see the same picture.

I have a number of bus pics I would like to contribute, do I send them to you at the appropriate size?

[Fleet Lists]

I have just changed the Bus Australia Home Page from random picture to a different picture each day but that picture will last all day.

For today I used a vey old picture which has been used before, as it will only get part of a day.

As from tomorrow the pictures received from Buspicsqld will get a turn interspersed with a few others.

I have also received five photos form the previous contributor to this thread and they will be used on five consecutive Saturdays starting this Saturday.

As from the Monday of the week after next I will be using random photos either from ones which may have been used before or from the various BusAustralia galleries so there should be plenty of variety there.

Fleet lists will also be changed to a picture for each day but not for two or three weeks when I will start using the same photos as used in Bus Australia but with a two or three weeks time delay. Exact timing still to be determined. In the mean time it will remain as random pictures.

[Fleet Lists]

Another thought has struck me overnight.

Firstly leave the Bus Australia home page at one different picture each day.

Then fleet lists - still use random photos but change the randomising routine so that it will NOT use the photo in use in Bus Australia that day and also not use any photos set up still to be used for the Bus Australia home page.

And probably restrict the random photos to the ones used for the previous 20 days or so. I probably wont implement that until I have at least 20 past photos from Bus Australia so in the mean time you may still see the current Bus Australia photo pop up in the fleet lists.

[Fleet Lists]

Made a few changes to the fleet lists randomising routine today so that any new photos already put up on the server to be used in Bus Australia in future days will not be used in the fleet lists.

Fleet Lists will now randomly use any photos which have been used in Bus Australia in the previous 20 days - there are currently only two such photos but will build up daily from now. Any Bus Australia photos will not be used after 20 days - all software controlled. For the time being any other photos which were already up on the server whether used in the past or not will still be used randomly in the fleet lists until they are manually removed over a period of time.

That way I did not have to wait to make these changes until the ex Bus Australia photos built up as I had suggested previously.

[Fleet Lists]

Today is the 19th day of the dedicated daily photo for the Bus Australia home page. Today the last of the random photos for the fleet lists, which had not been used as a Bus Australia home page photo, were deleted, leaving 18 photos in use for that purpose, which will build up to 20 by Wednesday.

Some changes have been made to the software today so that instead of me nominating which photo will be used each day, the software will now randomly select a photo each day the first time anyone loads the BusAustralia website on that day.

Currently there are 11 photos from which the one for tomorrow will be selected. Four of these had been up on the server as previoulsy nomited photos from Tuesday to Friday this week but have just been renamed so that they can be used as random photos. The other seven were randomly selected from 138 photos I have on my PC ready for use from either the Bus Australia galleries or the White Diesel Power CD I have had for a few years now. And guess what, one of the seven selected was the Telford photo in the rain which was the home photo for a long time. So wil it be the first one randomly selected tomorrow?

After a photo has been in use for the fleet lists for 20 days, the software will automatically delete it from the server.

So all I need to do now is to ensure that I upload some photos every so often to ensure the selection routine has somehting to select from and the software will look after the rest.

However it is possible for me to override the daily random selection routine by nomination a specific photo for certain days. Initially this has been done for the next two Saturdays for which someone sent me some photos which they suggested be shown one a week - the other three were shown on the last three Saturdays.

It should be noted that on a day on which the random selection routine is not required, there will also be no deletions so any photos which are due for deletion on such days will remain in use for the fleet lists until the next random selection day.

So let us hope it all works correctly tomorrow.

And any photos for use as the Bus Australia home page and subsequently on the fleet lists home page, are always welcome.

And a thank you to those people who have sent photos which have now either been used or are scheduled for the next two Saturdays.

[Fleet Lists]

A new photo was selected OK this morning from the 11 photos I mentioned yesterday ie a Surfside bus.

But after that some strange things happened.
the Surfside photo had been renamed T19 which was the name allocated for today ie prefix T and 19 being the 19th day after the daily photo started. When I looked at the remaining photos I found another photo named X19 which was the identical photo from which it should have been renamed but it was still there which it should NOT have been. X19 was a rename yesterday from the previous T19 which I had initailly set up for today - maybe coincidence then again maybe not - I dont know.

But then I had uploaded another photo yesterady under the name 119 from the White Diesel Power CD (a Revesby Bus and Coach photo) also ready for selection but it had disappeared. Note both names end in 19 ??????

So to sort things out I deleted the X19 and reloaded 119 so things should be back to what they I thought they should be.

Then I went out for a couple hours and lo and behold when I got back instead of the Surfside photo the Revesby photo had now appeared on Bus Australia. And yes the 119 photo was also still there. So I deleted that and reloaded the Surfside photo for future use but this time under its original name Surfside687b.jpg.

No idea yet why this happened - it will be interesting to see what happens tomorrow.

[Fleet Lists]

The last two mornings it has worked perfectly so I still have no idea what went wrong on Tuesday morning.

And today the first photo of the NSW country bus was automatically deleted so we still have 20 photos available for random selection by the fleet list home page.

Yesterday THAT Telfords photo was randomly selcted as the home Page photo for the day so that is out of the way now - just 20 days for the fleet lists.

[Fleet Lists]

The glitch on Tuesday can be explained.

I would need to assume that two people accessed Busasutralia at the same time and as a result two renames were activated from different photos and the hence the renames would get confused.

I will add some code before Sunday to see if I can overcome that problem. But it would be impossible to test. It wont happen tomorrow as there is a fixed photo for the day so there will not be a rename.

[Lemon]

Is there any pics from Canberra that come up in the selection?