1000 images and counting

Just a few moments ago I finally got to approve the 1000th image. Thanks to everyone that's posted an image so far, and please keep them coming. It's great to see all these faces from all over the country supporting peace.

Coding for Peace
Aaron

Better Image Browsing

Most people probably haven't noticed, but everyone couple of days we post a few updates to FriendsForPeace.org. Mostly they are small changes like bug fixes, and minor tweaks, sometimes they have been big (like when we added slideshows) and I make a point to bring them up here. Today's update was about 1/2 way between the two. While most of the changes were small design improvements, there are two changes I wanted to point out.

First, you can once again get the recent images from the home page with 1 click. If you click "Browse more photos" you will be taken to the new browsing page, which starts with a slideshow of the recent images. Right now that page doesn't have any new features on it, but it creates a space for us to provide more ways for to explore the pictures. We are kicking around ideas like: showing the most popular tags, slideshows by city and state, popular searches. We're not sure which we'll do in what order, but stay tuned to see what we come up with. If you have ideas please let us know and we'll add them to the mix.

The second improvement today is a small improvement to the search engine. If you enter a US state, you will get only images from that state. So to see all the images from Colorado search for CO. Hopefully this will make it easier to find images that are interesting to you.

Your input is always welcome.
Aaron
Coding for Peace

New Design

One of the first comments we got about the Friends For Peace website is that people wanted the images to be larger; well, we've delivered. Thanks to Carl's efforts to redesign the home page we now have bigger images and the slideshow is integrated into the home page. One of the nice things about this new layout is the site should perform better on low speed connections, since the images now load in a more sensible order. Over the next few days we're planning to design more of the site, to improve your experience overall. Please keep sending us feedback, we like to know how people are using the site and ways we can make it better for you.

Aaron
Coding for Peace

Friends for Peace Slideshows

You asked for slideshows and now we have them! Anytime that a slideshow is available you will see a link labeled "Open Slideshow" under the main image; click on the link and the sideshow will start in its own window.Please let us know how this new function works for you by leaving a comment on the blog.

We are currently working on other ways for people to look at Friends for Peace images. If you have an idea about new features you'd like to see us develop, please let us know by commenting on this blog. We can't promise to do them all, but we're always looking for more ideas.

Aaron
Coding for Peace

We're live and public

Friends for Peace is now publicly available. We've kicked the tires and so far, so good. We hope you enjoy this site and we hope to see a photo of you soon!

Thanks all for your helpful comments and all the enthusiasm and support. It's kept us going and given us great directions to head.

We've heard from many people that we need to have a slide show view to view the photos. Check back for that new feature next week. We should have something up soon.

Ads are going to go out soon. But be sure to blog about us or link to us, so we can get more and more photos. We're hoping for a photo avalanche.

Do you have an idea for the site? Please write a comment on the blog.

Mark
Friends for Peace Coordinator

Your comments needed!

We're knee-deep in web site testing right now and we need your help. If you're looking at this, please email your thoughts about the site to friendsforpeace (at) afsc.org. We will really appreciate it.

What makes sense? What do you like? What don't you like? What is confusing? Please let us know.

Thanks,
Mark
friendsforpeace (at) afsc.org

Launching the Test Site

If you're reading this, you are looking at the Friends for Peace test site. For the next two weeks, we are in testing mode, making sure that the site works before we announce this publicly. If you have comments about the site, please add them as a comment to this blog post below.

Mark

Project Development

Here's the first post about Friends for Peace. This initiative is going to be an important tool for showing the vitality, creativity, and commitment of the pro-peace majority.

We're working on the design and function of the site right now. Carl, our designer, is developing a very cool and clean look. Aaron and Manju are making the system work just as it should. And we're getting lots of important input from everyone. This is a collaborative effort in the best sense.

Soon, we'll let everyone in to kick the tires.

Stay tuned.

For peace,
Mark