Front Page

What do you want to see on the front page?

Current plans are:

Remove (or reduce to a drop-down menu) the Chemical Index Minerals groups

Expand on lists ("top ten minerals") ("newest 10 localities") etc...

Add drop down to select mineral groups
Add drop down to select strunz groups

Other suggestions?

Jolyon

Jolyon,

Just a couple of thoughts...

#1 It would be nice to have more options for the "new minerals today" and "new minerals yesterday" features. I would like to be able to see new minerals, say 10 days ago. Maybe a search by "new minerals on ??/??/?? day" where someone can put in the date and see all the minerals added for any date. There would only be the need for 1 tab on the main page instead of 2 if you made the default "today"

#2 I thought a link on each mineral page to any articles that might be appropriate for that mineral. ie; say on the calcite page there is a link to the Best Minerals: Calcite or if it is of note in an article on a specific mine or mining district.

Thanks for listening

Thanks,
Rick
Science, It Works.

"It would be nice to have more options for the "new minerals today" and "new minerals yesterday" features"

That is not how the "new" minerals are displayed, it is just the most recent mineral names added to the database.The best way to keep up with new minerals is in the "IMA Status" messageboard.

"I thought a link on each mineral page to any articles that might be appropriate for that mineral. ie; say on the calcite page there is a link to the Best Minerals: Calcite or if it is of note in an article on a specific mine or mining district. "

Links to the mineral and locality pages are automatically generated when you fill in the location or mineral fields on the article editing page.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/07/2011 10:25PM by Rock Currier.

David,
I guess I mis-spoke. I didn't mean new species. I meant new photos under the tab "New Photo's Today" or "New Photo's Yesterday". I should have made that more clear.

For the second part, I was suggesting a link on the mineral page to any articles that were relevant to that mineral within Mindat. Maybe we are saying the same thing but I can't find that kind of link on the mineral pages. If I am already on an article page, I don't need a link to it or the mineral.

Thanks,
Rick
Science, It Works.

"I meant new photos under the tab "New Photo's Today" or "New Photo's Yesterday". I should have made that more clear. "

From the Add/Edit menu selection - top navigation bar
Select "New daily photo report"
This allows you to select a daily photo report for any previous date of the current month and any date in the previous month.

"#2 I thought a link on each mineral page to any articles that might be appropriate for that mineral. ie; say on the calcite page there is a link to the Best Minerals: Calcite or if it is of note in an article on a specific mine or mining district. "

That is available right now, but the author of the article has to fill in a mineral or locality that he wants the article linked to.

For an example see the olivenite page [www.mindat.org]

Links to mindat articles are between the References and Internet links

For a locality page see: [www.mindat.org]
Link is between External Links and the Mineral list.

David,
Thank you so much. I didn't realize those options were already available.

I will explore a little more carefully and see what other tools I have missed.

Thanks,
Rick
Science, It Works.

Jolyon, Dave,

Probably most of the mindat addicts would agree that you should make a copy of the "recent messages" button on front page.

You have probably already considered the aspect of a multi-lingual mindat. As an example, the wikepeda.org supports 10 language versions of it's site, such as de.wikipedia.org and pl.wikipedia.org.

If I were you, I would also enlarge/improve the mindat logo to help build brand recognition.

And to update the site for this millenium, you need to add video. You should start with clip of last years Lwowek Crystal Days parade!

-Dean Allum

Mindat has been having video since... um... 2006

[www.mindat.org]

What we don't have currently is a way of uploading video by users.

To do so would need us to not only update our server storage, but also our backup requirements would become far more significant, and the way we currently do backups may no longer be appropriate.

All this would rely on an increase in funding to support it.

We already allow people to link to youtube videos within mindat articles, but I appreciate video within mindat would be far more useful.

Multilingual versions of mindat.org are very high on my list of priorities for the future.

Jolyon

Here's a few suggestions I think should make the new front page easier to read or to find info:

- Make the font of the links on the left side of the front page a bit bigger. I never knew there was an 'e-books section' until today, it was a bit 'too well hidden' for me because of the small font (or is it because of my bad eyesight?). (Maybe you could even set that up as a page that just notifies users to e.g. 'look for this or that book on Google Books', followed by the author, title and description of the book, but NOT the ability to download from Mindat itself. Saves some space on your servers I guess...)

- Group the banners/links to dealers at the bottom left side (or across the bottom), so that all the links of the Mindat site itself are grouped also, but at the top.

2 minor details linked to the front page:

- Add some text to the 'Thank you to...' link in the 'About Mindat' section, the current page it links to is an empty Wiki page.

- The 'History Of Mindat' link leads to a Wiki page with a few dead links.

Keep up the great work, I come here every day and want to contribute to its success!

Vik

I had another thought. Make the New Photo pages searchabe by
a) who uploaded the image,
b) Mineral Name, and
c)locality.

Thanks,
Rick
Science, It Works.

Should there be a locality of the day image also??? Opinions please

Rock Currier
Crystals not pistols.

I like the locality of the day idea.

Very good idea.

Regards,
Ralph

I like the locality of the day idea as well!

Yeah, good idea. Will also encourage people to upload more images of the localities they have visited.

At first I love the locality of the day idea!

And one suggestion - could it be possible to link uploaded photo of the locality to the exact spot where it was taken in the map on the page of locality? It would be a great tool for planing field trips!

Aleš.

the "New Minerals" section should be renamed to "New Mineral Names," as most entries are just synonyms or foreign language equivalents.

Uwe Kolitsch Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Yeah, good idea. Will also encourage people to
> upload more images of the localities they have
> visited.


My wife and I are trying to put a serious dent in that aspect of Mindat, Uwe.... >:D<

I'm all for a LOTD!!