site check and thoughts please...

[scottyman]

hey guys -
can anyone who enjoys tearing holes in other's work please do a quick test for me?

www.harman.tv/pastv/ is the site -
it's my project for my MSc and would just like your thoughts on how it looks and runs. it will be slow, as it's being served off my home cable connection.

scotty

[IBM]

Your default screen is a little lacking.

Don't know what the point of the MSc is, but if it's website design, then you might want to work on it , you could do with a little content, stating why I should bother to register (don't you dare add my email to a junk mail list for slating your site)

Your update password screen isn't particularly intuitive. Do you want me to repeat my old or my new password? When I enter an invalid old password, it just gives me the error message, and not the fields, but when I enter non matching new passwords I get error message and fields.

Apart from that, in the Browse screen, I got nothing. I get a 'no clips available', an unpopulated drop down field, and three body comments 'Please select an option from the left', 'No Clip data provided', 'Please contact the administrator for access'...

So all in all, not a great website...what's it supposed to do? I like your font, table border style, and that nice background image you're using though.

[scottyman]

trust me - it's not in web design -
sorry - should've made it clear - it's an approvals system for edited television content - so without being cleared for access - you shouldn't be using the system. it's a way of only allowing authorised users to view content.
I've not implemented public clips for those who don't want to register and just want to view public clips - which is what registered users with no rights should have also... got to remember to do that tomorrow.

try logging in as:
thelist@lists.evolt.org
password: evolt

I've got to add much more "help" to the site still
I have a feeling i missed a page when I updated the "live" dev server this afternoon, as that's not the error you should be getting with change password.

if you're bob bobson - then you've got access to video clips now.

cheers!
scotty

[Barry]

PHP has encountered an Access Violation at 01965DF7...

[scottyman]

ouch... nasty

... hmmm - IIS should've restarted itself. hmmm.
oh well, it's sorted now - would you mind having another look?

[Kezzer]

Surely in the comments area you shouldn't have to show the time input box?

[bsodmike]

IIS

Apache with php/mysql....

[scottyman]

lol - I know - problem is exchange owa doesn't work with apache

///
kezzer - what do you mean?
time input is for hours minutes and seconds of the clip - sorry - it's a broadcast thing... there's no way to link the information in the video to an external handler (well, there is - but it means ASP and lots of nasty, dodgy hacks)

I think I'll upload it to my personal webspace and see if it plays nicely there too!

[directhex]

surely it should be simple enough to get the info? i have JSP which can read track information from MP3 and Vorbis files, there's no real reason for AVI to be different - though it's a very long time since i used ASP, and i'm not sure it's as easy as just sticking a java tag reader .class file in the right folder for your web scripts to use

[scottyman]

unfortunately I'm using a windows media server - it's a bit frustrting the way it works - there are a couple of handles I could use - but would involve writing a whole new "application" front end - which would only be supported on windows ie5.5 or later. it's a bit frustrating that it has to be this way - even putting in a little timer is no guarentee because you'd have to send a signal when the video loads - which causes the video to reload... possible thatyou could read it client side, and post it to the form when selected.
It's probably easier this way, especially when I plug in a darwin server.

[scottyman]

if I've got time I think I'll do some more work on the interface - get it a little more intutive. problem is I can't think of any content to put on teh front page - but then again - it's not so much of an issue.
just need something I can show off to my tutor and say:
hey - learnt a new language
does lots of clever things - read and writes from db
reads from csv files with a little class that i created
inheirited from multiple classes and done clever things with teh template engine -
made the template engine do things that I want it to do - not the developers.
plugged in video as well
... then I've got to see if I can sell it to the company I used to work for!