Tech Forum

My first suggestion is to get the final (or at least first non-beta) to appear prominently and permanently on the main website, to help increase the usage of LUWS, and maybe separate the public-essential and member-essential information to the two separate places to help facilitate the movement and adaptation of this web application

My second suggestion: if some calling-specific screens are going to be shown I think an increased security is necessary.

For example, in some cases a member may share his/her logon with members of their family for whatever reason, and i know for myself it's very common. now if this member has ever shared his password with a family member and then gets called to the bishopric then the membership's security is then compromised when the calling-specific screens become available.

It may not always be apparent to the member to change the password, in which case a screen should display a high visibility notice that calling-specific information cannot be shown until a passcode that's MLS created, (to prevent other family members from creating one then on the LUWS side) is entered.

The alternative is to consistently remind users not to share passwords and user names amongst family members, and to use unique passwords that other family members do not know, and then to post a link to a short explanation of the reasons why not. i honestly think my original idea would work better, because people will still work regardless of the rules.

My third major suggestion: Could there be a possibility of making calendar events and information sharable on facebook? maybe the possibility of linking an LDS account to a facebook, myspace or other social network account (solely for the purposes of sharing information with non-users) I know here in england with the lack of access to the old LUWS system that facebook is used quite commonly for event scheduling and messaging.

My Fourth Major suggestion: a pornography/inappropriate image filter on the upload a family picture. it may be possible that some search engines do this for their image search, however it could still be weeded out manually i'm not certain if technology is that advanced. 99.9999999999999% of the time this wouldn't be necessary but all it takes is one (quite disgruntled ex-member), this would also help to keep the eyes of a discerning clerk from seeing anything inappropriate before it shows up to anyone other than the uploader. i know this is likely beyond the scope of work possible, but the best way to avoid temptation is to keep it from entering the mind in the first place, and if a computer can do this then great! obviously, if the filter fails the image and it's perfectly fine then a workaround can be made for the user to send the image to the administrator personally and have him upload it for the member.

another option on this matter is to send the image to the clerk or approving administrator as being slightly blurred, so not to completely show anything of an obscene nature, but to still make out what generally is in the picture for his approval.

as another separate point on the upload process, is there a clerk's reason for objection section of the approval process? (immodesty, improper image, text, inappropriate gestures etc) can there be a button put with it on the approval form to notify the bishop/branch president of any person willfully abusing this feature to the point of breaking a church standard?

these are just the comments i've been able to work out over the past hour or so, I'm sure I will have more in the days and weeks to come.

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I've been an experienced beta tester for many products in the past (google apps[too many to list], microsoft [windows 7, live labs], autodesk [autoCAD, impression, revit, architecture suite], adobe [photoshop, lightroom], mozilla [firefox] and many many more) and although i don't have much experience on the developer side (i only know how to code html, css) i do understand many principles of coding programs for the web and what is possible. I keep myself active in providing constructive feedback on most developing projects, and take full advantage of release candidate versions. I feel often that if I can't personally give some solutions to the problems I bring up then I'm not being helpful but rather a hindrance. I can't code the solution so i at least help formulate a plan to help get things moving.

I've been very excited to find the beta site for the church just recently and look forward to trying everything out and offering my two cents. I've been a member of the church for 3-1/2 years now and I am currently my ward's assistant clerk. Originally from Canada, I now live in the UK, and married with no kids yet. I am trained as an architectural draftsman, but currently unemployed (praying that will change very soon)

My ward is starting to get ready to show members how to post their family pictures on the ward directory website. However, when I went to go post mine and my wife's picture, it gives me an error stating that it has to be less than 50K. So I get 2 different pics resized to under 50K. Then I get another error saying that, "Your graphic height or width is too large. It needs to be '135 height X 180 width' or smaller." What gives? If I crop it any smaller, the faces aren't going to be seeable. I'll be cutting my face or the Mrs. face out. Any help would be great and how do I explain this to the rest of ward?

Thank you,
Jamie

n.augusta.wardtech wrote:My ward is starting to get ready to show members how to post their family pictures on the ward directory website. However, when I went to go post mine and my wife's picture, it gives me an error stating that it has to be less than 50K. So I get 2 different pics resized to under 50K. Then I get another error saying that, "Your graphic height or width is too large. It needs to be '135 height X 180 width' or smaller." What gives? If I crop it any smaller, the faces aren't going to be seeable. I'll be cutting my face or the Mrs. face out. Any help would be great and how do I explain this to the rest of ward?

Thank you,
Jamie

Your post should probably be in this thread, as it relates directly to an implemented feature in the new Beta Directory:

Beta Directory Photos

Also, you may want to read the rest of the thread because I posted a similar frustration with picture uploading and cropping and its effect on cropping.

mkmurray wrote:Your post should probably be in this thread, as it relates directly to an implemented feature in the new Beta Directory:

Huh? 180 x 135, 50Kb is a feature of the current LUWS.

The beta is larger, (it appears to be 200 x 150) but he'll need to try it out to see if he has a problem with the new larger limits.

RussellHltn wrote:Huh? 180 x 135, 50Kb is a feature of the current LUWS.

The beta is larger, (it appears to be 200 x 150) but he'll need to try it out to see if he has a problem with the new larger limits.

Sorry I assumed the user meant the new beta directory because of this statement:

n.augusta.wardtech wrote:My ward is starting to get ready to show members how to post their family pictures on the ward directory website.

The "ward directory website" instead of "ward website" and the showing members how to post their own pictures were the clues that I went off of.

mkmurray wrote: the showing members how to post their own pictures were the clues that I went off of.

While that function seems to be coming, I don't think it's in the beta just yet.

One thing I would like to suggest and I have already checked to see if this was posted....

Is I would like to see...say you post a calendar event, you're given the option to be able to send an email out at that time. However, in our ward, we have gotten into a practice where if it is posted way too early, we forfiet the email option. What we would like to see is for that email option to be available later should there be time when the event needs to be updated. For example, say we're going to have a ward activity in two months, it gets posted, but I've forfeited the email option...but since I have, I can't send an email to update everyone, unless I go through the News and broadcast the event.

Thanks,
Jamie