Autoblog gets photo galleries, and there was much rejoicing
One of the things we've always enjoyed about this particular medium is its raw, unadulterated simplicity. In the beginning, it was a title, a photo and some text, with a few hyperlinks thrown in for background. As Autoblog has
evolved, we've gone from a basic rat rod, with a bare minimum of mechanicals to a mildly modded muscle car that actually has a few creature comforts and a couple of boltons. In the very near future, more features will be added, with the end result being a fully built, customized conveyance of information with all manner of features and technologies. At the close of the day, however, we won't lose the essentials that make this site the success that it is.In the spirit of moving forward, we'd like to point out that on the right hand side of the site, you'll find our new photo gallery feature. Our amazingly, super-wonderful friends in IT have blessed us with a system that allows for thumbnails and full size images, all at the click of a mouse. This feature will make it exceptionally easier for you to view images and for us to bring you all those compelling live shots you expect from our show coverage.
We'd ask you to check out the gallery, play around with the links and then let us know what images you've seen in the past that you'd like to see uploaded, as well as what size you'd like the full pics to be displayed in. Currently, our full size images are formatted to be 1280 pixels wide. That may make viewing the pics in their entirety an exercise in scrollerobics, so we want to know what you'd prefer.
As always, watch this space. More is on the way and we think you'll be as excited as we are when you see what our evolution will bring.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Bill P. 7:14AM (12/22/2006)
Hey guys,
Why don't you take this opportunity to brag a little and tell us all how many readers you have, etc. etc., as compared to an old-school car magazine?
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Brent R Hood 8:00AM (12/22/2006)
The main reason that I cruise your blog is to glom photos of autos so that I can load them on my PSP and discuss them with others later, kind of like a photo notebook. As an interface designer I am disappointed with your first attempt at organizing this visual material. 1024 would be a more standard size, and if the format mimicked your site then that would help make it more intuitive to your readers. If you assigned an art director to choose the very best photos then you could skip the rest (visual noise). Keep up the good work on your blog, it is awesome...brh
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Jason 9:58AM (12/22/2006)
Sorry!
1280 does it for me!
I absolutely despise galleries where the photos barely take up my screen.
Large photos capture the essence of a car--down to the very minute details.
I can never get enough of photos like that, and loathe sites that upload small photos.
Photos can always be resized. Better to err on the side of large!
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rvr 10:26AM (12/22/2006)
love the gallery feature, nice work. i agree that 1280 is wonderful to have--all the better to make a good desktop picture :)
i also agree that it's too wide for standard browsing, though. i think you should make the large size 900 to 1000 wide, and offer a link to super-size it.
finally, as i'm also a ui designer, i encourage you to pull the gallery pages more inline with the rest of the site. keep the same page width with the gray background. you can fit plenty of thumbnails into your standard column width, and keep the side rail with menus and ads, etc.
something like this script would work very nicely, allowing you to avoid having another page layout for the large images.
http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/
keep up the good work!
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Spud 10:51AM (12/22/2006)
You guys are awesome! Why look at the car magazines anymore? Autoblog is part of my daily ritual...
Happy Holidays!
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Brad 1:05PM (12/22/2006)
I agree with some others. 1280 is far, FAR too small. You should have your thumbnails, and the large version to be viewed in the browser maybe 1024 pixels wide, for good browsing, but I also want the capability of viewing images of my favourite car in their full 4096 pixel-wide glory. Besides, when you have large images, most browsers will shrink them down for browser viewing.
Don't skimp on the pixels.
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Kevin White 1:07PM (12/22/2006)
I hardly know anyone who runs at 1024x768 anymore. 1280 is just about right. Nice job guys!
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BOB 4:06PM (12/22/2006)
IDEA : A
EXECUTION : C-
1--with the tiny thumbnails, some text is needed, so one does not have to open the pic to see what it is.
2--NOT user friendly to have the gallery open in the same window, replacing Autoblog.
As a matter of fact, it is a great way to distract folks from reading the rest of the blog and seeing the ads that keep you alive. If I were in your advertising sales dept, I would be very upset.
3--until you can change that, perhaps a large note saying "please right, click, choose 'open in new window'"
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zahn 6:45PM (12/22/2006)
The biggest auto-gallery around here, autogaleria.pl uses three meanings of 'full size' - 800, 1024 and 1280. I don't remember any complains ;]
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John Neff 1:10AM (12/23/2006)
Awesome, thanks for the feedback everyone. Our absolutely incredible development team put this together very quickly because we were pleading for a gallery system before the Detroit show. It will definitely be tweaked incessently as time goes on to make it better, but we're really impressed with their first stab at it.
We hear what you're saying about the galleries taking you "outside" Autoblog, and if you check out the photo gallery system that Engadget got (http://www.engadget.com/photos/hands-on-with-belkins-cable-free-usb-hub/), you'll see something close to the gallery system we'll eventually have. Anyway, rest assured we're going to use the galleries as often as possible because we really like them and are glad for the most part your reactions have been positive. We're taking everyone's comments into consideration, though.
Thanks!
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BOB 4:12AM (12/23/2006)
I don't know about Engadget's website, but the sites you look at when "your gadget" needs attention are best when galleries don't close the original window -- it is pretty standard-- I am glad that is your goal.
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Phred 4:55AM (12/26/2006)
Good work - I like where it's going.
My suggestion is to put less junk (text, logo) above the picture. The size is good, as it fits in my window just fine, but only after I scroll down to it, which is annoying.
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