Announcing Bookshelves - Free Web App at Online Book Club!

[Fran]

@Scott
Sorry I meant link (typo) & you have it already done - thanks

[Scott]

As to the question about adding a book, anytime you can see the cover of a book (or see the "no cover available" image where the cover should be) you can click on that and it will bring you to the book's page where you can add that book to your own shelves. There is often a link underneath it to that will say 'add to shelf' if it is not already in one of your shelves.

On the main page there is a list of the 16 most recently added books (with covers), along with the top 5 biggest member shelves and the 5 members who submitted the most books. However, just now I have released an additional page that offers a very powerful searching/sorting mechanism to list all books. You must be logged in to use that page. You can browse to it from the main page (the links are right above and below the listing of recently added books), but here is the direct URL too: http://forums.onlinebookclub.org/shelve ... rt=popular

I think that page will make it really easy for members to easily find books they have already read to add to their shelves (rather than always having to try to think of them offhand and then type them manually). I also think it is a great way for people to discover new books that they may want to read in the future (which one can then click quickly to add to their to read list).

Anyway, when you are using Bookshelves, if you notice something that could be improved let me know. Even if it turns out it is already there in some other less convenient way, let me know and I can try to make whatever it is more user-friendly. Actually, that goes for the whole website too.

Sorry I meant link (typo) & you have it already done - thanks

@Fran Ahhh, okay I was quite confused. You seemed so sure that I should put a like on the homepage.

[gali]

A great addition! It makes it easier to find and add a book.

[TLGabelman]

Scott you rock!

[Scott]

I am glad you like the sorting page.

There are still so many books for us all to add. I don't know about you all, but I know I've just barely started adding all the books I have read throughout my many beautiful years on this planet. (Though, I feel like I'm looking over my old school yearbook or pictures of ex-girlfriends or something as I think about all these books I have since forgotten, like, "Oh, I remember that book! So interesting...").

However, once we all get all these books in the database, I think the sorts will be even that much more useful like highest rated and most popular. It will be interesting to see which books top the list.

I'm thinking I'll rotate a bunch of things from Bookshelves into the cool stats at the bottom of the forums. Maybe some things like "this week's most active book" (i.e. which book has been added to the most shelves that week). Maybe "members who added the most books this week". Oh and maybe also "members who have marked the most books read this week". Whatever I add to the random rotation on the bottom of the forums can be added to the 'cool stats page' so that it can be viewed anytime. Any more ideas are appreciated.

[erindcargill]

Awsome! i cant wait to start!

[Scott]

Oh and the other thing I want to do is enable a few simple, special moderator functions on Bookshelves, such as deleting uploaded cover images and marking books as duplicates of others books. Any ideas of what moderators would need/want to do would be great. I'd like to try to add all those functions in one swoop. (You'll notice I already released the app with a report function for logged in members to report incorrect information or just images that are of poor quality.). Ah, maybe for reporting images of a bad quality I should allow the reporting member to upload an alternative, allegedly better image, and then the moderators or I could just run through a list of proposed replacement images and select the better one.

I also already built-in a system for marking duplicate entries and alternative spellings of book titles. I am just undecided on the best way to do that on the front-end. I don't want to make the book pages too cluttered and confusing. Should I just wait for books that happen to be duplicates due to alternative spellings to be reported/noticed or should I put a small form on the book pages saying something like, "Alternative Titles" to add alternative titles. I am caught between trying to make things accurate and avoid problems/confusions and the principle of KISS (which if I remember correctly I learned from Fran years ago).

[Himmelslicht]

Can I add a suggestion?
Is it possible to use odd characters? Because some of my titles/authors have names/titles with accents, etc.

[erindcargill]

Every once in a while when i add a book to my bookshelf, it says an Error Occurred and to contact Scott. or post to one of these Forums.

[Scott]

Can I add a suggestion?
Is it possible to use odd characters? Because some of my titles/authors have names/titles with accents, etc.

Are you getting errors when you try or are you asking?

If so, I can modify the code to allow those.

I think the reason I may have put too strict of requirements on the title field was to standardize the titles so that it is less likely that one same book is in the database with a bunch of different titles. If you write it correctly with the accent, someone else will likely write it without the accent and then it would seem like two different books in the database. However, there are better ways to detect that those are the same book than to prohibit the use of accents. Namely, I just need to save a watered down identifier for the title that would be the same with or without the accent simply for use for comparison in the database.

Can you give me a few examples of the titles you wish to add just so I can test it when I have made the appropriate changes?

-- 08 Jan 2015 05:41 pm --

Every once in a while when i add a book to my bookshelf, it says an Error Occurred and to contact Scott. or post to one of these Forums.

Does it give anymore details. I also noticed I programmed it to give an error message if you try to add a book to a shelf without actually selecting a shelf. One needs to select a shelf, but I realize that isn't the most user-friendly way to deliver that error. I will fix it. But as it is now it should still say in error details that the error is that no shelf was selected. If it is different error, then I will need to figure out what that is and fix it. In any case, there should be an error number that I can use to pull up the specific error report generated.

-- 08 Jan 2015 06:08 pm --

Every once in a while when i add a book to my bookshelf, it says an Error Occurred and to contact Scott. or post to one of these Forums.

Does it give anymore details. I also noticed I programmed it to give an error message if you try to add a book to a shelf without actually selecting a shelf. One needs to select a shelf, but I realize that isn't the most user-friendly way to deliver that error. I will fix it. But as it is now it should still say in error details that the error is that no shelf was selected. If it is different error, then I will need to figure out what that is and fix it. In any case, there should be an error number that I can use to pull up the specific error report generated.

I have modified it so that if a member tries to add a book without selecting a shelf it generates an error on that page the same as if one didn't add a title or author. I think this is more user-friendly than what it was doing before which was bringing the person to a more generic separate error page with the error information buried in the "error details".

I have modified the 'add to shelf' option on a book's page to simply redirect back to itself if a proper shelf wasn't selected rather than generate an error.

[1mariposaheart]

Is it possible when browsing the books posted to have them in an alphabetical list. As I scrolled through all posted on a shelf, there are repeated books.
I did not see how to choose this option for scrolling.

Also, is it possible to type in a search area for book titles or author in bookshelf, and find what already exists within the app?

I like this app. I have forgotten many books that I have read. I'm enjoying seeing some appear from others who are sharing. Thanks for creating this.

[gali]

Like you, I have read many books during the years. It will be an ongoing process to add them all.

Is there an option to edit the data (rate, genre etc.) after it was submitted, In case of an error while submitting a book?

Oh, and having the books in an alphabetical list will be great.

[TammyO]

Oh and the other thing I want to do is enable a few simple, special moderator functions on Bookshelves, such as deleting uploaded cover images and marking books as duplicates of others books. Any ideas of what moderators would need/want to do would be great. I'd like to try to add all those functions in one swoop. (You'll notice I already released the app with a report function for logged in members to report incorrect information or just images that are of poor quality.). Ah, maybe for reporting images of a bad quality I should allow the reporting member to upload an alternative, allegedly better image, and then the moderators or I could just run through a list of proposed replacement images and select the better one.

I also already built-in a system for marking duplicate entries and alternative spellings of book titles. I am just undecided on the best way to do that on the front-end. I don't want to make the book pages too cluttered and confusing. Should I just wait for books that happen to be duplicates due to alternative spellings to be reported/noticed or should I put a small form on the book pages saying something like, "Alternative Titles" to add alternative titles. I am caught between trying to make things accurate and avoid problems/confusions and the principle of KISS (which if I remember correctly I learned from Fran years ago).

@Scott Great Idea, Scott. I have added a few covers that I did not particularly care for. However, when I try to delete them there is not an option to do so. Is it possible to create something that would make it easier to do so? Thus, allowing one to enter one of a better quality; sometimes just resizing can distort the image a little too much.

Also, I find that it is difficult to delete any book once it's been placed on a shelf. There is a trash can, however, the book still remains on shelf. Is there anything to be done about this? Thanks!

[Scott]

Several things:

1 - On the view a member's shelf page, the shelves are listed in the order of currently reading, previously read, going to read (and not interested in reading which are hidden by default). I am thinking of switching previously read with going to read namely because previously read seems to get so large that it makes the going to read category fall way, way down the page. What do you all think?

Is it possible when browsing the books posted to have them in an alphabetical list. As I scrolled through all posted on a shelf, there are repeated books.

Yes, I have added a sort by title and sort by author, both alphabetical. There is an option to report books when view the book's page. Some options include misspelling of the title or author or unnecessary abbreviation. Hopefully, in cases where a duplicate version of a book is submitted it is for one of those reasons.

For cases where it is equally correct to write a book multiple way, hopefully we can come up with some agreed guidelines of which way should be used to help avoid duplicates. However, even if neither is correct, I can still mark one as a duplicate of the other so that in the future only one will show up in the results. I am not completely sure how I want to handle these situations, though. My preference is too avoid them as much as possible anyway. Currently, when submitting a new book, a check is done to see if the title/author matches something already in the database. However, it won't detect the match if there is slight differences in the way the title/author is written. I should be able to improve it so it is better at detecting duplicates during the submission process.

Is there an option to edit the data (rate, genre etc.) after it was submitted, In case of an error while submitting a book?

At this time, there is only the option to report it as incorrect by clicking the "Report Incorrect Information" link on the book's page. I think I would prefer to only enable moderators to make most of those changes. While 99.9% of our member's are great people who would never even think of it, it wouldn't be that hard for a malicious person to--for instance--run through all the books and replace the cover images with advertisements for, um, less than decent websites. There is also the possibility that someone would vandalize lots of books just to troll us.

You can change your own rating of the book anytime.

-- 09 Jan 2015 12:55 am --

@Scott Great Idea, Scott. I have added a few covers that I did not particularly care for. However, when I try to delete them there is not an option to do so. Is it possible to create something that would make it easier to do so? Thus, allowing one to enter one of a better quality; sometimes just resizing can distort the image a little too much.

I think what I would like to is either one of the following two things:

(1) Make it so the image is still clickable (for logged in members) on the book's page even after a cover has been uploaded, just like it is prior to a cover being uploaded; so that clicking on it enables one to upload a cover image but in this case a suggested replacement image. Then, I can also have a simple interface that a moderator or I can use to select the preferred image of the multiple uploaded images. This would prevent abuse as described above.

OR

(2) Only the user who originally uploaded the image can change/delete it. That way, if someone uploads an image and it looks bad, they can fix it or they can delete it so someone else can upload an image.

I would like feedback on these two options.

Also, I find that it is difficult to delete any book once it's been placed on a shelf. There is a trash can, however, the book still remains on shelf. Is there anything to be done about this? Thanks!

I am not sure what you mean. Do you want to remove a book added to these from the site completely or do you just not want the book to be listed in your trash shelf?

The trash ('not interested') shelf should be hidden by default on a member's page.

I have made it so the books in someone's 'trash' are not counted towards shelf size (number of books).

[TammyO]

@Scott Both ideas are great. Either would work. However, it may make things a little easier for everyone with idea #2. I have left a few covers blank with this same idea in mind. Also, Scott, I mistakenly made two copies of the same book (Dean Koontz).

How would I go about deleting one of them so that it doesn't show on that shelf? And how would I go about enlarging books that I've already added? Can you maybe add those titles for me. I am trying to get all of my books to be of the same size..

Hence Idea #2. However, if Idea #1 is easier and less complicated that would work as well.