VeloBase.com February Semi-Monthly Update! (Classic Rendezvous Preview, the
email to velobase users won't be going out till Tuesday most likely)First
major update announcement of the new year. If you have been keeping track o
f the announcements on the website some of this will likely look familiar.
First for a couple of stats. Velobase.com now has over 350 users, and over
1550 bicycle components in the database. Beyond that there are now almost 1
50 head badges, 90 vintage tools, 40+ frame parts, and 67 catalog scans. Th
e site has been receiving somewhere between 1400 and 2000 page views from s
omewhere around 200+ individuals per day. This is in no small part thanks t
o the contributions of many of those 350 members. Some of the most recent a
dditions to the Component Database include Weinmann 610 single pivot brakes
, Ideale 41 Sports saddle, Stronglight Model 57 Piste crank set and a First
Gen. Shimano Dura-Ace (Black version) shifters (and other parts). Some of
the newest head badges include J.R.J. (early name for Bob Jackson built fra
mes), a Bridgestone Grand-Velo head badge and a JOCO brand (Dutch) badge. N
ew frame part additions include a bottom bracket and fork crown from Georg
Fischer and other parts from Campagnolo, Columbus and Reynolds.In addition
to many new items in the databases, there have been a lot of new features,
pages, and elements to the website that I have been busy working on over th
e last couple of months. Some improve navigation around the website, others
improve or increase the search functions, while others are an addition to
the add / edit screens. Below is a list of the more major additions to the
website since the last major update. There are many other more minor change
s that can be reviewed in the News & Announcements section of the site.1) T
he second page of the Standard Search is finally completed! Yes, the site h
as been up for over six months and the second half of one of the primary fo
rms of search was never completed. I knew that this hadn't been finished, b
ut just never really got around to finishing it, instead working on other p
rojects around the website. One reason was I thought that very few people w
ere using the standard search. However I was informed by a number of users
this was not the case when I tried to remove it from the left side navigati
on. This prompted me to not only putting it back in the search list, but fi
nishing the second page's operation. Another case of user's input helping s
hape the development of the website.2) The new Year Range fields have been
added to the Component Database. These fields have allowed me to add a Year
s Produced to the Quick Search screen. These Year Range fields have input f
ilters that prevent any character other than a number put into the exact ye
ar section. A little touch to make things easier for users. Right now the Y
ear Range Search will only work if you select one decade, but I will hopefu
lly have this error fixed later this week. I also went through every one of
the existing components and updated it to convert the old year information
to the new format. There are still lots of components that never had a yea
r range value, which is one area that I could really use some help in over
the next couple of months.3) Auto Complete drop downs for the Name, Group a
nd new Model search text fields on the Quick Search page. Start typing in t
he brand name, group name, or model name that you are searching for and a l
ist of valid values in the system appear that you can choose from (or just
continue typing in exactly the search phrase you want). Additionally I have
made it where you can search for multiple groups or model numbers by separ
ating the values by ';'.4) Most Wanted Updates List. Just like the name sug
gests, there are a lot of updates and missing data in the Velobase.com data
base and here is a place to see what needs what information added. If you w
ant to help improve the information on VeloBase.com, this is a very good pl
ace to start. You can filter what information, what categories, etc etc you
want to see the list for. By default it shows the top 25 components that a
re missing Date Range or Flagged for Incorrect Information. See the list he
re: http://velobase.com/
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