Team/User Networking is Here! Also, A New Photo Gallery Feature
YOU MUST VISIT YOUR PRIVACY SETTINGS PAGE IN YOUR ADMINISTRATION PANEL BEFORE ANY ASSOCIATION FEATURES ARE ENABLED. Even though caps lock is obviously cruise control for awesome, I apologize for the previous sentence. I wanted it to stand out though.
You may have noticed a small menu bar at the top of your team’s website. This is the beginning of the community interaction I have been promising for the past few months. What??? All that waiting and anticipation (well, from at least one person I know, I’m not sure about the rest of you) for a tiny little menu bar at the top of your team’s website?
Well, yes. But that little bar represents so much more (and not just all the time I spent building the foundation for it either). When you are logged in (you can get a free FreeTeams account at our handy Sign Up Page) and are viewing your team’s website, you will see how you are associated with your team over at the right-hand side of that menu bar. If you have any associations, they will be listed. You will also see a link to join that team or add another association. Currently you can join as a Player, Fan, Coach, Alumni, Parent, or Booster. If you created the website, you will see another association: Owner. We will be adding in another one shortly (Admin) to allow other users the ability to edit your website. If you are associated with the team in more than one capacity, fret not, for you can join a team under multiple associations.
“Great! I joined a team. What do I get to do now?” NOTHING!!!! No, I’m serious. Currently there are no features set up to take advantage of this new concept in team management. However, that message board system I promised a while back? It’s nearly ready. I spent most of my Thanksgiving building and testing it, and it is oh so close to being done. I am hoping to have it completed and launched the first weekend in December. I’ll have another post for my 5 readers when it is ready.
“Hey, I don’t think that guy is actually associated with my team!” Website Owners: You may notice a new notice area in your main options page when you first open up your administration panel. It has a brief overview of your user associations, alerts in case you have any new associations to approve, and links to your member list and privacy settings. You can set up associations in a few ways. You can enable or disable individual associations, and you can auto-approve associations, or require them to be reviewed by an owner or an admin before the association is approved. You will also see the settings for the upcoming Message Boards. We will include other privacy settings on this page as we introduce new features.
The members page gives you a nice and organized list of all the users who have joined your team. You may approve and deny associations from this page if you have that setting enabled, and you can remove unwanted associations from this page as well.
Photo Gallery Updates
We have made the photo gallery a bit easier to browse. Until now, you may have noticed if you uploaded very large images, they stretched the slideshow out of proportion and made it hard to view. We are now automatically resizing your uploaded images to a much easier to view resolution, which in turn dramatically speeds up loading time in between pictures. Don’t worry though, your original size images are still saved, which you can view by visit ing the “Image Info” link below the image in your gallery and clicking to see the original picture.
Sorry for the long-winded post. I’ll have another when the Message Boards are ready. If you have any questions about our new features, please send me a message through our Contact Us Page or in our Forums section.