[Coco] More Tandycoco.com improvements

[Brian Blake]

Greetings CoCoNutz,

Yes, another update... I've been hard at work in some areas of the 
website over the last week. In the content area, I've been concentrating 
on the Features > CoCo Overview >Hardware & Accessories 
<http://tandycoco.com/hardware>article. I started with the basic list of 
accessories from CoCoPedia, which, while it was a start, I'm finding it 
was not very accurate and pretty far from complete. I'd imagine the 
person who began the list was going from memory. So, with that in mind, 
I began combing thru Color Computer magazines (see this blog post 
<http://tandycoco.com/pages/blog/59-doctor-my-eyes-have-seen-the-years>) 
in an effort to find the items listed. As I started adding to the list, 
I began to think of a way I could make the list more than just a list. 
Without having the specs for the devices available, I didn't want to 
have a page dedicated to each item. So, I started extracting the ads 
information from the magazines into images, which can be viewed by 
clicking on the list item. Where an item is currently available listed 
on a website, I've made that item's website the link.

This is all quite time consuming, especially when I link an ad to a 
device, then later on find a newer ad or one where the scanned magazine 
was in better condition. However, in the long run, it'll be well worth 
it. For a long time now, I've been trying to plan improvements to the 
website to improve it's usefulness, and I hope this helps.

Here's where things start to get, well, I may be opening up a can of 
worms with this one. After the great coco3.com crashes back in the 
2006-2009 time frame, the webmaster converted from a website/forum 
format to a WordPress CMS format, which really made keeping track of 
discussions, well, difficult. When I made the change from a straight 
HTML environment to Joomla!, I wanted to avoid that, and still keep the 
forum. My first effort, importing the data from phpBB to a Kunena forum 
was a miserable failure that I'm still trying to get my money back from. 
After that fiasco, I purchased two templates from Rockettheme to get the 
Joomla! front end and Forum to look about 95% alike. I also purchased a 
bridge so authentication between the Joomla! front end and forum would 
be bi-directional, allowing users who wished to share their knowledge by 
writing articles or participating in forum discussions could log into 
either one - basically single login. Additionally, I purchased another 
add-on that will allow commenting on the articles, and entries into the 
forum will be made whenever an article is created. The Article comments 
can be viewed in either the article, or it's forum post. As a test, John 
Linville was able to log into the forum and create an article in the 
Joomla! front end, and the article entry was made to the forum as expected.

Lastly, and this is where the can of worms is likely to be opened, I've 
added one last paid upgrade to the site - a social plug in. The same 
bridge that supports authentication between phpBB and Joomla! also 
supports authentication to the EasySocial plug in, and I suppose you 
could think of it as a CoCo Facebook; it'll be readable, but, closed for 
commenting to all except those who register with the site. If you 
already have an account with the forum, when I implemented the bridge 
module, your account was automagically created on the Joomla! front end 
and the social page. You can log in with the credentials you created. 
You can also log in with your Facebook or Google+ account - on your 
first attempt, you'll have to enter your TandyCoCo credentials to link 
your Facebook and Google+ profile, but, after that it's a one button login.

Why do we need another social site? I'm sure some would argue that we do 
not. Honestly, I can't fully disagree. However, I've looked at other 
retro-computer scenes for quite a while, and the CoCo scene is lacking 
in certain areas. Facebook has it's benefits, no doubt. Idle chit chat 
and public announcements seem to be what it's best for, and I admit 
that's my opinion. However, it's search features don't always return the 
information I was looking for. For tech support and information like 
that, I'm of the opinion nothing beats a forum. Information posted in a 
forum tends to not get lost, and is usually easily searchable. And with 
a CMS like Joomla! integrated with the forum and a social site, I tend 
to think that's the best possible source for usable information.

The EasySocial app allows the use of groups and add-in applications to 
enhance the user experience as well. Once registered with any of the 
three sections (if you didn't have an account when I began transforming 
the site), and your registration is approved, you have access to post in 
the forum and the social side of the website. If you want to contribute 
articles, all you have to do is ask for the Author status. To reduce the 
chances of SPAM creeping in, I'll keep Author status as a request only 
for the time being.

Currently there are two administrators - myself and Bill Pirece. I'd 
like to add a few more if the site begins to see more traffic and 
participation. Those who make admin status will be those whom are 
trusted within the community.

There may still be some bugs to iron out. I've done all I can to test 
the features and settings myself. If you have any questions, feel free 
to ask. If you have any problems logging in or registering, let me know; 
I'll be happy to assist.

BTW... The Social site is theCoCo-Community 
<http://tandycoco.com/community>link in the menu bar. ;)

Brian

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