TOPIC:

Dear Team,
Greetings of the day!

I am a webmaster for Indian Toastmaster Club Qatar. I have noticed one thing that preetyPhoto css and images not loading for guests. I meant once I log in as a member, those files are getting loaded. Once I logout, those files are getting loaded.

Is this intentionally designed like this way?

Regards,
Sekar

What is your issue? What are you trying to accomplish?

I control the system design. PrettyPhoto is just used for certain admin console functions... that is all.

Thanks for the reply.

In the home page, I would like to keep some special meeting agenda image in the div, and when public click on the image I wanted to open on the popup with detailed information.

In some of the places on the home page, we have award div section with "see more" hyperlink. By default inside the div top three awards will be shown. And when public clicks on "see more" hyperlink, in the popup I wanted to show all the awards for that year in the formatted div.
Why I was trying this, most of our club members and guests are saying there are a lot of redirections on the home page. My intention was I wanted to reuse preetyPhoto styles and enable popup. I am seeing this as pain point and trying to provide the solution.

If you enable to load the preetyphoto for everyone, I can give an awesome user experience for our club members and guests.

Please refer to the attached screen.

I appreciate your point of view, but I doubt that many people other than yourself will have the technical know how to use it correctly.

Also, it is a "chunk" of javascript and css that will slow the website load for all website visitors for ***all clubs / districts***, something I am not particularly enthusiastic about.

Have you considered just loading it in your home page content via the source view?

Dear Steve, Yes already downloaded css and integrated with homepage!! its working fine! But the only thing is I am not able to get those images for close button and expand screen button

Just wanted to check, it's not against your policy right?

You are using something that we already use, so it is not like it is third party or anything like that.

However, you will need to take responsibility for anything you do with this--if you leave Toastmasters, we would likely just delete the script if your club has issues. It is kind of a grey area in that you are using a script that we use, but just using it for your own purposes. If you run into issues, just give me a shout. I don't do much advanced stuff with prettyPhoto, but I do know where to get the reference information for it.

The other thing is that I have been thinking for some time that I need to provide some sort of PDF viewer functionality that is "baked in" and easily accessible. Let me know how this works out for you... I am curious to see how it goes.

By you just loading it yourself, it is actually a win-win... you get what you want, and I am not loading it early so other clubs do not see a website slow down. (except for admin console use)

Steve, Greetings! Hope you are doing great!

Thanks for the reply.

I think PDF viewer would be an awesome idea. I do work with few PDF viewers (just refer to github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/ )in my projects. If you want me to test with PDFviewer and get the feedback from my club members, I can do that.

Actually, in our website I have integrated WhatsApp. I meant I have given hyperlink of the VPE and VPM phone number. If a guest clicks it will take them WhatsApp.
These days most of us operating a mobile browser, so guest directly can message to VPM's or VPE's WhatsApp.

But one thing I noticed, most of the members are not opening website frequently. How to make members to use website extensively. I agree club officers are using.

Sometimes, I think if we integrate Facebook with Toastmaster website, members can log in and post a message to facebook through Toastmaster website. Every club has their own facebook account. only that club account post lets integrate.
In this case members login frequency will increase.

In this case, if we think in wide angle how many of our Toastmaster members will configure to integrate Facebook with Toastmaster club website.. It's a big question mark..

So... some responsive layout / mobile support is coming... be patient.

As far as getting your members to use the website, here are some things I have learned over time:

1. Many members tend to think of websites as mostly a marketing tool. The meeting agenda is about the only thing they will log in to use.

2. Many members *hate* logging in. You need to carefully consider what information you will make public (no log in required) for your members benefit vs requiring them to log-in to access.

3. Anything you put on the website for members use/benefit will require some consistent and regular PR. I have had meeting forms (Word docs) stored on my club's website for many years, but they still keep asking where are the meeting forms.

4. Bottom Line: You must be able to answer the question "What's in it for me?" for your members to use the website. Most people are deluged by so much information that they are making value judgments about what information to ignore and what information to pay attention to. If you want your members to use your website, it must be valuable to them and it must be easy for *them* to use.

5. Another thing... remember that FreeToastHost is not just the website... it is also an email list server. You should consider the list server as an extension of the website in some ways. Some members will respond to an email containing a convenient link that you want them to click more readily than you asking them to go to the website. This lesson is one that I learned and why I updated the agenda emails to contain optional meeting role sign-up links.

Dear Steve, So excited to hear about mobile layouts.
Eagerly waiting for that.

Nice view on the members to use the website.

If you want to look into something related to our FreeToastHosty websites enhancements, please let me know.
I can do the exercise in the offline.