Discussion related to commuter rail and rapid transit operations in the Chicago area including the South Shore Line, Metra Rail, and Chicago Transit Authority.

Moderators: metraRI, JamesT4

  by Amtrak31
 
The F40PHM-2 Audio is nice, too!

  by MikeF
 
Kyle, I have a suggestion for your site, although it may be difficult to implement this late in the game. Why not include some basic caption information, such as location and date, with the photos? Unless your intent is simply to provide a site full of pretty pictures, the photos aren't much use without at least a little descriptive information.

  by metraRI
 
Mike, captions will probably start to appear in the near future. The only thing keeping them from happening now, is I'm unsure how I want to put them up.

  by metraRI
 
Ok, I have uploaded a "Caption Test" page on MetxPix. If anyone has any suggestions about the caption portion, let me know and I'll make changes if they are needed. If it looks ok, I'll start adding captions to other loco pages and eventually captions will be on the whole site.

The page can be seen here:
http://www.metxpix.com/test

-Thanks

  by MikeF
 
Good start, but centering the column headers ("Rail Line/Location" and "Date/Train Number") over wide columns while left-justifying the data below is visually confusing. I would either center everything, left-justify everything, or make the columns narrower, a la RailPictures.net. And if I may nitpick just a little more, "SouthWest Service" has a capital W according to Metra. Sorry, the copy editor in me can't ignore things like that. :wink:

Nice work, though, on the entire site. I know what a huge undertaking it is to assemble a site like that, and you've put together a well-done product.

  by MetraRy
 
i second mike. However, it is the best site i seen so far about metra. Great job

  by metraRI
 
Mike and MetraRy- Thanks for your input. The only way I can improve the site is with constructive criticism, so suggestions/complaints don't bother me at all.

I changed the page so it is hopefully more visual appealing, let me know if its any better.

  by MikeF
 
I like the updated version better -- but, since all the data is now in one column, I would suggest either creating individual header graphics for each item (e.g., "Rail Line," "Location," etc.) or eliminating the graphic headers entirely. In the latter case, you could combine the rail line and train numbers into one item -- "SouthWest Service train #7" -- and place the location and date below.

  by metraRI
 
The page has once again been updated. I had some empty space, so I decided to put a counter in the right corner under comments. Now I need to figure out if its working right.

  by MikeF
 
Looks good! But I visted the page a few times and the counter read zero every time.

  by metraRI
 
I don't know what the issue is with this counter. I tried using FrontPage's counter, but it was not working. The one I'm using now is Yahoo's. It says the page got 70 views when I look at it.

I reset it, any change? If its still not working right, I'll probably take it off.

  by MikeF
 
Still says zero every time I visit.

  by metraRI
 
I got the Frontpage counter to work, and the 409, 185, 181 & 117 pages are now updated with the caption. Locomotive pages will be the first to get captions. I still don't know how I'm going to do coach/cab pages....a page per car is a lot of pages.
Last edited by metraRI on Thu Jun 16, 2005 10:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

  by MetraRy
 
maybe for coaches you should shrink the pics down and put numerous pixs on a few pages

  by metraRI
 
The pages updated so far are- 103, 119, 181, 185, 194, 195, 209, 407, & 409. Let me know if there are any "issues" with any of those pages.