Programming Project 1282941225 – Blancer.com Tutorials and projects

Hi,

Our site is www.MyVideoVisa.com. It’s currently a video website. We want to expand it to become a Social Networking website. You will need extensive programming & coding experience to do this. Furthermore, we may need to monitor your progress through the use of a Subversion Server.

As you read it, please try to picture and anticipate what we have in mind. We are flexible in how you arrange each page as long as the page is functioning correctly.

Before starting, we would need you to change “User” on the site to “Member” along with all the correlating words such as “Users” to “Members” and “UserName” to “MemberName”.

If you’d like, you can rearrange the items so that you finish the easiest ones first.

If you can foresee anything that needs to be added or changed, please tell us before you start. Also, some of our requests are new not only to us, but also to the internet as well. In other words, some of the features we are asking for don’t exist on any other sites (that we know of). Please make sure you will able to complete the request before you commit to it.

We would like to have our site compete in the new world of social media. One of our main goals is make the site accessible by cell phone (mobile phone) in order to allow people to send and receive videos from one to another. We want to encourage interaction between people on our site. This will encourage people to come to our site. The more people we have coming to our site, the more successful it will be.

We have changed the tab on the current site from “Video Reply and Request” to “VideoShare”.

This “VideoShare” tab will have a drop down menu with two categories: “Video Friends” and “Video R & R”.

The “Video Friends” will be a bunch of “friends” (like Facebook and Orkut) getting one another’s videos. Basically, one person in a group of friends uploads and sends out a video. Then everyone who’s on that person’s “friends” list will get the video.

“Video R & R” will be “Video Request & Reply”. Once a member clicks on this page, he will go to the “Video Request & Reply” section where he can request videos and reply to video requests.

“Video Friends”:

1) My rough guideline for this right now is to set up a page where members can become friends with other members on our site.

Example of how this page can look:

= = = = = = = = = = =

Welcome to Video Friends, where you and your friends can share your videos!

Enter your friend’s MemberName in the box below. (Note: Your friend must sign up first to become a Member.) After you and your friends have agreed to send videos to one another, you can start sharing your videos!

Your Friend’s MemberName: Member A, Member B, Member C (“Submit” button goes here)

= = = = = = = = = =

As you can see in the example above, a Member can submit multiple names instead of only one name.
When a Member puts in another Member’s name to send/receive videos, then clicks on “Submit”, an email will go to that Member saying:

“Hi, Member A,

Member X is interested in sharing her videos with you. Please click the appropriate box below.”

Below that will be two boxes to check.

• Sure, I would love to share videos with Member X.
• No, thanks. I’m up to my eyeballs in videos right now.

2) We also need to allow a way for members to stop receiving videos from other members. I recommend that under “My Account”, “My Profile”, on the left hand side where the list of links are, we add “Video Opt Out”. When members click on this link, they will go to a page where they will see:

“To opt out and stop receiving videos from another Member, please put that Member’s name in the box and click Submit.”

Below this message, we will have the Opt Out box as described.

When a Member opts out of receiving videos from another Member, the recipient will receive a notice.
Example: If Member A wants to opt out and stop receiving videos from Member X, after Member A has activated her opt out option, Member X will get a notice that says:

“Sorry, Member X. Member A has elected not to receive any more videos from you.

3) When a person in that group of friends posts a video, then that video will automatically go out to everyone in the group.

Example: I am member A. I ask member B, C, D, E to be my friends. After member B, C, D, E confirm they want to be my friend, when I post a video, that video goes out to member B, C, D, E.

(Mr. Prabhu: do you have a Facebook.com account or an Orkut.com account? Our Friends system would work much like theirs.)

“Video R & R” section:

This part will take some work, but it will be necessary since it is the one of the main tools to bring people to our site and interact with one another. Without a tool such as this, our site would be just another site where people can dump their videos, which is what YouTube is.

The more interaction we can provide for our members, the more our site will grow as a social media site.

4) After a member posts a Request, he would go to a page where we would confirm his submission and tell him he will be contacted by email when someone replies to his Request.
The submission confirmation would say: “Thanks for posting your request. You will receive an email when one of our community members has Replied to your Request.”

5) We need to allow members to reply by text as well as video.

Example: I post a request to see a video about a recent earthquake in China. Dave knows that there is such a video on YouTube. Instead of uploading a video, he can send me a message with a link in it and say, “Nick, in response to your request, you can find that video on www.youtube.com/chinaearthquake.”

Therefore, when someone clicks the REPLY button, he will be taken to a page that has two sections.

The top section will read: “To post a text reply, please fill in the box below, including the link to the requested video if possible, and click Send.”
The text message will then be sent to the person who posted the request.

Below that, another section will read: “To post a video reply, please complete the section below.” (This section will be what is already on the current Reply upload page.)

I’m flexible as to how this page can be arranged. The text part can be on top, and the video part can be on the bottom. Or the text part can be on the left, and the video part can be on the right.

Also, we need to remove the upload requirements that are on this page . . . . http://www.myvideovisa.com/index.php?replyto=34 . . . . so that it is like this page . . . http://www.myvideovisa.com/index.php?my&upload

6) Currently, the Replies appear on the same page as the Requests. Consequently, there is no distinction between the Requests and the Replies. We need to change this.

For every Request posted, there should be a Reply button (like there is now). There should also be a link in small print at the bottom of the Request that says: “See Replies”

An Example is my Request on this page: http://www.myvideovisa.com/index.php?videoreq

====================================================================
Santa Rosa

Hey, is there anybody out there named David Thompson who has a video of Santa Rosa I can see? Please reply to this request and post it on this site. You would make my dream come true!

Posted on February 23, 2010

See Replies
====================================================================

If a member wants to see the Replies already posted, he would click on “See Replies” and be taken to the page where the Replies appear.

If there has not been any Reply, then when the member clicks on “See Replies”, he would see a page that says: “No one has replied to this request. Please consider posting a reply.”

This Replies section should also enable a discussion thread.
An example would be this discussion thread on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCSfkzoFg_Y
This discussion thread is another benefit of having the ability to post a text reply, in addition to a video reply. The person replying can include the link to the video requested as part of the text.

7) When someone is posting a Reply, at the top of the Reply page, it should say: “Thank you for posting a reply to: ___(title of request)___. We will connect you with the person who posted the request via your MemberName and Email Address.”

The member who posted the Request will then get an email notifying them that another member has replied to their Request and will receive that person’s MemberName and Email address.

Of course, anyone posting a Request or Reply will need to sign in first.

8) When someone posts a Request, they will be required to have a title in the subject box.

When someone Replies, their Reply will bear the title that includes his MemberName, the title of the person’s request, and the MemberName of the person who posted the Request.

For example, on this page: http://www.myvideovisa.com/index.php?videoreq, I posted a request with the title “Santa Rosa.”
David replied. The title of his Reply was “Yo”. Instead of “Yo”, it should be: “David replying to the ‘Santa Rosa’ request of Nick Dao.”

The person posting the Reply wouldn’t have to fill in any information. It will be done automatically by us.
The MemberName of the person replying would automatically be pulled from the person’s account. (In this case, “David”)
The words “replying to the” would be standard/constant.
The title of the Request would be pulled from the subject line. (In this case, “Santa Rosa”)
The words “request of” would be standard/constant.
The MemberName of the person who posted the request would also be pulled from his account. (In this case, “Nick Dao”)

9) When someone posts a video Reply, that video will become part of the overall videos for everyone to view. Again, the upload page will be the new format WITHOUT the requirements:
http://www.myvideovisa.com/index.php?my&upload

OTHER ADDITIONS AND EHANCEMENTS

10) On the “Register/Sign-In” page, “MemberName” should be changed to “MemberName”.

11) Whatever the tab the member is using, that tab’s name should be highlighted. For example, if the member is using the “VideoShare” tab, then “VideoShare” should be highlighted at the top.
Example: http://www.travbuddy.com/reviews_create_search.php

12) We need to make the site accessible by cell phone (mobile phone). When a member goes to the site now on his cell phone, only a fragment of the site appears. We need to make the entire site appear as if it was appearing on a regular computer.

13) I would like to make the “VideoShare” tab more prominent so that it will attract more Members and drive up traffic to the site. Let’s move this tab so that it’s between “Home” and “Destinations”.

14) Underneath the picture profile of each person, we can also put:

Videos Posted: _______
Videos Requested: _______
Videos Replied To: _______

Having this section would be good because some members like to quantify their activity, kind of like people displaying that they have 1,589 friends on Facebook.
Also, having this section will alert members that they can post, request, and reply to videos. This will promote interaction between people, and the more people we have coming to the site, the more successful the site will be.

15) Presently, the search box can find a video by its title, but it can’t find a MemberName. We definitely need the site the find members by their MemberName if we want to promote interaction between Members.
Example: I posted a video “An Elephant Thank-you” The search box can find the video if I type in “Elephant” but it can’t find me with my MemberName “Nick Dao.”
We need to enable the Search function to find videos and MemberNames.
Once a member is found, then all the videos that member has posted would also be on display.

16) We need a comments count. Under the current “Views” count, there would be a comments count.
Example: Views: 17
Comments: 25

17) When a member changes his password, we need to send him an email telling him his password has changed. In addition to being a helpful function, it would also help prevent fraud by alerting members and letting them know that their password has changed in case someone changed their password/account without their knowledge.

18) We need to make “Travel Talk” (http://www.myvideovisa.com/index.php?travel-talk) capable of having a discussion thread, and posting a new comment.
At the top of the page, it should say: “Click on the topic to see the full comment and/or to add to the comment.”

Example: if I click on the link above and want to make a comment on the topic “BKK taxi meter”, I would click on it and go to: http://www.myvideovisa.com/index.php?travel-talk=7

At the bottom of this page, there would be a “Comment” link that members could click on to make a comment. Their comment would be added to the comments already made. The result would look like the comments people make on the videos.

Example and Comments: http://www.myvideovisa.com/index.php?video=916

Posted by Nick Dao, August 10, 2010
All right, Dave. Will check out Ed’s site.

Posted by david, July 20, 2010
Hey man, this is all in Vietnamese – I’m having a real hard time understanding. Thanks for the translation!Very jealous!!! That dude looks like “the man” in Vietnam for Dragon Fruit – Ed Valdivia is THE MAN in Simi Valley for Pitaya (dragon fruit)Check out: http://www.edvaldivia.com/

19) We need to allow members to cancel their account. Under the “My Account” tab, we will have a “Cancel Account” link that will take members to a page that says: “Are you really sure you want to cancel your account? If so, thanks for your time with us. Please click the cancel button below.”

There will be a “Cancel Account” button below that will cancel their account.

20) We would like to use Google Analytics for out site: https://www.google.com/analytics

Please follow the Google instructions which says, “Copy the following code, then paste it onto every page you want to track immediately before the </body> tag.”

21) In “My Account”, under “My Profile”, the “About Me” video is a unique feature. As it is now, that video can only be seen by the Member. We need to make it available for everyone to see.

When a video is playing, in the top right hand corner, under “Video Information”, there’s a picture of the member. Would it be possible to put the “About Me” video right next to that Member’s picture?

When someone clicks on the thumbnail with “About Me Video” under it, that person would go to that member’s “About Me” video where they would also see other features like a short biography and travel interests of that member.

*Since members will need to find other members by their MemberNames, it’s important that we enable the search box to find members by their MemberNames.*

Under “My Account”, we need to add a “Things About Me” link. People would click on this link and go to a page where there’s a description box like there is now on the Upload page. This box would be for the Member to add a text description that would appear with their video. The text would have a limit of about 200 characters.

Example:

“Things About Me” description to appear alongside your “About Me” video.
Tell others about your likes, interests, and anything else you want to share.
We’ll help edit your comments as needed.
Limit: 200 characters
>the box would go here<

22) We also need an Embed feature. It would say “Click to embed” and the code would then be generated that someone can copy. This would appear under every video.

23) We have had reports of people signing up for the site and not getting a confirmation email. We think this may be because their confirmation went to their SPAM mailbox. To alert members to this possibility, we need to put an icon such an exclamation point ( ! ) on the “REGISTER/SIGN-IN” page, under “NEED AN ACCOUNT? SIGN UP” next to “EMAIL”. Like the question marks that are in that section now, when someone holds the cursor over the “!”, they will see a message that says: “If you don’t get a confirmation email, please check your Spam/Quarantine mailbox.”

24) When we clean up videos and delete them in Admin, there’s a chance we may delete something by mistake and then need to restore it. Can we make a “Recycle Bin” for all the deleted videos to go into and remain there for about 90 days before being permanently deleted? Within that 90 days, we can restore it if necessary.

Let’s also make this feature available to the Members in case they delete a video and change their mind after they deleted the video. Under “My Account”, “My Videos” let’s put a “Recycle Bin” at the bottom of the page next to the page numbers. When members click on the “Recycle Bin”, they will see all their deleted videos. At the top of this page , it’ll say: “Deleted Videos Will Remain In The Recycle Bin for about 90 Days.”

If a member want to restore a video, they can right click on it and choose “Restore”.

25) As it is now, on the new account sign up, there’s a question mark symbol next to the MemberName. When a new member places his cursor over that question, a note pops up to tell them to use a fictional name. In addition to that, we also need to add a note saying that Members cannot change their MemberName once they have signed up in order to prevent abuse. The complete message would say: “We suggest you create a fictional name instead of using your real name. Also, to better prevent site abuse, you will not be able to change your MemberName after you have created one.”

26) Under “My Account” , “My Profile”, we need to allow members to change their email address in case the one they signed up with isn’t working right. Right beneath the current email, there would be a link that says, “Change Email” to allow members to change their email address. After the member changes her email, she will receive an email to her old email AND new email address. We will send an email to her old address in case someone changed it for her without her knowing it. (Example: she signs on at an internet café, forgets to sign off, someone else uses her account and abuses it). We will send an email to her new email address with a confirmation link to help prevent spamming and to validate a legitimate email address change. The email we send to both addresses will say: “This email is to confirm you have requested a change of email address with MyVideoVisa.com. Please click here to sign on with your new email address.” (the click here will be a link that sends her to our sign-on page.)

27) Next to the Upload button, we need to put an exclamation mark ( ! ) so that when the member hovers his cursor over the exclamation mark, a prompt will appear that says, “Please keep your files to 100 MB or less.”

28) Unlike YouTube where a member can click on a video to play it right away, our site requires the sound bar to fully load first. If a member clicks on “Play” without waiting, she will get a static sound and think that the site is of poor quality. To alert members that they need to let the sound fully load first before playing, we can put an exclamation mark ( ! ) next to the small “Play” button so that when the member holds the cursor over the ( ! ), a note will appear that says, “Please allow the sound (horizontal blue bar) to load before click play.”

29) We need an interactive map, perhaps a Google Map in place of the current map on the Home Page, to let Members go directly to a country in which there is a video. Instead of having pushpins or bubbles (example – http://hotspotr.com/wifi) like many other maps have in order to show that a country has a video for that country, we can leave the map looking like it is now. But when a member hovers the cursor over a country, an icon of a suitcase will appear to show that there is a video for that country. Below is an example of such a suitcase.

If you decide to use this icon, please let us know so we can buy it from www.fotolia.com

In a geographical area where there are many countries grouped together and it’s hard for the cursor to distinguish the individual countries, those countries can pop up in a listing.
Example: In Southeast Asia, the countries Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Thailand are grouped together. When a Member hovers the cursor over this area, a suitcase icon can pop up and list the four countries in vertical order. The Member then can move the cursor and select the country he wants.

I prefer not have any icons (pushpin, bubble, or suitcase) permanently placed on the map because the map could easily look too cluttered and uninviting.

30) When a member hovers the cursor over the title of a video, then that video’s short description will pop up. This description will be pulled from the description that the member typed in when he uploaded the video.

Example: http://sports.yahoo.com/
If you hover the cursor over the links to the headlines in the top, right corner of the Yahoo Sports page, a description of each headline link will pop up.

If the member did not include a description when he uploaded the video, then a message will appear that says: “Sorry. This video doesn’t have a description.”

31) We need to have a video upload queuing mechanism where there’s a separate asynchronous process for doing the video conversion processing. Under the current Cirtex Apache Server it may be possible to do this via “Cron jobs”. A Cron job can be created and scheduled to run periodically to check and see if a video conversion is needed. If there’s a video that needs to be converted, it could be stored in the database. If there are videos to be processed/converted, the Cron job would begin the ffmpeg utility and when it’s done, the video would be marked as completed (conversion done).

32) In addition to “Latest Videos” and “Highest Rated Videos” on the Home Page, we also need to add a category of “Most Viewed Videos”. This category will show the most viewed videos.

33) With the new category of “Most Viewed Videos”, our HomePage is getting too big. Members have to scroll down too much to see the whole page. We need to condense this homepage. Instead of showing the top 12 videos of each category, we need to reduce it to the top 6 videos of each category.

34) On the Home Page, when a title of a video is too long, it goes on to the second line. We need to change this so there is only one line for the title. If the entire title doesn’t fit, then the part that doesn’t fit will have a “. . .” to show that the title goes on.
Example: Pre Thai Wedding Ceremony, the “rum” or dance (under “Highest Rated Videos”). Instead of the title having a second line showing “Cer . . . “, there should only be one line for the title that says: “Pre Thai Wedding . . .”

35) Due to the file size for the upload, a member may need to break a video into several parts. I have had to do this with several videos and label them ‘”1 of 4”, “2 of 4”, “3 of 4”, etc. A member may want to watch all of the videos continuously instead of watching each video, one at a time.

Can we set up the videos to play like a slide show so that all the videos will show continuously? One way we could do this is to arrange it like this page:
https://personal.vanguard.com/us/funds/vanguard/core
There would be five boxes (numbered 1, 2, 3, 4, 5) into which the member could drag and drop the video’s thumbnail/image. Once the member has the videos in the boxes that she wants, she would click play on the first video, and all four of the videos would play continuously in sequential order.

36) If there is a group of videos, then when one of the videos appears on the main screen to be played, then the rest of the videos in the group should be obvious on the side under “Related Videos” for the member to select.
Example: Here is a video that is 1 of 7  http://www.myvideovisa.com/index.php?video=919
When this video is on the main screen to be played, the other 6 in the group should be obvious on the side under “Related Videos.”

37) Along the same line of thought as above, we need a way for a member to upload a series of videos continuously. On the upload page, we could have a series of numbered upload boxes (maybe 5 boxes) . . . similar to how Yahoo has a number of document upload boxes when you want attach a document to your email.

The member would select the videos they want to upload from their local database, then click “Upload”, and all the videos would start uploading continuously in their sequential order.

This idea came to me when I realized that I don’t want to sit at my desk and manually upload the videos one at a time all afternoon. If I want to go to the beach for a few hours, I would like to set up my upload so that it will automatically upload a bunch of videos while I’m at the beach.

38) For the current Upload progress bar, we need a “Cancel” button to allow a member to cancel the upload if necessary.

If possible, I would also like to add a “Pause” and “Resume” button so that a member can pause the upload in the middle of the process, do something else on the net, then “Resume” the upload when they’re ready.

Although I can surf the net while uploading, the process is a drag on the computer and slows down my net surfing significantly.

39) When a member leaves a comment with a website address in the comments, we need to make the site clickable (make them active to allow members to click on the link and go to the site).
Example: http://www.myvideovisa.com/index.php?video=916
On this link, in Dave’s comment, we cannot click on http://www.edvaldivia.com/

40) The comments section is not working right. It’s squishing the all text together even when a member adds a
space break or spaces between words. In the example below, the URL is supposed to be on one line and the text on another, but it’s all squished together.
Example: http://www.myvideovisa.com/index.php?video=915
The links in the comments on this page are also not active.

41) If a member is already registered and watching a video and wants to sign in to post a comment, can we make it so he can sign in without stopping the video?
Example: while the video is still playing, he can click on the “Register/Sign-In” button. The Sign-In box (Email, Password) would fade into the foreground, or pop up, and let the member sign in and make a comment. This way, he would not have to navigate away from the video to sign in.

42) On the HomePage, on the “Select” section in the middle of the page, when a member clicks on the drop down menu and chooses an option like “Mix & Match”, if there are more videos than what appears on the page, we need a way to tell members that there are more videos for them to see.

One way is to have a link that says “More . . .” at the lower, right side of that section to alert members that there are more videos to be seen. Once they click on “More . . .”, they will go to the page where the rest of the videos for that category are.

Another way is to use the method of page numbers.
Example: On this page  http://www.myvideovisa.com/index.php?video . . . . at the bottom of the page, there are page numbers to alert members there are videos to see. (You would need to sign on as a member to see this illustration)

We could also use this page notation to let members there are more videos they can view.

43) When a member receives a comment on his video, he will be notified by email that he received a message.

44) We cannot let have two videos have the same titles. If I already upload a video with the title “Nick Is An Awesome Dude”, then Dave also tries to upload a video with the title “Nick Is An Awesome Dude”, as soon as he clicks the Upload button, he will get an error message that says: “Sorry. The video title you chose is already taken.” (Poor Dave!)

45) After a member types her search words into the search box then clicks “Search”, the words in the box disappear. Those words need to remain in the box so if the member wants to add something to the search words, she won’t have to re-type the original words in there again.

46) On the sign-up page, instead of the current “Need An Account? Sign Up” . . . we need to change it to something more inviting. We need to change it to “Join Us. Sign Up & Be A Member.”

47) We need to keep a record of people’s MemberNames and passwords for Admin in case we need to gain access to a member’s account.

48) For the tabs/pages that aren’t functioning, we will need to put up a page that basically says, “This tab/page is currently under construction. We will finish it as soon as possible!”

THANK YOU.

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