• At long last, users can now upload photos of wine labels.
• Each wine can have as many images as users upload. By default all images are shared across all users, but behind the scenes I do have the ability to make images private to specific users. We'll see if I need to use that.
• If a wine has multiple images, currently they are picked at random at render time. In the future I will introduce a lot more control around this.
• All images are saved as JPG on the server and forced down to a maximum of 250 pixels wide or tall. (This limits each image to a max of about 25KB.)
• Images are shown for all vintages of a wine unless a specific image is uploaded for a vintage.
• Users can report bad images to me via a clickable link.

• I changed the max-pixels to 256 from 250 based on this feedback from WNissen: "Finally, if choosing an arbitrary size for a scaled JPG, 256x256 (or any multiple of 8) gives slightly better image quality because of the way JPG quantizes the image." Well, you learn something new every day... 
  
• Now when a user reports an error, I generate an HTML message with a link to the image and wine, and I actually include the typed comment this time. (That was getting lost.)
  
• I now validate that the upload is a valid image before trying to convert it to a JPEG.
  
• Users now have the ability to delete their uploaded images.
  
• Now when a non-matching vintage label is shown, the site indicates this. I also show the closest possible vintage instead of a randomly selected one. Of course, this all depends on users matching images to vintages properly...
  
  
• I started some management pages for me to review these behind the scenes.

• I have done a bunch of work to help with vintage matching of images. After a user uploads an image, they are asked to enter the vintage shown on the image (or non available if the image is generic). Behind the scenes, I actually create that vintage of the wine and reattach the image to the specific vintage. Now also, I can easily remap image to wine vintage, and in general this is a piece of metadata which I am reviewing and maintaining., Also, when a non-matching wine label is shown, it more clearly mentions that this is "borrowed" from another specific vintage.
  
• In general, I have cleaned up the user interface a bit. Clicking the link to remove an image now requires just the one prompt. Also, windows refresh appropiately when adding, removing or remapping the vintage for an image. (I found a super-cool Javascript property which lets me easily get at the parent window, hurrah!)
  
• I did a bunch of database work. Now when merging or deleting wines the images are not orphaned. I also will spin off a user's image with their other data in case they specify an edit which is clearly a different wine. Going deeper than that, I also made some very fundamental changes about how and where images are stored. Now all of the images are persisted as binary blobs in the database. When the site goes to render a web page with the image in question, it first check if it is also cached in the file system as a JPG. If not it regerante the image on demand. This is fantastic for me, as I get 99% of the performance benefits of having the image cached on disk. Meanwhile, backup is very simple and is covered by all of my existing backup procedures. Also, soon I am going to be switching to having multiple front-end web server with load balancing, and this scheme means I won't have to replicate back and forth between these machines. Needless to say, I am VERY pleased with myself on this one!
  
  
• Now there is a label image summary page that users can reach via quick search or advanced search. Various image properties are shown, and this page also have fairly full-featured filtering. I also have simple hooks behind the scenes to mark each image as reviewed (once I verify the vintage and that the image matches the wine in question).
  
  
• I now bias the site to show a user the images they have personally uploaded instead of randomly selecting (if there are multiples for a wine).

• Things just got a lot simpler. Now if there are multiple images for a label, this is indicated (label 1 of 5 etc.) along with cursors to let you cycle next and previous through all of the labels.
• Images are shown based on the vintage they are associated with. Then images from other vintage appear in the sequence biasing towards vintages that are closest to the current vintage you are looking at.
  
• For images that match the vintage, a user will see images they themself have uploaded first.

• In the main cellar view there is a camera next to any wine that has any matching label image. Hovering shows you the count of images, and you can click on the camera, and a viewer comes up to let you page through them.
  
• Going beyond that, in advanced search now you can choose to filter to show wines either WITH or WITHOUT images.
  
• And you can further restrict the filtering to only show labels you have personally uploaded and also to require exact vintage matches. And when filtered to show labels without images, there is an upload... link next to each wine that streamlines the upload process. So now if you want to go through each of your wines and upload an image, it is much easier to do so.

• In wine search page there is also now a camera next to any wine that has any matching label image. Hovering shows you the count of images, and you can click on the camera, and a viewer comes up to let you page through them.
• There is now a setting to suppress label image display in the wine drilldown. (The camera is shown instead.) The camera is also shown for handheld devices.
  

• I built some infrastructure that allows me to set up notifications that appear either per users or for all users (with expiration dates).

• I cleaned up the display of professional reviews to be a bit more streamlined. I have also made it more clear that these are private vs. user tasting notes which are public.
  
• When new users sign up they now have to type their email address in two fields (to avoid typos).
  
• On user signup and for profile editing, it is now more clear what is private (name and email) vs. public (handle.)
  
• Guest users can now search the list of users based on handles.
  
• A handful of other small bug fixes as well.

quote:

ORIGINAL: KellyW

Eric,

I uploaded all of the Mouton labels 1945 - 2001.  I noticed that the 2002 is hard linked to the 2002 vintage but all the rest are randomly selected.  This is one where you may want to hard link the label to the vintage since the label changes every year.

Kelly

quote:

ORIGINAL: kingbing

Great stuff Eric.

Any chance of a small camera symbol or something else, on the main celler listing, that indicates whether a label photo exists?  This would help in organising for a photo/scan to be taken and uploaded.  Saves going to each wine only to find it's already been done.

Cheers!

quote:

ORIGINAL: noto bene

Ok, I admit, computer skills are not my strong point, but where the @#$#% is the menu for downloading v 3.1.0 for the label images, I know its probably right in front of my nose, but I can't take it where is it?

quote:

ORIGINAL: PaulH

My guess as to pic priority is as follows:

The first picture uploaded for a wine will default for all vintages of that wine.
The first picture uploaded for a wine/vintage will default for that wine/vintage.
If a user uploads a picture for a wine/vintage, it will be displayed for that user instead of earlier pics from other users.

• If there are one or more images that are targeted to a specific vintage of a wine (now the user is asked to pick vintage or n/a after uploading), the site will choose from those first
  • Top priority goes to images that a user has uploaded themself. If they have uploaded multiples, currently the site will randomly pick.
    
  • Beyond that, the site randomly picks among all of the images for a wine.
  
  
• If there is no image for that vintage then the site will pick one from another vintage of the same wine. Currently it picks the one closest to the vintage of the wine you are looking at. it does not bias to images from that user nor does it randomly rotate.

• Soon I will make it so that a user can see how images exist for a wine and can cyle through them.
  
• Longer term, I will let a user choose their favorite. At this point, the site will show that to them first, although they will still be able to cycle.
  
• Then my hope is to aggregate the favorite ratings to images to all users which are most highly favored. Going beyond that, users whose images are most often rated as favorites (not by themselves) will tend to have their images shown first.

quote:

ORIGINAL: bacchus
have you thought about making picture upload part of entering a new wine in addition to an independent function?
would you consider having the label be clickable to the winery web page? this might overcome any concerns about copywrite violation if you are giving them "free advertising".
would you consider invoking a rule that flat images take precedence over rounded (label on bottle) images?
finally, can images be uploaded live from a web cam or must the image first be stored on hard drive?

quote:

ORIGINAL: kingbing

Any chance of a small camera symbol or something else, on the main celler listing, that indicates whether a label photo exists?  This would help in organising for a photo/scan to be taken and uploaded.  Saves going to each wine only to find it's already been done.

quote:

ORIGINAL: jthielen

Eric
Great addition. I second the motion for a small icon on "My Cellar" page to let us know if there is a label or not.

I find myself scouring the Internet for label images to complete my collection. I have entirely too much time on my hands I guess.

Regards
Jeff