Thread: Developing Auctioneers website and looking for some tips

Hi all,

I am looking to pick a few brains! I am currently developing a website for an Auctioneering client. Its your run on the mill site where a visitor can view properties etc. Currently working on the admin area where the administrator can add properties, update them etc.

I have hit a stumbling block in my design - that being how to handle pictures of properties. Granted the admin user can upload photos but wondering what is the best way to operate this, should they upload any size image and resize on they fly as 3 different sizes are needed (small thumbnail, medium size for list page and large). Or upload the one and resize when needed at runtime? Also, any opinions wether to safe the images in a database or in a folder? If uploading to a folder, should the user be presented with a file manager where they can create a folder for the image and upload it to it, etc.?

Has anyone experience of developing such and any pearls of wisdom would be gratefully appreciated. I am a .NET developer but its not as such technlogy I am looking for advice on but the best practise.

Cheers..

Hi Amateur,

I don't do this for a living but once in a while I do favors for friends so have a look at what I've done last month for a friend company and you might get an "inspiration".
Might look complicated but...is not ..

APARTMENT TO LET - 16 CANNON PLACE | Quirke Estate Agents

(After I finished the website they started changing things so not all pages might look as it should...sorry )

P.S. If the moderators consider this as spam or free advertising please just remove the link. ( or the whole answer )

Cheers,
Raul.

Raul,
just a quick note for ya, there is no image compression on that site ya did. Just takes ages for some of those pictures to load, even on a 5mb line .. haha

Amateur,
I am still a massive fan of lightbox when it comes to displaying images for sites..
Dynamic Drive DHTML Scripts- Lightbox image viewer 2.03

If you download Jadetools software Real Estate Software - JadeTools (Irish Company based in Donegal) version 6 is free for the moment it has a built in publisher which you can change the layout of webpages. Its a desktop piece of software but you just use the web publisher to publish to a website. A great piece of kit if you want your clients to be able to upload them selfs.

The download comes with sample properties (Only works with windows I think)

Originally Posted by Lottoplus

If you download Jadetools software Real Estate Software - JadeTools (Irish Company based in Donegal) version 6 is free for the moment it has a built in publisher which you can change the layout of webpages. Its a desktop piece of software but you just use the web publisher to publish to a website. A great piece of kit if you want your clients to be able to upload them selfs.

The download comes with sample properties (Only works with windows I think)

Thank you for that !

@solonox Just takes ages for some of those pictures to load, even on a 5mb line .. haha

You should change your broadband provider.. 5mb is for mobile internet

Actually Raul, it's more than that. The thumbnails in your posted link don't look well. Browsers don't resize images nicely.

You're much better off resizing the images using a component - they'll look better, the website will run faster and it will look well, and looking well is the most important thing.

Try to get the client to keep a standard dimension for the photos too but be prepared to deal with different proportions. If you have a square space for thumbnails, say in a property search results page, but the auctioneer or client takes landscape photos, then they won't look well. Experiment with different size and proportion images.

I know you're right link8r ( and solonox too ) so for the moment I'm playing around with what lottoplus said .
And about the other things you've said you're right again, the thing is...I'm not involved anymore on that site so I can do nothing about...

haha i hear ya Raul, gotta love Eircom though. They won't even give you the courtesy of Vaseline before they lash ya over a barrel.

Originally Posted by Solonox

haha i hear ya Raul, gotta love Eircom though. They won't even give you the courtesy of Vaseline before they lash ya over a barrel.

That's a post I'm going to nominate ....

I'm so happy that there's still people around with a good sense of humor !