There was a reason for me not blogging for almost a month now. I have been working quite hard on getting my Joomla website ready and vowed that my next post would be to announce that it is in a decent enough shape for all of you to start using it. And, i’m happy to report that it indeed is in a good enough shape for alpha testing. There are some issues which I already know about – some on the creative side (at which I’m really bad) and i’ve already planned some enhancements. Ok here it is (drums roll)… presenting to you –

www.TripNaksha.com

Objective and History –
I have been part of a couple of adventure clubs since I was in Infy and these clubs are pretty active in conducting treks, hikes, bike rides in and around Hyderabad, Bangalore and Pune. Primarily, they use Google and Infy mailing lists to propagate info and organize trips. This, seemed very unorganized to me and hence I built this website with the specific objective of making organizing trips easier and more structured. At the same time, although there seems to be a lot of information (online) about places to visit near big cities, there isn’t a whole lot of information related to treks. That said, the same goes for trips – most travel websites are out for promotions rather than giving authentic information. I wanted to solve this problem by letting interested folks get information from peers who share their passion for trekking and traveling.

Basic Usage –

  1. The start point of the website is the Google map you see on the home page. Click the big black button and you can start creating your own trail – this can be for a trip you’d already been on or are planning to go on in the future.
  2. Once you click the button, you can zoom in to the appropriate level and start clicking on the map to record the waypoints on the trail.
  3. In case you want to undo any waypoint, you can do that by clicking the link at the top right corner of the map.
  4. Once you are done mapping your trail, click on the Save link at the top right corner of the map.
  5. This will bring up a dialog where you can name your trail and enter a brief window.
  6. If you have registered and are logged in, you can do more – you can write a review for this trail or write tips, or plan a trip on this trail. When you plan a trip, you can add additional details such as date of travel, etc and you can open this trip for registrations by other users.
  7. If you are logged in, you can also comment on the reviews already put up on the website and mark your trails as private while saving them (other users will not be able to see these trails in search and it’ll be harder for you to show off the trail you created).

Known Issues –

  1. IE 6 compatibility – the CSS dropdown menus don’t work in IE6 yet.
  2. The website is slow – I am using a free hosting service as of now, hence performance is an issue and so is the downtime. Sreedhar A. Reddy has sponsored hosting for the website on Hostmonster, so there should not be a problem because of hosting anymore.
  3. The name on the header doesn’t look very good – yes i’m very bad on the creative aspects, would appreciate any help with regard to a logo design, header design, etc.
  4. Here’s the list of planned changes/enhancements/improvements to the website – http://tinyurl.com/koeg97.

Also, i want to release the code with the GPL, need some pointers on how to do it.

Comments (1)

  1. Reply

    Cool..congrats..i also launched my maiden web site..though its on a very small scale..we r rite now using word press for content management, but thinking of moving to jhoomla later on..all the best

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