Due to some schedule changes, we’ll be moving our regular-ish get-together night to Thursday! Hopefully, this will allow a few more folks to attend regularly. Keep an eye on the MADmodules Calendar for details.
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2012 On30 Annual Arrives at Carstens
The word is out that this year’s On30 Annual has arrived at Carstens, and according to publisher Henry Carstens, this edition is “drool-worthy” and full of “excellent modeling.” If you’re pre-ordered, your copy should be shipping soon, or keep you eye out at your favorite local hobby shop.
MADmodules.com 3.1
Okay, I’ve been workin’ on the MADmodules railroad site, all this live-long eve. All the menus are revamped and important information is pretty clearly available in the sidebar. The site’s been given the usability thumbs up from Donna, who feigned interest long enough to look around and try everything.
Some cool little things:
- Logging in no longer forces a user to the WordPress back-end. It keeps them on whatever page they logged in from.
- There are a couple of member-only functions. If someone tries to use them without first logging in, they’ll get a login screen. After they log in, they will continue directly to their destination, instead of having to start over.
- The private message function is “in there” and it works
- Completely new and slightly simplified forum. Somehow, it automagically brought over all the old forum content (for what that’s worth), even though there’s absolutely no reason it should have, except that the author thought it should.
- New calendar system (access through the WordPress Dashboard, look for “Events”) is much better suited to our site than previous one was. As well as regular calendar events, it allows people to “book space” in an event. This is really useful for seminar-type events.
- Most form-based functions work better, though the membership sign-up thingie can still be a little cranky. I’m workin’ on that.
- Still working on some way to pull the Yahoo!Group in, but not that hard. I’m really not sure I want to go there, beyond the reciprocal links already in place.
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MADmodules.com 3.0
After a little discussion today, we came to the conclusion that the MADmodules web site could do with a little clean-up and simplification, both on the front-end and the back-end. To that end, I’ve spent a few hours re-organizing and cleaning up the layout and upgrading much of the software that makes MADmodules.com tick. Hopefully, this has helped to make the site a bit more usable. As always, we welcome the feedback of both MADmodules members and visitors.
Changes include an updated overall look and layout of, as well as replacement of the GigPress event calendar system with a new event manager that is a bit easier to use. GigPress was designed for use by bands or other performance groups to announce their tour schedules. Bending it to work for MADmodules turned out to be a bit confusing for both visitors and administrators.
Next on tap will be a revamp of the forums. Stay tuned to see how that turns out…
Wednesdays
I thought that it would be wise to set aside one night a week to get together for train stuff. This is just an ad-hoc meeting day, but it gives us all a target for get togethers on a weekly basis. Geren has signed on to the idea, and for now we’ll plan to meet at my shop or his basement. Call me or him if you can sneak a Wednesday evening into your schedule, or if you’d like to host elsewhere.
I’m often available during days as well, so if you have a project you’d like to work on, call me.
I’m interested in playing with static grass, resin casting, ferns, weeds, and marsh grasses. I’ve got plans for a scratch built run down shack, trestles, a turntable, as well as a small pile of basswood chunks to cut lumber from. I’ve been knocking out benchwork and trackbeds for other folks lately, but I feel the urgent need to play with my own trains.
Come out to play.
Kevin Hunter
443 527 6320