Trail Calendar

This weekend, we added two new features intended to make the site easier to use.

The first is the ability to copy an activity. Many users will do the same activity multiple times and it can be time consuming to have to repeatedly re-enter the same activity details. The site now allows you to create a new activity based on the settings of one of your existing activities.

To use this feature, simply go into an activity you’ve already created and click the Copy This Activity button in the upper portion of the page. (You will need to be logged in so that the site knows this is your activity.) This will bring up the Copy Activity page where you must enter a new date, and you have the option of changing any other settings for the activity. Submit this page and you are done. Note that you cannot copy activities created by other users.

The second feature is the ability to delete an activity. While this sounds basic, in fact it can be problematic to allow users to delete activities without restrictions. We would hate to see users drive all the way out to a scheduled activity only to find it has been canceled. But at least the user could return to visit Trail Calendar to try and determine what happened. But if the activity was deleted altogether, there would be no way for the user to assess what had happened, or to make the determination that they will avoid activities posted by a particular user.

Internally, there are a number of rules that determine when an activity can be deleted. However, the basic intent is to allow users to delete their activities that are only a few hours old and for which no users have RSVPed. The result is the ability to cleanly remove those activities that were entered by mistake or incorrectly.

We hope these features will make it easier for users to use the site.

Posted in New Features

Trail Calendar is very interested in knowing how we can better serve the communities that use the site.

Of course, we are well aware that the site will be better as those communities grow and more people post activities on the site. With that in mind, we are working to get more people to join Trail Calendar, and we encourage our users to do the same thing.

However, we are also interested in feedback from the community about how we can make the site better. Do you think we are missing some key features, or perhaps you think we have it all wrong? We are very interested in your opinions and ideas about the site.

Of course, we can’t implement every suggestion put out there, and we already have a lot of features planned as the site grows. But we want to make sure that the effort we put into the site are on the features that our users will appreciate most.

Please share your thoughts by contacting us.

Posted in General Information

There are certainly great outdoor activities that can be enjoyed during the Winter months. However, the Trail Calendar website is the type of site that will definitely receive more activity during the Summer.

So far, the site is a long way from reaching its full potential. But we plan to give it another push in the Spring. This will include more effort to get the word out and could even include more paid advertising (which is kind of tricky with a completely free site).

If you would like to see Trail Calendar become more active in your area, we would also invite you to “push” when the weather starts to improve. Post your activities, and tell your friends to do the same. And feel free to contact us if you have ideas to make the site more of a success.

We remain very committed to the ideals behind Trail Calendar and will continue the effort. We have many more features we are looking at adding as time allows and as demand increases. But we can’t do it without the community. Please help us build Trail Calendar into a resource we can all benefit from.

Posted in General Information

Nate Carlisle of The Salt Lake Tribune blogged about the Trail Calendar website today.

He correctly points out that while some locations are showing increased activity, other locations still need more. Trail Calendar needs more active users to become a really great resource. Perhaps a few more people will find out about us through this blog.

The blog can be read at http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/blogs/hiking/50507089-150/wood-hiking-lake-salt.html.csp.

Posted in General Information
Tags: website

At Trail Calendar, we certainly like to give credit where credit is due. And Trail Calendar will only become a great resource as a result of people posting lots of great activities.

Therefore, we’ve implemented profile ratings, where each user gets a number of stars depending on the number of activities they have posted. The stars (or hikers in our case) are visible in the user’s Profile and Account pages. This means other members can easily see which members are the most serious about their outdoor activities.

Users get one star after they post one or more activity, two stars after they post 10 or more activities, three stars after they post 25 or more activities, four stars after they post 100 or more activities, and five stars once they’ve posted 500 activities. Cancelled or deleted activities are not counted in the rating.

We will continue to tweak this feature, and look for additional ways to reward members who actively post activities on the site. Stay tuned…

Posted in New Features
Tags: profile rating

We’ve added new RSVP functionality that has two parts:

The first part is, when a user plans to join an activity, they can now click on the new RSVP button for that activity. Users can see exactly who has RSVPed any activity. Not only does this give the organizers a heads up on how many people plan to attend their activity, but it also promotes the Trail Calendar communities by helping users to better understand what other users are doing on the site. Note that the list of who has RSVPed is visible only to members in good standing who are logged in.

The second part is that organizers can now limit the number of people who can join an activity. So, for example, if your activity can accommodate no more than 25 people, you can now specify that number when posting an activity. Trail Calendar will only allow that many people to RSVP the activity. (Of course, Trail Calendar can’t limit the number of people who actually show up for your activity.)

We feel these are important features that will improve the user experience on the Trail Calendar site.

Posted in New Features
Tags: rsvp

For those who were wondering just what the heck a Trail Calendar is anyway, we’ve created a short video to introduce the basics of the website. This video describes the basic goals and functions of the website and demonstrates a couple of techniques for using the site. The video was posted on YouTube and can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wR3fsdB68M&layer_token=f66d0b51860bf73f.

Posted in General Information

If needed, it’s possible to insert a link into your activity description.

When you post an activity on Trail Calendar, the item that holds the most information is the activity description, where you can enter as much text as you need. Although you cannot insert HTML formatting in the description, you can easily create HTML links using double square brackets ([[]]).

For example, to create a link, you could type [[http://www.trailcalendar.com]]. If you want the displayed text to be different from the link, you could do that too by typing [[Trail Calendar][http://www.trailcalendar.com]]. This second example would show “Trail Calendar”, but would have a link to http://www.trailcalendar.com.

Please do not abuse links. Trail Calendar is vigilant about protecting the intended purpose of the site and has a strict policy against posting activities that are really just advertisements or an attempt to gain links to another site. But if the link helps people in your community come together for real activities, then please feel free to add them.

Posted in Website Tips

We’ve just added a new feature that we feel was sorely missing: the ability to be notified by email when someone comments on an activity.

Whenever you post an activity, or post a comment on an activity, there is now a check box that indicates if you want to be notified when someone else posts a comment on that same activity. Notifications are sent by email.

This feature was needed because it was easy to post an activity or comment and then not be aware that someone had commented on your post or maybe even asked you a question. With this new feature, you can choose to be notified and not miss any more comments directed at you.

This option is on by default. Of course, we don’t want to send unwanted emails to our users. Not only can you uncheck this option but, if you do, we store that information in a web cookie so that the option will default to unchecked the next time you post something.

Posted in New Features