31 March 2013

PhyloPic Launch: API, Responsive Design, etc.

On Good Friday I took PhyloPic down. On Holy Saturday, I wrestled with errors caused by incongruities between the server and dev environments. And, lo, now, on Easter Sunday I announce that PhyloPic is back! (Actually, I already announced in on Twitter, but whatever.)

How smartphone users should see PhyloPic, more or less.

Major New Features:


  • A Developer API (using JSON). Now other people can build applications using PhyloPic data and images. (Yes, I am dogfooding it, so most of it should be pretty well-tested.)
  • Responsive design (using the ever-more-ubiquitous Bootstrap the site is now much more useable on mobile devices.
  • A Links Page, showing off work that uses PhyloPic or features it in some way.
  • Speedier load times (in theory, anyway).
  • Ranks for Contributors — if you submit one image, you're a "Specialist". Two, and you're a "General". Six, and you're a "Familiar". See where this is going?
  • Fewer requirements — most notably, Flash is no longer required to submit images.
  • Handy little icons on most taxon links — now you can tell if you're clicking on Gastonia the dicotyledonous plant or Gastonia the dinosaur. (Still rolling this out to all taxa.)
Yes, I know the plant doesn't look like that, but at least you can tell it's a plant. We'll just have to wait for someone to illustrate it properly (*cough cough*).

Of course, any launch is going to have issues, as I alluded to above. We're still not out of the woods on a few of them, notably:
Doubtless there are more. You can help out by reporting any errors you encounter. (Remember to include browser info.)

Enjoy! If anyone needs me, I'll be grilling some lamb.


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