Cross-stitch Gallery
Target Users: Kate
Kate needs a Space to show the progress of her stitching projects. This gallery needs to hold lots of different projects; for each project, there should be a bunch of check-ins; for each check-in, there should be one or more photos. Photos are front-and-center here, the main point of the exercise.
This is initially aimed at her cross-stitch, but there is no obvious reason to limit it to that. In the long run, this should become a general Craft Gallery App, on top of the more-specific one.
Design Outline
Design Constraints
Copyright is a particularly important concern: since cross-stitch designs often get ripped off, we want to set a good example, and make sure that copyright is shown prominently, especially anywhere that images of a design are displayed.
Models
Design
This represents a particular cross-stitch design -- usually but not necessarily commercial. For now, we are keeping the Design Model and its instances in Kate's Space, but in the long run this should be lifted out into a Cross-Stitch Designs Space, which will be a community-shared Space where members can contribute the designs that they like or are working on. Individual Cross-Stitch Galleries will inherit from this Space as a mix-in, and link to the Designs shown in it.
Properties
- Designer -- Set of Tags of Designer -- who designed this
- Copyright -- Optional Text -- the copyright notice for this design, if known (optional, but strongly encouraged)
- Stitch Count -- Composite Property with subfields Width and Height -- the size of this design, in stitches
- Fabric -- Composite Property with subfields Count and Description -- describes the fabric recommended for this Design, eg, "28ct Antique White Cashel Linen". Count is kept separately, so that Fabric Size can become a calculation later.
- Fabric Size -- Composite Property with subfields Width and Height -- the size of the required fabric, in inches. Fabric Size could become a calculation in the long run: take stitch count / stitch size and + 3". So 300 / 14 (28 ct normally means 14 stitches per inch) = 21.4 + 3 = 24.4".
- Website -- External Link -- a link to the official webpage for this design.
- Materials List -- List of Text -- the bits required for this design.
- Release Date -- Date -- when this design came out
- OOP -- YesNo, default false -- true iff this design is out of print
Project Model
This represents a particular person or group who are working on a particular Design. There isn't much to Project per se: it is mainly a join table between Design and Updates.
Properties
- Project Design -- Link to Design
- Stitchers -- Set of Tag of Stitcher -- who did this Project. Defaults to Kate.
- Expected Total Hours -- Whole Number -- how long you expect this Project to take
- Fabric -- same Property as on Design -- the fabric actually being used for this Project
- UFO -- YesNo, default false -- true iff this Project is an "unfinished object", which is in abeyance
Update
This represents a stage in a Project's progress. As you work on a Project, you periodically add Updates. Each Update contains one or more Photos.
Properties
- Project -- Link to Project -- what we're updating
- Date -- Date, default today -- when this Update was taken
- Photos -- List of Photo -- one or more Photos of the current state of this Project
- Number of Hours to Date -- Whole Number
- Notes -- Large Text -- unconstrained notes about the current state of the Project
- Complete -- YesNo, default false -- iff true, this Update represents the completion of the Project. The existence of a Complete Update indicates that the Project is complete.
Designer Model
This represents a cross-stitch designer, typically one who sells commercially. For the moment, this is just a placeholder for the Designer tag.
Stitcher Model
This represents a person who works on a Project. It is usually just the Owner of the Space, but some Spaces may be for collaborative groups with several Stitchers working together.
Pages
This represents the visual and workflow structure of the Space.
Home Page
The root page of the Space displays a list of all currently-in-progress, non-UFO Projects. Each Project should display a thumbnail of the more recent Update. Clicking on the thumbnail or Project name takes you to the Project's page.
The root page also has links to the Completed Projects page, and the UFOs page.
Completed Projects
This is a list of Completed Projects, probably in reverse-chronological order of completion date, from most recent to oldest. Each entry should be similar to the entries on the Home Page, with a clickable thumbnail and name that links to the Project Page.
UFOs
This is a list of UnFinished Objects, and works the same as the Home Page and Completed Projects.
Project Page
The main page for any given Project shows a full-sized Photo from the most recent Update front-and-center: that should be most of what you see when you go to the Project Page. (As with all full-sized photos, the Copyright and link to the official Design page should be clearly visible.) If the current Update has more than one Photo, it should also show a filmstrip of thumbnails; clicking on a thumbnail shows that Photo.
Below that, there should be a list of Updates, in reverse-chronological order, with the thumbnail and date of each one. Clicking on one of those takes you to the Update Details page.
Update Details
This page shows a full-sized Photo from this update (plus thumbnails of other Photos, if applicable), like the Project page. It also shows the other details -- Notes, Number of Hours, etc.
Interview Notes
This is from an email thread that Kate ran in July 2014, talking about this Use Case.
Her original ideas (I'll ask questions and give commentary in the conversations below):
Properties of a photo
- Photo
- Caption/Title
- Design Name
- Copyright (property of design name)
- Designer (property of design name)
- Stitcher/Artist
- Date
- Number of Hours
- Total # of Hours Needed (property of design name/stitcher)
- Fabric (property of design name/stitcher)
- Notes
- Complete indicator (should notate on design name/stitcher and be assigned to photo)
- UFO indicator (should notate on design name/stitcher and be assigned to photo)
Properties of a Design Name (design name/designer?)
- Copyright
- Designer
- Stitch Count
- Recommended fabric
- Fabric size
- Photo?
- Materials list (fibers, beads, etc)
- Release date
- OOP indicator
Displays
- Completed works (possibly organized by finished year (final date on the gallery of that design/stitcher) or designer)
- UFOs (use indicator)
- Current WIPs (no complete or UFO indicator, shows most recent picture of each design for design/stitcher)
- Individual design progress (shows all pictures chronologically for one design/stitcher)
- Rotation progress (shows last 2 pictures for each WIP for a design/stitcher)
- Individual picture page
- All display types should display the caption/title and copyright for each picture (copyright should be non-optional).
- There should be the ability to add any of the other fields in the display (maximum number of display fields?)
- For the individual picture page, it should start with all fields displayed.
Photo load process
- Option 1: take photo from phone and directly load to site, adding Caption/title and design name. Can also add all other properties.
- Option 2: upload photo from computer after editing. (It's planned to add rotate and crop to the capabilities of the app eventually, but right now editing with a photo editor is your best option)
- Currently the proposal is to allow photos up to 10001000. The site will provide that and a thumbnail (up to 100100) for use in display. We're also contemplating allowing users to specify an inbetween size.
- I'm thinking that all multi-picture displays would use thumbnails if displaying more than 4(? 6? 10?) photos which would be links to the individual picture page.
- I personally would prefer Ind design progress and rotation progress to use an inbetween size a little bigger than a thumbnail (but I'm not sure how big)
Conversation with Kate's friend Jennifer
Jen:
That said, I love how when I take photos on my iPhone, when I plug my phone into our iMac, it opens up iPhoto for me. I can then do some simple editing, and direct from iPhoto I can upload directly to my flikr account. Makes my life super easy so it's part of why I'm using that method right now. So you've got stiff competition from me. I like it when tech is easy. When I lost my personal webpage with the transfer from comcast to verizon, I just decided I had had it with web design and took the path of least resistance.
Also from Jen:
So here's a question will the app take some of the input info, say like design name, designer, and stitcher and date photo taken and overlay it on the photo? Next for some of the information will you be starting a database of the info so that if you input say the design name and designer, it can pull up properties like count size, and materials list? If you plan stuff like that though you may have to get specific permission from the designers. Or do you plan to do something like creating a shared database, where if one user enters data it could be shared by the next user?
Also do you plan your own photo hosting site, or are you going to leverage things like flikr, photo bucket, Facebook etc?
Kate's response:
For the first, each person will input data, and can then choose to make that part of a "public" database (say with information on the size, materials list) so the next person can just add that to her own space.
Not sure what you mean by overlay it on the photo. The app will likely capture the time loaded, as well as the user who loaded it, but design name will have to be typed in. However, if I've already got all of my WIPs loaded, and I take a picture of Elisabeth of Austria, when I type E it will give me two autofill options (Elisabeth and EoW) and El will mean I can just press enter to have it name it correctly.
The service is renting space in the cloud, so will be hosting the pictures.
Jen's response:
You know how some people have the photos show with the data printed on the photo itself in some inconspicuous corner when you view it. Something I haven't yet figured out in iPhoto, but mean to get around to figuring out as I think it's nice to give credit to the designer.
Kate's response:
We're definitely making the copyright notice mandatory, although I assume that would go in small text under the photo. I can pass along a request to be able to put the design name and designer transparently over the photo...
Conversation with Kate's friend Terry
Terry:
Are you looking for what info you would post with the pictures? If so, then definitely list design name, designer, size (both inches & stitch size), and fabric you’re doing it on. Unless you’re using specialty fibers, then I wouldn’t bother listing DMC. Of course, you could just say “using DMC” or “Kreinik #4 braids”. I don’t know if you’d want to list the specialty fibers, but I think if someone is really interested then they can research it or write you and ask. You might want to list when you started working on the project and maybe have areas for times you’ve worked on it. That is if you are OCD as me on things like that. Lol Oh, leave a spot for things that you can list for changes that you might make on a project, too.
And then, once you “ornamentify” (that’s Jen Harper’s word that I’ve been using) a project, you might want to leave a space or replace it with the previous picture.
Did I cover it all? Or is there something else you are looking for? My biggest issue is finding good lighting to take pictures sometimes, and then finding the time to get them from the camera to the pc, then the pc to either Yuku or an online site.
Then Kate posted her detailed ideas above, and Terry responded:
I’m loving your ideas. I can’t think of anything else that might need to be added. And yes, you’re right, it would be nice to have more than 1 photo of the WIP. I like Option 2 the best just because I don’t always use my phone as my camera, and I like being able to make adjustments to the photo that the phone won’t allow me to do otherwise. I don’t know how it would work, but I know when others post pictures and I can’t see details because it’s a small picture, I will copy it over and paste to a word doc and then increase the size by dragging out. I don’t know if anyone else does things like that or not. So keeping your pictures to 1000x1000 would be good. I know most other places only allow 750x750 or some such number. Oh! I did think of one other thing. A comment section. This way the stitcher can go in and make notes about what they’ve done differently to the design, whether it’s a fabric change or a stitch or changing a color or whatever. Oh, and here’s another, I don’t know if it gets too detailed or what….. But how much floss is actually needed when the design is actually stitched, especially when it comes to specialty fibers, sometimes it’s nice to know in advance – ie: Dinky Dyes silk – the design calls for it, but you only end up using 1 18” length strand. Stitcher could decide to either substitute or see if she can buy a couple of strands from someone who has it is and is willing to share. I know we used to do that for ornaments from JCS on the Ornament Round Robin on Yuku. Here’s a link:
http://ornamentroundrobin.yuku.com/forums/9/Ornament-Organization-Emporium It’s old and outdated but maybe it will give you some new ideas (like you need that).
Open Stories
Helpful:
Completed Stories
