QuickJump

~TECHNICAL PREAMBLE~

prerequesites to fully enjoy this site are a modern browser with javascript and cookies enabled.

browser:
basically the site should work with the latest versions of all major browsers (even such rare but obviously ineradicable monstrosities like Internet Explorer), however I recommend a mozilla based browser like Firefox. firefuchs is available for all major operating systems like windows, mac os and linux (please don't use konqueror on linux) and everything on this site is tested to work with firefuchs.
Safari, a widespread browser for mac os should also be ok if you use a recent version (there are some known problems if you use old versions)

javascript:
the site makes *heavy* use of javascript - basically it is not useable at all without javascript (please setup your browser to also allow popups for www.polanoid.net)

cookies:
you gotta at least allow session cookies in order to use many features of the site reasonably. the only permanent cookie that is set by the site is a cookie with the name of "uid", this cookie only containes your encrypted userid, so you dont have to log in every time you visit the site.

PICTURES

PICTURES cover

filters

PICTURES single view

picture pools/view modes

PEOPLE

the site cover / Shot of the Day

the PICTURES section

PICTURES - COVER

if you are a registered user of polanoid.net (what you hopefully are), the so-called "pictures cover" is the page where you usually end up after typing "www.polanoid.net" into your browser's address bar (or -if you are a true hardcore addict- after clicking the 'home' button ;)
this page by default shows the thumbnails of the 30 last uploaded images with the title of the image and the username of the uploader below. (you can page back by means of the arrow symbols below the thumbs to see results 31-60, 61-90,...)

fig 1, pictures cover

the heading says "ALL public pictures" but this page can do more for you than showing you the 30 latest uploaded pictures. it can also introduce you to one of the main concepts / ideas of how pictures are organized / viewed on this site...

FILTERS

on the left side you see the filters control panel that allows you to specify or narrow down your query.
the whole idea behind this filter concept is that in general every picture uploaded by any user ends up in one huge picture pool - and by using the different filters you can bring order into the huge pool, that is generally only ordered by upload date. you can use the filters to search for pictures taken with a certain camera, a certain type of polaroid film, for pictures taken in a certain country/city, pictures taken on a certain a day, and so on ...

some short words about the various filters (fig1 and fig2):
most of them like Tags (=keywords), Shotlocation, Camera, Filmtype, Upload- and Shotdate are rather self-explanatory.
Projects -on this page (in the context of the whole pictures pool)- are the "official" projects, (more or less) regulary set up by polanoid.net (refer to the box below the filters on fig1 to learn more about the "official" projetcs)

some checkboxes like Manipulated and Scrawled are rather self-explanatory too, or at least you will figure out their meaning by playing around with them. Rated means "display only pictures that have been rated (1-5) by the uploaders" - this is one of the filters that changes the default order (by upload date) of displayed results cause it displays the results in rating order (best first) - this is a handy way to narrow down the latest uploads to the "best of" (at least in the opinion of the respective uploaders). Commented means "only show pictures that have been commented already" and is anotha way of getting sumfin like a quick "best of" overview (if you keep in mind that the "newer" a pic is, the smaller its chances to have been seen and commented - but if you page back...) Me should only display pictures that the uploader has labeled so, meaning the picture should show the person behind the camera. as with most of the otha filters, the accuracy of this depends on the active users of this site (the people who upload and tag their pictures), so don't send a bugreport incase you filter by Me and find a picture showing a ragged shoe, the only "objectively true" informations are Commented, Upload date and Private - everything else can be fiction more or less...	fig 2, pictures cover - filters details
if you are logged in you see an additional checkbox labled private (fig2). this one means that the results will only show pictures that are marked as "private" (=not public), which means you will only see your own private pictures here - and the private ones of otha users who have added you to their friendslist with the special "bossom buddy" status.

fig 3, pictures cover - details tags filter

about the Shotlocation filter (fig4):

not so sophisticated as the Tags filter, but still worth a few words: after selecting a country from the countries dropdown, the cities dropdown will populate with cities in the choosen country. you can either keep the initially selected "all cities" or choose one from the list.

again:
please tell me if it is not working in your browser

about the Tags filter (fig3):

this one is a bit special and has to be considered experimental from the technical point of view, so please tell me if it is not working in your browser.

the idea was to strike a balance between having a 983km long dropdown with all tags used (as it was in the early days of the site) and a naked text-input field where you would have to blindly try keyowrds without knowing if there would be any pictures at all using those tags before clicking the submit button.

if all goes well and the thingy is working in your browser you should see a list popping up with the 20 most used tags (and their usage numbers) as soon as you put your cursor into the text input field. as soon as you start to type in the input field, with every letter you type, the list changes and shows you existing tags that match what you're typing.
(you can either select one of the suggestions from the list by using your "up" and "down" cursor keys, or by selecting a word using your mouse pointer)

fig 4, pictures cover - details shotlocation filter

after selecting your filters and clicking the submit button you see the results of your query, like in this case a search for pictures of the WebMeister, taken in Australia.

fig 5, pictures cover - filtered results

if you click on one of the thumbs on the pictures cover or click the "Browse Results " button your browser takes you right into...

PICTURES - SINGLE VIEW

the most requested and probably most interesting page on polanoid.net.
On this page you see one big image displayed in the center along with the metainformation like title, description, camera, film etc... available for this image in the blue info tab on the right side. on the left side of the page you see a short summary about the number of results for your current query, the Projects and Tags filters and thumbnails of up to 20 pictures of the current resultsset.
you can browse through the images of your resultset by either using the 'forward>>/<<back' buttons on top, by clicking on one of the thumbs on the left, or by simply clicking onto the big image itself (which loads the next picture).

fig 6, pictures single view

fig 7, pictures single view - more filters

Filters on the single view page

if you have reached this page coming from the pictures cover, the filters are taken over and you see the details of your query displayed below the thumbs on the left ("Shotlocation: Austrailia, donkey" on fig6)
on top of the thumbs you see the Projects and Tags filters again, but you don't have to go back to the pictures cover to access the full filters panel. just click the » more link next to the Tags input field and the rest of the filters will appear (fig 7) given you the whole blahblah..

[say sumfin about the thingies in right info tab (camera-, film-, date-, links working as filters and so...)]

below the image blah blah below the image blah blah below the image blah blah below the image blah blah below the image blah blah

[say sumfin about vote-, fav- and xxl links]

fig 8, pictures single view - detail vote, xxl, fav

blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blahblah blah blah blah

[say sumfin about comments (edit, delete,...)]

fig 9, pictures single view - post comment

THE DIFFERENT KIND OF IMAGE POOLS

fig 10, pictures single view - all users image pool

fig 11, pictures single view - single user image pool

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[say sumfin about browsing/filtering the whole picture pool and browsing/filtering only the pix of a single user - after clicking on a username (SHOT BY)]

if you click on the profile tab you leave the pictures section and switch to ...

the PEOPLE section

PEOPLE - PROFILE

fig 12, people profile

fig 13, people profile - detail polavorites

2,486 Messages

fig 14, people profile - detail guestbook

POLAVORITES

after clicking on one of the polavorites thumbs in somebody's profile...

fig 15, people polavorites

PEOPLE - COVER

like there is a so-called pictures cover, there also is a so-called people cover that you can reach by clicking on people in the topnavigation. this page by default shows the 20 last active users (active meaning that they uploaded or edited pictures or tinkered on their profile) on the right side the NEWs iframe some kind of public forum where every user can tell the world about his new breathtaking uploads or about the fact that she just cut her toenails or otha ereignisse of public relevance...

fig 16, people cover

like the pictures cover not only show you the 20 latest active but also filter/search for users...
username (link)
as soon as you start to type in the input field, with every letter< you type, the list changes and shows you existing tags that match what you're typing.
(you can either select one of the suggestions from the list by using your "up" and "down" cursor keys, or by selecting a word using your mouse pointer)

NOTE: only users with at least one public picture appear here

fig 17, people cover detail - search by username

fig 18, people cover results search by username

about the Userlocation filter (fig19):

working the same as the Shotlocation filter in the pictures section:
after selecting a country from the countries dropdown, the cities dropdown will populate with cities in the choosen country. you can either keep the initially selected "all cities" or choose one from the list.

again:
please tell me if it is not working in your browser

fig 19, people cover detail search by location

last but not least ...

the SITE COVER page

this is the page that you reach, if you are not logged in and type www.polanoid.net into the address bar of your browser (if you are logged in, you can reach this page by clicking the xyz symbol in the topframe of every page).
wehre the often mentioned shot of the day is ...

fig 20, site cover