# new website....you turn the pages like a book



## Dean Whipple (Jan 2, 2008)

As some of you know I do the website for Just Plain Folk's.

I've created a very different style of website using Adobe flash....you turn the pages like a book.

It's still under construction, but it has 100+ figures...check it out and let me know how you like the book idea......Just Plain Folk Figures[/b]
Thanks in advance, Dean










This is 3 of about 20 new figures he has...


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## Dean Whipple (Jan 2, 2008)

I'll try adding the picture again.....


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Although I am sure you put a lot of work into it and it was fun for you and it is an interesting effect...

It takes 2 to 3 seconds for the pages to download so there is not the effect of just flipping through some pages.

The photos in the pages are tiny leaving way too much "page" blank and useless.

I, personally, would prefer much larger images and just a couple of buttons for "Previous" and "Next"... and maybe a high level menu/list for the various genre of figure so I don't have to flip through the whole set to get to a particular type.


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## SteveC (Jan 2, 2008)

Don't know Semper, but the pages turned very quickly for me using either the Previous/Next bars on the left and right, or using the lower corner on the page to flip from page to page.

As to the size of the images, did you try left-clicking the page, or using the tool-bar just below the book, or the right-click context menu, etc. etc.?

Looks nice Dean, but isn't Flash one of the things that so many are trying to get depreciated in HTML-5?

Dean: Got to be careful to clear the nbsp entity that is by default placed on a blank line that you're going to insert an image on.

The one comment I've got is, there seems to be no way to clear the Table Contents once it has been displayed (e.g. in error or not) other than making a selection on it and clicking it, that could be an annoyance.


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

Pages turned very quickly for me also. Nice effect, Dean.


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## Dean Whipple (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By Semper Vaporo on 17 May 2012 01:03 PM 
Although I am sure you put a lot of work into it and it was fun for you and it is an interesting effect...

It takes 2 to 3 seconds for the pages to download so there is not the effect of just flipping through some pages.

The photos in the pages are tiny leaving way too much "page" blank and useless.

I, personally, would prefer much larger images and just a couple of buttons for "Previous" and "Next"... and maybe a high level menu/list for the various genre of figure so I don't have to flip through the whole set to get to a particular type.

Thanks for the reply.

It's set up to as you look at a page it pre-loads the next and/or other pages....

You can use the page up, page down. home, & end keys move you around.
You can click or hold your mouse over a picture and use the mouse wheel to enlarge a picture.

On the bottom the black menu has a table of contents, and thumbnails, plus a lot of other buttons to help you move around.
The blank space on the pages are what we are working to fill up with idea photos.

If you or anyone else has a picture of a JUST PLAIN FOLK figure in action send it in.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

Once each page has been downloaded to my PC the pages turn fairly quickly, except often the page in motion is white, revealing the red background while the tearing paper sounds, then the two pages appear accomplained by two clumping sounds. But downloading a page takes 3 seconds (per 1/2 screen) during the initial access to the data.

Scrolling the mouse wheel allows zooming in (click and drag to move the page within the window).

But many of the images are severely JPG artifacted and pixelated/blurry producing no better view of the figure than the small thumbnail.

Example: look at page 46, "Trainmen", figure 2023. Zooming in all I see is what looks to me like a 1930's dressed woman (in combat boots!) in a Karate pose.


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## Semper Vaporo (Jan 2, 2008)

It is "neat" and "cute", but the sounds and delays are annoying and the real question is:

Does it sell product?


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## Dean Whipple (Jan 2, 2008)

The figure on page 46 is a woman, we will be adding descriptions in the next few days.
If the sound bothers you the button on the left end of black menu bar that looks like a speaker will turn it off.


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## lownote (Jan 3, 2008)

With all due respect for your work, I personally dislike that format. I can see no reason why my web browser, which is not a book, should imitate a book. Maybe if I was reading it on a tablet or ipad, I'd like it more. Aristocraft used something similar on its old online catalogue. I l always found it mildly irritating


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## David Leech (Dec 9, 2008)

Works well for me, BUT I am left wondering WHAT scale these figures are for? 
The order form says 'G' scale, which is ???? 
All the best, 
David Leech, Delta, Canada


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## gtrainman (Jan 5, 2008)

Nice job Dean! 
The pages flipped almost instantly for me here. I'm using Win 7 pro and IE 9 with the latest flash player installed, also high speed Comcast. 
PS, say hi to John for me.


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## mbendebba (Jan 22, 2011)

Hello Dean: 

Nice idea and quite appropriate. I cannot comment on the sound, my sound is always turned-off. There may be a little problem with the zoom-in function, you should check it out.

mohammed 
http://www.allaboutlgb.com


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## Jim Agnew (Jan 2, 2008)

Dean, good job, nice presentation. The pages flipped very quickly and the pictures were more than adequate even without enlarging them.


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## Mike Paterson (Dec 27, 2007)

Dean, 
I found myself fumbling in navigating within a page and page to page when I first signed on. This quickly became self correcting however. I did miss some of the features you incorporated such as the sound off/sound on. As mentioned above, why Flash? HTML is the mover today and by running flash you limit the Apple iPad, iPod Touch for sure. Forget the politics, Adobe has announced they are working with HTML for future products and possibly writing a conversion program for Flash to HTML. Adobe headquarters are within 20 minutes of me and my neighbor works for Adobe. He will not discuss anything specific about Adobe's HTML program only refers me to public statements. 

Please hurry up with the project as I really need people and trying to find a comprehensive list with photos is neigh on impossible. 
Mike


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## Gary Woolard (Jan 2, 2008)

FWIW, everything loaded pretty fast for me -- no hesitation in flipping pages, clicking to expand images worked, but the resulting images looked a little grainy.. No problems w/ or without [email protected] url(/providers/htmleditorproviders/cehtmleditorprovider/dnngeneral.css);


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## Dwight Ennis (Jan 2, 2008)

Myself, I like it overall. Works great for me in terms of speed. I would like to see the photos bigger. Additionally, if one zooms the image, some of the top-left photos are hidden behind the logo. Overall though, I like it. Great stuff Dean!


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## jbwilcox (Jan 2, 2008)

Pages turned quickly.

However, I agree, the pictures are too small and it is difficult to see the detail.

And then where do you find the prices for the figures?

Also the scale should be mentioned.

I have bought a bunch of these figures. They are really good.

I hope you will take these comments into consideration and encorprate them into your web pages.

John


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

This is the same system that Aristo used for their online catalog. Most people complained. USAT also had their catalog this way for a while and everyone complained. 

It's cute, but the animation is wasted on me, and you do lose some speed loading the "effect". 

Slow because it needs more bandwidth. Personally it turned me off just like the Aristo catalog. 


I don't prefer it. 

Greg


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## Dave Meashey (Jan 2, 2008)

Dean; 

I like the format. My only regret is that I did not see many of those nice non-hardhat workers at ECLSTS, nor the children and detail items. I would have bought some of them had I seen them. Hope he brings them next year. I saw a lot of figures on your catalog that I have yet to see at ECLSTS. 

My railroads pre-date the use of hardhats. 

Best wishes, 
David Meashey


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## peter bunce (Dec 29, 2007)

Hi Dean,

Above are a couple of photos hat may help - they are of a couple of the Hobo's, that I bought.

I think that I added the bottle: the other figure has a scratch built satchel that can just be seen on the floor of the boxcar.


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## Pete Thornton (Jan 2, 2008)

Posted By lownote on 17 May 2012 02:18 PM 
With all due respect for your work, I personally dislike that format. I can see no reason why my web browser, which is not a book, should imitate a book. Maybe if I was reading it on a tablet or ipad, I'd like it more. Aristocraft used something similar on its old online catalogue. I l always found it mildly irritating 

I have to agree (apologies also.) If I want to read a magazine, I'll get the magazine. I much prefer websites to use the power of the technology: small photos to get your interest that blow up to big photos if you want; a few items per page to make them load real fast, and thumbnails as a list of contents, for example.

That 'turn the page' system is a solution looking for a problem. Yes you can do it, but why?


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## Bob in Kalamazoo (Apr 2, 2009)

Dean, I wasn't even going to bother looking after some of the other comments. My computer is pretty slow at down loading anything and so I figured it would just be frustrating. Well, I gave it a try and it actually was pretty quick. I turned off the sound because I found that annoying in a hurry. And the page flipping thing didn't do anything for me, but it didn't bother me. All in all, things worked pretty well. I assume you're going to work on improving this. It should be real good when you're done.
Bob


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## Treeman (Jan 6, 2008)

If the pages move slow, I would guess a slow internet connection. But larger pictures would be better. May load slower. His site has needed some work for some time. We have had trouble getting a hold of John in the past.


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## Andre Anderson (Jan 3, 2008)

I personally liked it, there were two things that I think would improve it. First, maybe a table of contents with broad categories so you could get to that section faster, for example if I was looking for train crew there might be a line in the table of contents that said "Train Crews... page 25" or some such entry. The next thing is I figured out how to get larger photos but they were of very poor quality so maybe the photo on the page would be a link to a much higher quality photo. Please realize that these are only my thoughts, don't take them too personally.


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## Stan Cedarleaf (Jan 2, 2008)

Nicely done, Dean. Very nice effect abd easy tyo view.


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## Bob Pero (Jan 13, 2008)

I LIKE IT DEAN!!!


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## rkapuaala (Jan 3, 2008)

I found it to load pretty good, 2 to 4 seconds is not bad really considering the content. I had no trouble figuring out how to zoom or move the pages around although, I like being able to view the image in a higher resolution and one image at a time instead of several, that's just my preference. And something I've always felt lacking from my own site was a way to present the figures at various angles that didn't require too much thought. Other wise very nice, very clean.


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## Jim in MO (Feb 28, 2010)

I like the format BUT make the images as big as space will allow. Eyes aren't what they used to be. The click and zoom isn't enough.


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## Rail Planet (Jan 22, 2012)

I'm a web designer and find the site's design to be unprofessional. Nice products, though.


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

I went back and played some more after reading people's comments. 

To say it's unprofessional is pretty harsh. 

There are several things I do not like. 

Fancy animation on a site selling products is unnecessary and actually annoying. 
Zooming is terrible, it sometimes zooms the page, not the item of interest, and worse, the zoom in is limited and not enough. 
Lastly, no sound please, I don't need the simulated sound of turning pages, it adds nothing to the experience, and sites making sounds without prompting is, in my personal opinion, rude. 

Example, go to the Phoenix web site... the friggin' horn honks every time you get to the main page... 

This is my honest opinion... too cutesy... 

Greg


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## Rail Planet (Jan 22, 2012)

Sorry, I really wasn't trying to sound "harsh" or mean, but I would second Greg's last comment. I also think a lot of the features would actually have been easier to accomplish with HTML5, CSS3, and jQuery.


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## Rail Planet (Jan 22, 2012)

http://tympanus.net/codrops/2012/05/07/experimental-page-layout-inspired-by-flipboard/ 
One way of doing it without Flash.


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

"Example, go to the Phoenix web site... the friggin' horn honks every time you get to the main page... 

This is my honest opinion... too cutesy... "

Boy, I have to agree with that! Sometimes I'll go to that site late at night and forget the sound is on. Wow, do I get a reprimand from the rest of the household!


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## on30gn15 (May 23, 2009)

Eventually saw scale noted in fine white print at bottom of "Under Construction" cover page: would be nice to have it a little more toward the 'in your face' side than the 'discreet' side.


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## Scottychaos (Jan 2, 2008)

The page flipping doesn't bother me.. 
it makes navigation nice and easy (just one click to turn the page) 
but a few things I dont like: 

1. lose the sound!  
2. The "book" is way too small, when the whole book is visible on the screen..photos are much smaller than they need to be, 
and they aren't clear.. 

Personally, I stopped using thumbnails 10 years ago, and most webpages have as well.. 
high speed internet has made them basically unnecessary now.. 
a simple 640x480 photo is big enough to show detail clearly, yet small enough that it causes no 
loading issues with 99% of viewers.. 

and no thumbnails is much easier for the viewer, because there is just the one image, you dont have to do anything special to look at it.. 
no clicking on each image, no zooming..its just one clear picture, right there, perfectly viewable just as it is.. 
IMO, the age of the thumbnail is long past.. 

and this book format makes the whole webpage basically one big thumbnail.. 
you have to zoom to see anything clearly..thats no good, too complicated. 
and when you do zoom in, (on my monitor resolution) the top photos are cut off.. 
and when you zoom out so that the whole book is on the screen, the photos are too small and quite unclear.. 

So, the "flipping book" doesn't really bother me, by itself..but I think the webpage could be much better without it.. 

Scot


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## Phippsburg Eric (Jan 10, 2008)

I would add more (big) images of each figure so you can really get a feel for them. perhaps even close ups of the face or other defining features. I am sure the the photos you have do not really do them justice.


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