Old Website
The website is hosted by Ecobytes and has a Wordpress installation (admins are User:Eiland and User:Taborda
Till 2009 the website was static (some old version of the website can be found at [ecotopiabiketour.net/old]) User:Eiland made the first migration to wordpress. On 2012 User:Taborda made some changes on the design (we now use The Clear Line Theme) to make it more customizable without having to be too hard code, some plugins were also activated.
domain name registration
joao is paying currently the domain name, that he registered in 2007. It is registered until 07 Apr 2014
- In 2005 we start having problems with old domain www.thebiketour.net which is now hijacked
- During 2006 tour was possible to have online presence with former domain, but as future good communication with domain owner wasn't foreseeable BT come to a consensus in early 2007 about having a new "online name"
- Future plans include parking the domain at Ecobytes, together with the hosting service - this is curently beoing looked at for 2013
Wordpress website (the main site)
At the moment, the BT site runs on wordpress. The info here is only relevant for administrators of the website.
To become an editor of the website and be able to modify all texts, register yourself at http://www.ecotopiabiketour.net/wp/wp-login.php?action=register, and ask one of the coordinators to upgrade your account to the level of an "editor", on which level you can modify all texts. If you have questions, send them by mail to taborda at ecotopiabiketour dot net
Only admins have permissions to change the menus (we can, and it's probably wise, to change this) new pages will not appear in the menu while an admin don't add it there (on the backoffice: Appearance->Menus)
facebook (and other social networks) try to get an image and show it as thumbnail when you share a link, to force it to show the correct image User:taborda followed this instructions and add this line on the webpage theme header.php (on sftp /appdata/wordpress/wp-content/themes/biketour_2012/header.php)
<link rel="image_src" href="http://www.ecotopiabiketour.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/biketour/2012/05/BT2012logo-social-en-e1337183509611.png" />
WARNING: Adding an img_src share preview image may take away the ability to let users select from various images when sharing your site. This code tells sites which image to chose rather than gives the user some options.
Used Wordpress plugins (or at least the most important)
These plugins were working fine on Wordpress 3.0.5 (bugs fixed manually by ecobytes) and shouldd keep working if it (hopefully) updated to a more recent WP version
Contact Form 7
This plugin helps making forms to interact with website users, it's an alternative to wufoo.com (the service that was being used on last biketours, before 2012)
It's used on the Contact page, the registration and as a hack to bypass https untrusted conection to eyfa's mailling list subscribe
User:Taborda tested it on version 2.3.1 and used it with some other plugins
You can edit the diferent forms on the WP backoffice "Contact" menu, the forms are built on html mixed with an easy CF7 tag syntax.
Contact Form 7 Datepicker
adds a datepicker to the registration form
for the next years, don't forget to change the start day on the plugin settings
it has a problem with the url linking to an non-existing directory...
version tested: 0.7.4
Contact Form 7 to database extension
besides sending an email (the main funcionality of CF7) thisit also saves the form data onto a database (so anyone - with a password - can look at it on the Wordpress backoffice, left side, "Database" under "Contact"
version tested: 2.3
qTranslate
installed to be able to have a multi-language site...patched to show default language when no translation is available
the patch just work if language posts are EMPTY (to empty them you need to go into HTML view and also erase the annoying
that keep on appearing when you edit something on a different language!!)
version tested: 2.5.15 (patched with this: http://www.qianqin.de/qtranslate/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1920)
Sub pages widget
used on the right menu to show sub-pages of the current page
version tested: 1.1
Sociable
adds links to facebook and other crap social networks to posts and pages
version tested: 3.5.2
Image Widget
allows adding images to sidebars and footers
version tested: 3.2.11
- History:
- Twitter was tested for the first time in 2006.
- But mainly used during 2007, with some tweaking, to allow multi-person delivery of SMS's while on the road (logistical coordination).
- In 2008 it was also used as a way of updating a blog, from the SMS sent while riding.
- Also in 2008, after the tour, Twitter stopped delivering SMS' to non-US mobiles... Therefore most of its initial use as a tool was lost.
- Accounts:
- Biketour has http://twitter.com/biketour
- and http://indenti.ca/biketour
- Use*
- From the road it is easy to update these accounts with an SMS to the twitter number (+44 762 4801423) but register the number first with the BT twitter, to instantly update the BT family with the latest campsite of BT.
- However, Twitter has some issues with phone numbers from small countries, and this doesnt update identi.ca the free variant of twitter.
- Therefore, BT can also use ping.fm, which spreads an sms to +447786208201 from a verified mobile number directly to Twitter, Identi.ca and the BT Facebook page.
- The username for twitter and identi.ca is
biketour. For ping.fm it istwitter@ecotopiabiketour.net
- Future:
- There seems to have been a consensus on Winter Meeting 2013, on not using twitter any longer
(taborda also thinks this is outdated)
To add your phone to our Twitter profile, follow these steps (source) :
- Send a text to +44 762 4801423 with the word START.
- Wait 2 minutes.
- Next, send your username biketour to +44 762 4801423. Do not use @ or quotes. Send our username ONLY.
- Wait 2 minutes after sending your username.
- Next, send our password to the same number. This is case sensitive, so be sure you are sending your password correctly.
- Wait 2 minutes.
- Finally, send the word OK to the same number.
Then, if everything went alright, you can send twitter updates to +44 762 4801423
youtube
- http://www.youtube.com/user/EcotopiaBiketour
- user: tech@ecotopiabiketour.net - regular bt password
Crabgrass
- https://we.riseup.net/ecotopiabiketour
- Administrator: ???
Tumblr
- http://biketour.tumblr.com/
- Administrator: ??? (Joao L?)
the email asetup is a bit too complicated to explain here, but Joao L made a pdf explaining a bit how it goes. Temove _joao_is_great from_ the link and you should be able to open it. If you understand it.... : http://www.ecotopiabiketour.net/share/Contacting_Biketour_joao_is_great_.pdf
Login to your BT email address through http://mail.ecotopiabiketour.net
old bits of text on this page no longer making sense
The biketour has listings: http://www.idealist.org/if/i/en/av/Org/199541-123/c
texts
we have a lot of texts floating around: on this wiki, our old website, on the 2005 wiki and the 2004 wiki with quite some texts in Czech and German.
i worked on a structure of the website and will put all the ideas for texts to write here. those pages are divided in two part: first you will find the ideas behind this page, things to mention or to explain in detail, then the text. please work on both and discuss your ideas on the discussion part of that page - see it up there between article and edit.
home help tasks
wordpress
To change the front page between dynamic (showing the latest blog posts) and static (while not on tour, just advertise BT), go to "pages", and edit "Home". Then change the template from that page from "Front page" to "default template" or the other way around. This is an implementation of [1]