Building something TG related

I used to spend hours creating web projects and ideas I knew I’d never do anything with - just for the pleasure of building something and seeing it work.

It would start with an idea for something - like an app to work out who’s turn it is to get the tea - which was little more than an online to do list for multiple users.

Then it would expand and extra functionality would be added - like the ability to set a pre-defined tea/coffee order and update per ’session’. And to change the person responsible for tea duty if somebody is off.

Then the fun bit (for me at least) The Design - after I’d created the simple app, added the extra functionality and created an admin interface I would actually give the whole thing a decent design, create a logo and make it all pretty and stuff.

Then it would be used for a few days and completely forgotten about - remembered a month or two later and then lost forever after about six months.

But it’s been nearly two years since I did anything like that - I’d grown accustom to just installing Wordpress, adding a theme, tweeking a few colours and having a site up and running.

Since starting at the BBC its really all been about the content - I work as a Broadcast Journalist working on a BBC website that is powered by a Content Management System (or seventy) and I write a blog powered by a Content Management System. I can’t remember the last time I actually opened notepad or DreamWeaver and did anything in HTML.

Well actually I can.

Last week I decided to have a go at creating something from scratch - just like old times with my head deep in code for a few days and then heading over to Photoshop when I’m happy it works the way I want.

Then I add content, then I tweak content and then I decide the content should really be inputted into a database and pulled out that way instead of being added using DreamWeaver.

I’m at the database stage with this new project right now.

I’ve had lots of bits and pieces of Top Gear stuff hanging around for a while - audio clips to download on one site, all the viewing figures on another - a Cool Wall app somewhere else and a place that pulls together and provides the Embed code for TG video clips (from bbc.co.uk/topgear).

So I decided to pull it all together into a consistent design (I haven’t really done that for a whole site, in a consistent way since joining the BBC and leaving my job of ‘Interactive Designer’ behind - and with it the world of dodgy client pitches, annoying ‘marketing managers wanting blink tags’ and government departments knowing sod all about sod all else when it came to the web but wanting everything anyway.

Oh and people that used ‘web terms’ and technology buzz words without actually knowing what they were talking about.

Anyway I’ve strayed off the point. I’ve built the Up Your Ego TOP GEAR pages at upyourego.com/topgear.

At the moment there is a simple Audio player with clips from the show and interviews the TG three have done elsewhere.

There’s a video player that pulls videos from bbc.co.uk/topgear and embeds them in a black player with a black background and shows the embed code at the bottom - and gives you a pop-up player option. It’s all a bit crude but it works.

Then there is the Guide - basically a heavily ‘in the works’ episode guide for Top Gear that will, eventually be much of a mashup automatically pulling content from around the web. At the moment its all written in DreamWeaver and is in no way 1) automated and 2) in a format that could be shared.

We have the cool wall - a quick app I built up around a script built by someone else for a mobile phone site - as there is now a pretty impressive cool wall app on topgear.com I may just fade this out and not bother updating it and fixing the bugs.

And finally there’s the ratings - another thing that needs some work but is basically the viewing figures for every episode of ‘new Top Gear’ since the first back in 2002.

The long term goal is to have the Guide as the main interface with all the other content in a database and pulled out as part of each episode page - but that’s some way off yet.

The site is a LONG WAY from being finished but in the modern tradition of sharing everything while its still a bit crap - I thought I’d … well share it.

Tell me what you think:

upyourego.com/topgear

If I do finish it and create an actually useful Top Gear index I’ll probably set up a new URL for it and move it away from upyourego.com.

Share/Save