[Jav400]

OK, let me say a few things here, and everyone realize that we are just tossing around ideas at this point. Morgan and I had this discussion in the chat room the other day for quite some time, and we resolved some questions and created others. So let me try and go over what we discussed.

To start with, one of the ideas behind these changes are so that people who are unfamiliar with the fish can have a photo on the selection page to help them with their choices. I whole heartedly agree with this point. For people who are not sure which fish is which, I think this would be a great improvement.

Also, being able to set your preferences about which fish you would like to see most often, I also think would be a great improvement. There are always fish that people like better than others and this would help in that respect.

The only question that I had was that when Jim is finished with the Specialty fish, and the specialty invertebrates, people who opt for the complete set of everything will have quite a number of choices to pick from. Obviously, there will be so many that the fish and the invertebrates ( including photos ) will have to be displayed on separate tab sections. One for the fish and one for the invertebrates.

Now the way that this design works is to let you set and choose which fish or inverts you prefer from these tabs, so you can view the photos, but in doing so you have to switch between the two to set what you would prefer to be in the whole tank. As long as there is a global reminder of how many you have chosen so you can keep a running count from one tab to the next, it should work. The only solution I came up with on short notice was to add an additional tab for the actual choices, with the drop down menus like we have now, ( which would be lengthy and contain maybe 30-35 choices total with everything ) and 10-13 boxes to cover the fish and inverts, and let the "fish" and the "Invert" tabs be applied if you choose "random" in one of your choice boxes like we do now. This would leave you with 5 tabs total. About, Settings, Choices, Fish, and Inverts.

The good thing about this, is that you have 1 page where you can make and see your actual choices. The bad thing is that it still leaves us basically where we are now, without photos to aid in the choosing, those would be available, but only on different tab sections.

That was the main basis of the discussion. I was trying to figure out a way to "have my cake and eat it too." Unfortunately, I haven't been able to come up with a way to accomplish this totally and satisify both requirements.

The only other thing that I had a question about, and this would involve the collision detection more than anything else, would be how many total Invert settings will be allowed. Will we have 7-10 fish choices and 3 invertebrates choices total. Or will each setting be a global thing where you can choose more Inverts and be able to display basically an Invert tank, with only 2-4 fish? At this point I know that Jim has planned in the past to have just 3 additional Invert choice boxes. This idea stemmed from the fact that in past discussions the Eels ( which don't particualrly like alot of light ) and probably the Octopus, being 2 of the choices, might be hidden in a cave or under an overhang some of the time, which leaves you with only 1 free roaming Invert. This was just a thought and maybe Jim can give it some consideration. But I would guess that the collision detection would be the biggest hurdle to cross.

In conclusion, I do like the new ideas for the choices, but wanted to find a coherent streamlined way to accomplish all ideas. So far, not the best of luck.