VintageMachinery.org Bug Reports and Improvement Requests

Modified on 2025/10/06 17:55 by MarkCA1 Categorized as Uncategorized
===Bug Reports===
[^http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=1617&tab=4|<h4> Mfgindex/detail Page</h4>]

* 2014-03-01 - Something is broken in [^http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=286&tab=4|Emerson Electric's Photo Index]. The "Filter results by Machine Type" dropdown does not have the correct list of machine types in it.

[^http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=4441&tab=7|<h4>Patents Page</h4>]
* 2014-03-01 - Non-US patents don't have their country-code prefix displayed (nor do US patents, but US patents should be the default, same as on datamp.org.)
[^http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=1803&tab=7|Example] (out-of-order patent numbers are actually Canadian patents. Datamp.org has a [^http://www.datamp.org/patents/search/browseForeign.php|list of patent country codes that are currently in datamp]. This list changes, but only rarely.
* 2014-03-01 - Patent lists don't display UTF-8 characters properly. [^http://www.vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=4470&tab=7|Example]. (UPDATE 2016-12-29: This issue appears to have been FIXED. UPDATE 2024-03-01: This issue is back and has been for a while now.)
* 2014-03-01 - Patent lists don't display non-US locations properly. [^http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=2162&tab=7|Example].

[^http://vintagemachinery.org/photoindex/enter3.aspx?mfgid=1617&mfgbyid=1617|<h4>Photo Index Page</h4>]
* 2014-03-01 - (updated Occasional bug when editing a Photo Index entry where the first picture (sometimes all of them) disappears and the entry can no longer be edited. It is related to using the browser's Back button. Regular users can learn to avoid it but new visitors are still hitting this bug. I know that considerable effort has been expended already in trying to fix this problem. It would be helpful if this bug were made non-fatal—currently the page cannot display if an image link is invalid. It would be better if the page displayed successfully, minus the missing image(s), so that the error can be fixed by re-uploading the image(s). This issue also exists when uploading photos to a Classified Ad.

[^http://wiki.vintagemachinery.org/|<h4>VintageMachinery.org Knowledge Base (Wiki)</h4>]
* 2014-03-03 - RSS page feeds are not listing all entries, only the last update. [^http://wiki.vintagemachinery.org/RSS.aspx?Page=VintageMachinery-org-Bug-Reports-and-Improvement-Requests|Example]
* 2014-03-03 - The e-mail notification when a page is updated isn't working.
[|][|][|][imageauto| Email Notifications |{UP}/JRH/Email Notifications.jpg]

[^http://vintagemachinery.org/members/detail.aspx?id=86|<h4>Member Detail Page</h4>]
* 2014-03-27 - Search box does not work, returns "An error has occurred, the page requested can not be displayed."

[^http://vintagemachinery.org/photoindex/enter.aspx|<h4>Create Photo Index Entry-->Choose Manufacturer Page</h4>]
* 2025-05-16 - List of manufacturers is sorted by Name field rather than Index Name field, which can make it very difficult to find the desired entry. This problem applies equally in all upload paths, e.g., uploading a Publication or an Images entry.
* 2025-05-16 - Once a manufacturer name is selected, the next screen allows us to change the selected name via a dropdown list. But that list is extremely ungainly because it has nearly 8000 items. A better method is needed, such as being able to "search and select" again.

===Enhancement Requests===

* 2025 09-25 - VM WIKI: Get rid of the Screwturn Wiki coding and switch the HTML coding.
(Jeff J.) Yes, agreed. The wiki format is an obstacle to many potential contributors. I would like to VM.org to move to WordPress; Keith and others were amenable to that idea when we were talking about this nearly a year ago but I haven't heard it mentioned lately. I don't know exactly what the WordPress equivalent of the wiki is but I have to believe it's easier to use. It is worth searching for an example out there that we could try.

* 2025-09-25 - Vintage Machinery should be able to display all 255 ASCII characters properly.
(Jeff J.) Yes, in other words, we want UTF-8 support. That was somewhat "fringe" in 2008 when VM.org was last updated but it's pretty much expected nowadays and if the rewrite uses any sort of off-the-shelf framework—and it absolutely should use such a framework—UTF-8 support should automatically be included.

* 2025-09-25 - Historian should each have a VM email address that they can use when answering requests and that will allow for image attachments to be sent back to said historian.
(Jeff J.) Yes. The current email system doesn't work very well due to the lack of attachments support and the broken reply-to address if someone sends a message directly from their email client to historian@vintagemachinery.org.

* Prevent deletion of publication uploads—A member petulantly deleted all their Photo Index and Publications and then deleted their account. People should have the right to delete Photo Index entries, but not Publications. (Changing this will create an issue when an account is deleted. Perhaps we need a catch-all user account that gets assigned any Publication or Photo Index entries belonging to an account that someone is trying to delete.)

* 2015-01-31
<h4>Articles Page</h4> A new page category set up similar to the WIKI page format but using HTML. This would allow us to add longer articles and pages from WIKI that are specific to a manufacturer. A file storage page accessible to historians would also be necessary to store the images used.

[^http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/default.aspx|<h4>Manufacturers Index Home page</h4>]
* 2014-12-14 - I'm not sure the Manufacturers Index Home Page is really necessary. Perhaps any links to this page should be directed to the home page with the Manufacturers Index side-tab selected. Failing that, the current Manufactures Index Home page needs a makeover. The abbreviations section should be deleted. Text and graphics should be updated. Joel and Jeff can provide new text.

[^http://vintagemachinery.org/admin/default.aspx|<h4>Admin Control Panel page</h4>]
* 2014-03-01 - A box to enter a mfgid and get the corresponding WebPage would be very helpful when I am troubleshooting Datamp-VM links.
* 2014-03-01 - It would be nice to reposition the Manufacturers Index Admin Tools section closer to the top of the page. After scrolling down a couple of thousand times, it gets to be a pain (in the index finger).

* 2014-03-01 - A Datamp link-troubleshooting page would be helpful. It should have a total of the number of patents currently linked to VM and a list of manufacturers that have patents linked to them with the current number of patents linked opposite each manufacturer.

* 2025-09-25 - Add  Web Hits and Log Files pages, similar to what Datamp has.
Add a report page for Companies with the same or similar names to help us weed out duplicate entries.
(From Datamp)
Similar sounding company search
Enter a company name or leave blank to get all companies.
The following wildcards may be used:

• '%' matches any sequence
• '_' matches any single character
Matching company names by soundex will be displayed.

Examples: %coes% matches any company containing coes
A% would match any company that begins with an A.
Add a report of all of the Hyper-links on each history page. This would allow us to quickly check for broken or incorrect links.

(Jeff J.) This all sounds good. Even better than Soundex searches, in my opinion, would be Google-style searches where results include both exact matches and loose matches, and the results are ranked according to some likelihood algorithm that estimates how likely each page is to be the one that the searcher is looking for.

* 2014-03-03 -A series of report pages would be helpful.
● <i>Companies with no descriptions</i>
● <i>Companies with no product listings</i>
● <i>Companies with no machine info</i>
● <i>Companies with no publication reprints</i>
● <i>Companies with no photo index</i> 
● <i>Companies with no machine registry</i>
● <i>Companies with no images</i>
● <i>Companies with no patents</i>
● <i>Companies with no classified ads</i>

[^http://www.vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=1617&tab=6|<h4>Mfg. Images page</h4>]

* 2014-03-04 - It would be nice to have thumbnail images and show Machine Types, the same as the Photo Images Page.
[|][|][|][imageauto| Thumbnail Images |{UP}/JRH/Thumbnail Images.jpg]

[^http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/default.aspx |<h4>MfgIndex page</h4>]

* 2014-03-01 - MfgIndex alphabetical list. Ungainly, yes, but some people expect this and assume the "Manufacturers Quick List" has everything when it only has a small fraction of the complete list. The list should be sorted by Index Name field, and should include a current total of the number of manufacturers and their mfgid's.

* 2014-03-01 - Multiple names per MfgIndex entry. This is a big, big change and requires careful thought, but right now we have a problem that when, say, a new Photo Index entry is added for a "Pryibil Machine Co." lathe, it would go under "P. Pryibil". It would be nice if the MfgIndex entries for First & Pryibil and P. Pryibil could be combined and then when a new Photo Index or Publication or Image entry is added, the entry is associated with one of "First & Pryibil", "P. Pryibil" or "Pryibil Machine Co." Where it gets complicated is when there is not a tidy A-->B-->C relationship between company names. For example, Red Star Products and Porter-Cable were both bought by Rockwell; Red Star became part of Delta but P-C didn't, and then both were sold to Pentair.

* 2014-03-01 - A few companies have hard-to-search-for names. E.g., [^http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=3082|C. & C. Electric Motor Co.], especially when you only know the "C. & C." part. There should be a better way to find these entries. For example, we could just have a page listing the hard-to-search-for names.

*2025-09-25 - Make the Image Description box much larger. On long descriptions, it is very difficult to find and correct errors.
Change the Image Description box to HTML coding to allow for links.
Make more Image file boxes. Having a new one appear after the filled boxes are used up.


[^http://vintagemachinery.org/photoindex/enter.aspx|<h4> Submit Photo Index Page</h4>]
* 2020-02-27 - Improved text on first page of "Submit Photo Index". Suggested text:

<h3>Please Read Before Submitting Photos:</h3>
<h3>DO NOT submit photos of machines that you are only trying to sell. Violators of this rule will have their submissions deleted.</h3>

<h3>Things you MAY upload:</h3>
<h3>- Wood working machinery and accessories</h3>
<h3>- Metal working machinery and accessories</h3>
<h3>- Steam and gas engines</h3>
<h3>- Steam and gas traction engines and tractors</h3>
<h3>- Electric motors</h3>
<h3>- Water wheels and turbines</h3>
<h3>- Animal power apparatus</h3>
<h3>- Hot air motors</h3.
<h3>- Woodworking & metalworking vises</h3>
<h3>- Woodworking & metalworking hand powered tools</h3>

<h3>Things you MAY NOT upload:</h3>
<h3>- Machines not in the list above</h3>
<h3>- Things you are trying to sell</h3>
<h3>- Machine manufactured anywhere outside Canada, Germany, Mexico, Sweden, USA and the UK.</h3>
(Jeff J. I would say-"Using the Photo Index to try and buy or sell things or services".
Yes. More generally I would like historians to have the ability to add countries and add machine types. I want to minimize having to rely on the admins to make changes. I think that all visible content on the site should be editable. All the text on the home page, the page telling people what the rules are for adding to the Photo Index, everything, is all editable. That should be easy to do with WordPress or other framework.

<h3>Examples of items that we DO NOT cover include hand tools and agricultural equipment. Any photo submissions of such items will be deleted.</h3>

[^http://www.vintagemachinery.org/photoindex/enter3.aspx?mfgid=1617&mfgbyid=1617 |<h4>Photo Index Upload Wizard page</h4>]
* 2014-03-03 - Allow Administrators to add Machine Types to drop down list.

* 2025-09-25 - Make more Photo file boxes. Having a new one appear after the filled boxes are used up.

[^http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgimage/enter2.aspx?mfgid=2102|<h4>MfgIndex Image Upload Wizard page</h4>]
* 2020-02-27 - Either there should be a separate MfgIndex entry category for electric motor manufacturers, or else the "steam and gas engines" category should be renamed to "Propulsion Apparatus".

* 2014-03-01 - Photo Images can not be transferred between manufacturers the way that photos can.

* 2014-03-01 - On the Image Pages, make the entry boxes longer and the Description Box larger. It is difficult to copy from short boxes that don't show the whole entry. When trying to correct a mistake in the Description, it's difficult to find the mistake by scrolling through the entry when only a small section of it is visible.

* 2025-09-25 - (Jeff J.) Yes. More generally I would like historians to have the ability to add countries and add machine types. I want to minimize having to rely on the admins to make changes. I think that all visible content on the site should be editable. All the text on the home page, the page telling people what the rules are for adding to the Photo Index, everything, is all editable. That should be easy to do with WordPress or other framework.

<h4>Deleting MfgIndex Entries</h4>

* 2015-07-15 - When an historian deletes an MfgIndex page, the code should first check whether there are any Photo Index entries, Images entries, Publications, or Machine Registry entries. If there are then the delete should fail with an error message.

[^http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgindex/detail.aspx?id=2102&tab=7|<h4>Patents Page</h4>]

* 2014-03-01 - Patent lists should display first image rather than the description field. Because some manufacturers patent lists are quite long, a Show Thumbnails box similar to the ones on the Photo Images pages, to turn the images on or off would be helpful.

* 2014-03-01 - Patent lists currently display multiple inventors in multiple table rows, which looks confusing. I would much prefer having all the inventors listed in the same row, or even just displaying an ellipsis after the first name. Locations would have to be concatenated or ellipsis'd as well.

[^http://vintagemachinery.org/pubs/admin.aspx|<h4>Publications Awaiting Approval</h4>]
* 2014-03-04 - Allow Administrators to delete publication listings that were uploaded and subsequently deleted before being appoved.

[^http://vintagemachinery.org/mfgimage/rss.aspx|<h4>RSS Feeds</h4>]
* 2014-03-01 - The Description URL Links don’t show up as Hyperlinks in the RSS feed.

* 2014-05-09 - It would be nice if the RSS feeds were changed from new additions to recent changes. That way the feed would reflect updates to histories and images in addition to new entries.

[^http://www.vintagemachinery.org/mfgimage/enter.aspx|<h4>Uploading Images</h4>]
* 2025-05-16 - Allow all members, not just historians, to create Images entries

* 2025-10-06 1- 6:44:14,912 [WARNING] incorrectly declared encoding: document declared as us-ascii, but parsed as utf-8: http___vintagemachinery.org_classifieds_rss.aspx (http://vintagemachinery.org/classifieds/rss.aspx -> email@address.com)

===Typos===
Meta Keywords:
Meta Description: Removed vises and handheld power tools from prohibited list and added water wheels and aniamal powered apparatus
Change Comment:
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