It’s been a while since I’ve blogged about anything new about the site. That’s because I’ve been working on a new section (as you might have guessed by the title of this blog) – Taiwan Directory. It’s AJAX, which means there are no page refreshes, and incorporates Google Maps and image upload functionality. The directory in organized in a tree menu on the left, which has regions in the top level and categories at the second. Categories and listing are added by right clicking anywhere on the tree.
Here is an example of adding a listing. The listing is of JianGuo flower market in Taipei and the category is “For kids”. I recently wrote about this in my other blog, Taiwankids, so it was just a matter of copying and pasting the content.
First, right click on the menu item of choice and click “Add”.
If you’re not logged in, a login dialog will appear. After logging in, another dialog will appear and for adding a listing, as below.
Adding a Google map makes it easier for readers to find the location. The add map dialog looks like this:
After adding a title, category, description, rating, image, map and address, my listing is ready to be submitted and looks like this:
Clicking the Add Listing button adds the listing to the directory, as can be seen below. The listing’s rating shows up as stars and the number of ratings is also displayed. Listings can be ordered by date or rating.
And when the listing is clicked on, the resulting article page looks like this:
Comments can be added to each article and the directory is searchable, if you know what you’re looking for. I hope this new feature comes in handy for people looking for somewhere to go or help with something in Taiwan. Here is a full list of categories:
- Restaurants & cafes
- Bars & clubs
- Shopping
- Accommodation
- Learning Chinese
- Sport & recreation
- Places for kids
- English schools
- Household cleaners
- Scooter mechanics
- Plumber/electricians
- Higher education
- Legal help
Please let me know if you’d like me to add a category and feel free to add anything you think is suitable! Thanks!
