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this will be a great resource. It will have complete keys for all Europe and for all families??? It would be very great, and with schemes to accompany the descriptions would be fantastic!

But it seems we must pay for each key (each family, right??)...

When will be available keys for Calliphoridae, Sarcophagidae, Sepsidae, Anthomyiidae, Drosophilidae, Phoridae, Piophilidae and Fannidae?

And what about larva dipters keys? :)

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Where? :o

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did you see the menu? :P look at the right of SEARCH :D

http://www.online-keys.net/news.php :P

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Ok, that I missed. Interesting idea. I hope to see many keys there :D

- Is it free to register as a member and view the keys?
- Are visitors supposed to be able to comment the keys?
- Did you code this, Paul?
- Not only flora and fauna keys I presume ... B)

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Paul - this is genius:D I particularly like the way the images come up. Can we register now, or do we have to wait until the fees have been decided? Can people like me who are only just beginning to write simple little keys submit them as a means of getting them reviewed and refined by experts?

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I will make a version available for use on Diptera.info later. This other site is for more general public and can even be used for plants or whatever. Authors will have to enter their own keys (preferably the ones the wrote themselves or have permission to use) as the taks would be humongous for me to do alone. On the other site ther should in the future be a button leading to a page showing a stripped version of the key that can be downloaded as complete web page (including a folder with images and relative paths) so that people can incorporate it on their websites. Alternatively they can choose to make in publicly available ot that site. I think initially fees will be US$ 5 for year one, 3 for year 2, 2 for year 3 and 9 for indefinite use (unless the site and/or me collapse completely).

On this site I would like to give the opportunity to submit Diptera keys for the use on this site. That should be free for members (though donations are always welcome). These keys can then also be commented on (I could create a forum for that, or maybe see if I can enable comments for keys as well).

ATM there is only the one demo key (I am the only registered member :P). Others are welcome, but users need to register first and be activated. They will need to let me know what key the want to have and I create the empty key. Several settings and general info can be edited by the author later. Registartions should only be for authors of keys. In that way authors can decide to make their keys available for smaller public to comment on and not have them visible for the whole world.

I did do a lot of coding myself, but the backbone of the appearing images was borrowed (the script contains the acknowledgements, I will probably later make a proper page with acknowledgements). There are some glitches remaining and I want to add a few more features but the basic structure is working. A complete 'help' and information page is in preparation.

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Please, also not that it only is necessary and desirable to register on the Online-Keys site if you really want to use the site to publish a key. Public keys will be visible to guest visitors as well. If the authors decide that the key should not be visible to the general public, then that is their choice and the general public should then not be let in by the backdoor. ;)

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It'd then be hard to comment on keys unless you allow anonymous access, not that I personally plan to make any comments. In PHP-Fusion you can set up user groups to disallow regular members to see certain pages.

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Oh, there are always so many mysterious words in those keys. I wonder if you should consider making pop-ups, not only for images, but also for certain "difficult" words. You could probably use the same Javascript for both functions. You don't have to make the links to the words visible, just as the viewers knows there is such a function they'll hover (or click) words they don't understand. Well, just a thought ;)

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LoL, You got a point there. I have to sort that out. :) Register away' I'd almost say. :D

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Nice. I'd love to help, as a beta tester if not otherwise. Since I just found the last European Xylophagus missing from my collection, I could make a key for the European species this small family (5 species) as a test. It is conviniently below the 5-pair limit for free keys too :)

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One feature I'd like to see is a Licence notice for the keys. The site software is GPL (hooray), but nothing it said about the keys.

Personally I like the http://creativecommons.org/ system, which offers a range of eas?-to-understand choices (http://creativeco...ml?lang=en) and creates a licence from your choices with a simple summary for human beings and a page of legalese for layers.

It is probably best to give key authors full freedom to choose any system they like, but perhaps you could add a 'Licence:' in the key header template or at least a FAQ entry on the topic.

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See if you can access the empty Xylophagus on Online-Keys.net. ;)

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Congratulations Paul - that's an excellent site but can I play Devil's Advocate here?

I know the site has to pay for itself but by charging the authors I think you'll be scaring away the very content providers you need. The normal business model is that content providers are actually paid or at least encouranged to provide the content free, while users pay a small subscription to use the facility.

Creating a key is a massive undertaking and putting it on the site would also be a lot of work. Alternatively, any key ceator could easily write the key in (say) Word and save it as an HTML structure or a PDF file and make it available to everyone through a normal website.

Anyway, just me opinion - please take it as constructive criticism :)

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The main object is to facilitate the construction and editing of online keys that use html. Writers can get the code and use it on their websites. It is not necessarily meant to provide the base where all key writers can make their keys available (though they can if the want).

Writing a key in Word takes a lot of editing if you have to add a new couplet 3 in a 25 couplet key and when you have to update all references to lower couplets. Here you can add the couplet and only have to edit the direct target couplets involved. All other couplets are updated automatically.
Using PDF has similar constraints, and (as far as I know) you need rather expensive programs for creating PDFs with active links.

Still, I get you point. Maybe I could up the number of free couplets...

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Hi Paul



Actually, I use numbered lists to create the couplet numbers (alternated with a bulletted list to make the second half of each couplet). Then the couplet 'jump to' numbers are just cross-references to the numbered list. That way you can insert couplets anywhere you like and just update the jump-to references. :D