Event planning: group chat on Gmail

During event planning for our last retreat, I was impressed to hear how the cooking team took a night out for a Google Spreadsheets/Gchat/AIM collaboration session online. The menu went from empty to full tummy in the span of a few hours with the contribution of the entire 5+ person team. The hybrid chat/online spreadsheet solution greatly simplified collaboration across town.

Want to make things even easier? I just read that Gmail incorporates a new group chat feature. AIM had this awhile back (I haven't seen it since, but I know that at least Pidgin has it), everyone seems to be using Gchat these days. Now we can group chat directly in Gchat, directly in Gmail. If that allows us to collaborate and fellowship online all the more...that's all the better!

Enjoy,
David

Website Update! (version 3.2)

The Sonrise website sports a few new features in honor of Thanksgiving, or more precisely, in honor of the One to whom we give thanks! Point your browser to our website to find a few new frills (in time for the turkey grills!):

Overhauled sidebar: featuring a tabbed interface with sections for the blog feed, poll/shoutbox, calendar/events central, and picture albums feed.

Improved Ministries pages navigation: the old Ministries page tabbed interface has been replaced with a modernized interface that allows for direct page loading from external pages.

Embedded documents consistency: if you have permissions to edit documents embedded in the website, you'll notice that documents are displayed in View mode by default so that you can see the page as anyone else would (with links for editing).

Events Central: an embedded document built into the Schedule page as well as the Cal sidebar tab, for quick reference to online sign-up spreadsheets.

More details can be found here.

Enjoy, and happy Thanksgiving!

Trouble in (Published Docs) Paradise

UPDATE: A workaround has been added to the newly launched website! Now Google docs are embedded in view-first mode, meaning that they look like normal published documents. To switch to edit mode, a link is provided at the bottom of the document. (2007-11-19)

There seems to be another Google published docs bug floating around again. If you're not able to view the various Ministries Pages while logged into your (or the sfsonrise) Google account, you're not alone. The workaround is actually to log out of Google while viewing the pages. I know that can be a pain, but we'll keep looking for a bug fix from Google...

Published documents workaround

UPDATE: This issue has been fixed! Now the ministry documents will re-publish automatically again.

It appears that another nasty google docs bug has crept up, but they've noticed it and posted a workaround. Instead of framebusting, published docs aren't viewable without logging in. I know that sorta defeats the purpose of a published document, but the workaround is to uncheck the re-publish automatically box.

What this means is that if you're in charge of a ministries page, you'll need to manually go to the Publish tab and click the re-publish button for your edits to become visible. What it also means is that people can once again see your published page without having to log in.

Sonrise and exam schedules in one calendar

The main Sonrise schedule and the separate Sonrise school exam schedule can now be viewed together in a single calendar on our Schedule page! Now you can survey whole months at a time to check how you and your friends' exam schedules fit together. And if you're planning a Sonrise event, you can find a date that works best for everyone involved.

Why didn't we have this before? Because of a limitation in the old Google embedded calendar, it was difficult to add multiple schedules without things becoming a mishmash. But after a recent update, it's clear as sky! (ok, not Sunset sky, usually...)

Enjoy!
David

"www" no longer necessary!

You might have already noticed, but ucsf.edu sites no longer require the initial "www". Many sites these days have been dropping the necessity of the "www", and some browsers even add it automatically when it's absent but needed. From past tests, the full "www.ucsf.edu/sonrise" was always necessary to get to our site, but as of a couple months ago, the address can be successfully shortened to "ucsf.edu/sonrise". The same goes for "ucsf.edu/ccf" and other ucsf sites. Now you can tell your friends about our address, without twisting your tongue in the process!

New Poll: Fall Bible studies

Vote now on which book you'd like us to cover during our Fall Bible study series! The poll is in its usual place, at the bottom right corner of the homepage.

Ministries Page "Framebusting"

UPDATE (9/7/07): This bug has been fixed! Enjoy ministry pages once again...and keep it updated right from the page as well!

Having trouble viewing the Ministry pages? Each ministry page is actually a separate Google Document embedded in something called an "iframe." A bug called "Framebusting" by Google Docs causes the first document loaded to "bust out" of its frame and become the entire page, preventing you from navigating to other Sonrise pages. Google Docs says that a fix is currently in testing, so hang tight, and hopefully we'll see this fixed soon!

-David

Welcome to the New Sonrise Website Blog

We're delighted you dropped by our website here at Sonrise Christian Fellowship! We constantly strive to make this website a useful resource to you in your spiritual journey here at UCSF. In seeking to make this website as relevant as possible to you and our community, we have created a blog to keep you updated on what's new or updated here on our website. Our hope is that you will find something new that can help you better connect with Christians at UCSF and find spiritual encouragement as you seek to learn more about Jesus and apply his life to our professions!

Blessings in him,
David