Wacs User Guide

This book, the WACS User Guide, is designed to show you around the key parts of the WACS system and teach you how to use the many features and advanced search mechanisms to navigate a collection with ease and accuracy. While it is extensively illustrated and should provide a good foundation by itself, you will benefit from having an account on or other access to an already operational WACS server, whether it is our demonstration site (coming soon) or a WACS server someone else has already configured. If you don't have either of these, you may wish to read the companion "Installation Guide" either in parallel or first.

WACS is designed to use very clean, standards conformant HTML (Web Documents) and so should work on just about every full featured web browser. It does use JavaScript fairly heavily but has been designed to fall back as gracefully as possible; navigation and some functionality will be impared but not severely. Primary development is done with Firefox 2, but those Web browsers tested and known to work are listed below ^[1].

Table 1.1. Compatible Web Browsers

Logo	Browser	Platform	Notes
	Firefox	Linux, Windows
	Google Chrome	Windows	Also CxChromium on Linux
	Internet Explorer	Windows
	Opera	Linux, Windows
	Konqueror	Linux
Lynx	Lynx	Linux	useful for downloading

For copyright/licensing reasons, the example images feature sets from photoshoots by the main developer of WACS (Beaky) and a friend of his. These sets will be available on our demonstration site when that goes live. Please understand that due to the bandwidth and storage costs in running such a server on the internet, and the need to verify (as best we can) that the applicant is an adult, there is a small charge for access to the site.

On the left hand side of the WACS Front Page, you will see a group of set icons highlighting recent additions to the collection. This is a random selection and should change at least some of the icons each time you look at the Front Page. How many different sets are offered depends on how many have been added recently. When new additions have been few and far between, the period for which sets are considered new is automatically lengthened to increase the chance of it highlighting a set you haven't viewed recently. Both image sets and video clips are featured here, and as you will notice the border colour changes depending upon the type of media the set is. By default, a pink border means an image set and a yellow border signifies a movie clip, but the administrator of the WACS installation can change these colours if they wish.

If you want to see the image set or video clip offered, the icon is a link to the set itself offering you more details and the chance to either download it or view it. It is possible to see a full list of all the new additions by selecting the appropriate option from the pull down menus, but we're covering that in a later chapter.

Although you probably won't see anything there on your first visit, the front page will automatically include a list of your latest saved searches just below the new set highlights. Whenever you do a search for sets, videos or models on WACS, it creates a saved search (or tag set) for you. You can revisit this as many times as you like until it expires, viewing or downloading at will from the results of the search you made. There are many neat features of the search system, but those will be covered in a later chapter - for now, you just need to know that you can find them easily here on the front page.

We mentioned attribute icons - you will see these many times within the WACS system as they're part of the set markup system. While many of the attributes relate to locations or activities, there are about a dozen or so that related directly to the models themselves. These include such things as whether the model has a shaven pussy, short hair, piercings, tattoos, and the like. Presence of these indications on a model's details do not mean that they feature in all of her sets, but most likely on the majority. These same attributes can be added specifically to each individual set, along with a whole lot more that describe aspects of the set itself.

One aspect we cover pretty thoroughly with the attribute icons is what the model does with her pubic hair because this seems to be quite important to a lot of people. What's more it will often change between photoshoots and sometimes even within a single shoot, especially if a shaving set is included! We basically have four icons which cover just this area and they're shown below; the model is usually marked with her normal style in the model details record, but this can be easily modified in the details for each set.

Table 3.1. Pubic Hair Attribute Icons

Icon	Keyword	What It Means
	shaven	The model has a shaven pussy
	brazilian	The model has a brazilian style shaved pussy; a small tuft of pubic hair above her vagina but clean shaven either side.
	trimmed	The model has trimmed pubic hair, but not as extreme as the above two.
	hairy	The model's pubic hair is thick and natural.

Obviously pubic hair isn't the only model attribute we are interested in identifying - there are quite a few others, including presence or absence of body art and piercings, so these are duly flagged up too, along with other unusual extremes like short hair or particularly small breasts. Here are some of the key ones:

Table 3.2. Some Other Model Attribute Icons

Icon	Keyword	What It Means
	tattoo	The model has at least one tattoo
	tinytit	The model has really small breasts
	shorthair	The model has short hair
	piercedclit	The model has piercings in her pussy area
	piercedtit	The model has piercings in at least one of her nipples

Below the icon bar, we have a sampling of sets from this model, normally eight of the more recently added ones. Note that normally only models with a good rating and at least eight sets within the system will be selected as a featured model. However if no models meet that criteria, the standards will be lowered to ensure at least some models appear here. Once again the border colour around each icon indicates whether it is an image set or a video clip, with yellow signifying a movie clip. Clicking on any one of the icons will show you more details on the set with options to view or download it.

Below the sampling of the featured model's sets, you'll normally also see a number of other model's head shots - these are models who share the same attributes with the featured model; so if the featured model is a blonde with small tits and a shaven pussy, the models featured here will be the same. Note that unlike the featured model, those selected as being similar to her will not necessarily have at least eight sets or a high rating. Clicking on each of these icons will take you to this model's index page. They're missing from our demonstration site because no two models we've yet shot sets with have the same attributes.

Finally right down the bottom, you will see a small search box into which you can type a model's name to find your favourite models quickly by name. If there's more than one model with that name, you'll be offered an index of them to choose from.

In the next chapter, we'll look at what you can do with a set itself, so if you want to follow along you should click on one of the image sets of the current featured model or one in the Latest Updates area - please choose one with a pink border (ie an image set) first...

The Set Page For Images

The Set Page (for images) has a row of pulldown menus along the top, then a number of navigation controls: where appropriate these are first page, previous page, next page and last page. When it wouldn't make sense, such as in the example shown where we're on the first page, the first and previous icons do not appear. Continuing on to the right of the navigation buttons you will find the name of the set (a short description) and at the far right a direct link to each page of thumbnails of the set. For ease of use, this navigation bar is repeated at the bottom of the page. The final link (the small print) is to a part of the WACS system that fetches the 18 USC 2257 declaration information required by US law for adult web sites based in the US. Generally the US guidelines are adherred to by most responsible web site owners elsewhere in the world as well, and so this feature is included as standard in WACS.

Navigation From The Set Page For Images

Here is an example of the Actions menu on the WACS image set page. As you'll see, it offers you the chance to download a zip file of the set, to view it as a slide show, or to see a whole set index (which is described next) or to view set information. If you just want to sit back and enjoy a set, slideshow is the perfect way to do so... maximise your web browser and let it run.

Slideshow on a Set

We've tried to keep the slideshow screen as uncluttered as possible, so you have four control buttons in the top left corner - previous image, next image, play and pause. You then have three links - back (to whatever page you came to the slideshow from), main menu and preferences. Then on the right hand side, you have the name of the set. We've tried to keep these entries as unobtrusive as possible and as few as possible, to focus the attention on the slideshow itself. The link to the preferences screen is actually fairly important as it contains a lot of ways to make the slideshow more to your liking. You can control the size of the images, their quality and the wait time between one image and the next - but more of that in the chapter on preferences.

Returning to the top bar menus on the set page, the next menu, People, connects you to the model page (or pages if multiple models feature in the set), and to the Photographer's set index (if the photographer is known). The third menu, Navigation, is a standard menu that'll you'll see on just about every other page in the WACS system and is designed to make it easier to navigate your way around.

Tip

Depending on how much is on the set page and how fast your link to the WACS server is, it may take a moment or two before the pull down menus become available. However even before the pull down menus become active, the default action on the menu can be taken by clicking on the menu title itself. For the Actions menu, this is to download the zip file of the set; for the People menu, this is go to the model page of the model (or first model if there are several); and for the Navigation menu, this is to go back to the Main Menu (aka Front Page).

You can also view a big version of any of the images by just clicking on the appropriate thumbnail. You should then see a page something like this....

	Tip
	You can easily save the image by right clicking on it, but be wary - this will be the size at which you are seeing it which may not be the best quality image available - downloading the zip file will give you the best quality versions of the images that WACS has.

Framed Full Image

This little page has some tricks up it's sleeve! Down at the bottom you have the navigation controls which let you step forwards, backwards, jump to the beginning or end, go back to the thumbnail page or go visit the model's page. However if you left click on the image itself, it'll take you to the next image which (if you've enabled javascript on your web browser) will have already been downloaded from the server for you!

	Warning
	Depending on your preferences settings and/or how the site manager has configured things, you might just see the image by itself without this frame (you can change this easily, details are given later in the advanced topics section).

The Set Index For Images

This is a slightly different version of the same screen which isn't as pretty but does include all the images (instead of the first 12 or so) and some additional information about it, including where it is actually located in the server file system and the actual name of each image file. This is more of a site owner's page really but it has it's uses - it is linked to from the set number link on the detailed model page, new sets page or index link at the bottom right hand corner of the model thumbs page. If you just want to get an overview of how the action in a set progresses, this may not be the best tool, you may want set information instead.

	Warning
	The set index page can take a pretty long time to load as it has to download thumbnails for each and every image in the set. Generally, unless you need really to see all the thumbnails, the set page is quicker to display and easier to use.

	Tip
	If there is a link present on the filename written below each image on this page (ie if your cursor changes when the mouse pointer hovers over it), that link will take you directly to the full size, highest quality version of the image, while the link on the thumbnail will normally be to the framing page with it's navigation and potentially smaller version of the image.

The Set Information Page

The final one of the image set pages is the set information page; this contains a lot more pieces of information about a set and eight icons taken at even spacings through the entire set. This can quickly give you a very good idea of what happens in the set. Explanations of what all the other bits of information given mean will be given as we explore the rest of the WACS system over the coming chapters.

The Set Page For Videos

While what WACS can display for videos is currently more limited, here is a simple example of what the set page for a video looks like. As you can see, it tries to include additional technical information such as the type of movie it is, duration, size and type of set featured. If it has been rated (as shown here), that will also be included. WACS will also include any additional icons or descriptions it has when showing the set page for a video clip. Shown included here is a simple description of the set.

The model page itself consists of a menu bar which includes lots of ways of modifying the information displayed - it'll let you rapidly pin-point exactly the type of set you're looking for within each model's collected works - more on this below. Immediately below the menu bar we have the masthead - this basically tells you all about the model and includes a headshot and the various attribute icons that have been associated with her.

The masthead includs a lot of biographical data such as where she's from, what age she was when the photos were taken, what her job is and what her vital statistics and other attributes are. It also summarises how many sets and videos we have by her, and tells you what types of action she's to be seen in within the collection. Many of the attributes listed here can actually be searched for across the entire WACS site as we shall see in a later chapter (Chapter 10, Searching With WACS).

This masthead is basically common for all three versions of the model page, although it includes the smaller headshot on the miniature icons version.

The Model Page Masthead

There are serveral links down the right hand side of the page - if the model has been marked as one of the categories of favourite, the black box (as seen in this example) links to the other models of the same group of favourites. There are four types of favourite: Cuties, Solo, Lesbian and Straight; plus two other flagged types: Currently Featured Model and Placeholder. Placeholders are used for links that are not a single individual; eg an unnamed but repeating group of unidentified models for instance. Continuing down the right hand side of the masthead you have the model reference number which can be useful and just below that links to the other two versions of the modelpage; in this case the full details version and the miniature version since this is the middle one, the thumbnails version.

The Model Page Image Section

Here we have a sample images section of the mid-sized thumbnails version of the model page. Each set tile contains the icon at the top, then the set description and then the set attributes and details. The set description is designed to tell you a reasonable amount about the set itself, the clothing featured and the location and action involved. Typically the set description is in three parts; the first part is the name or names of the models featured in the set, the second part is about the clothing or outfit worn in the set (or at least at the start of it!) and the third set describes the setting and action which takes place in the set. In many cases the words used in describing the set will also cause certain aspects of the set to be marked as attributes; if the word kitchen appears here, the set will be assumed to be in a Kitchen; if the word Dildo appears here, it will be assumed to include toys.

The bottom section of each tile is divided into three areas; the part on the left, which is occasionally empty, will the general clothing type where known and may contain names and links to the model page of any additional models featured in this set. In this case it'll say "Also Featuring" and then give a list of model's names. The middle section contains the set ratings and attributes marked for the set. There are three set ratings provided: overall (yellow), variety (green) and technical quality (blue), each one having a score between 1 and 5 with one being the worst and 5 being the best. The attributes will be a combination of the model's attributes (Shaven Pussy and Pierced Nipple in this case), and the set's attributes. If you look at the third set across, the Rock Star one, you'll see the icons for "See Thru" indicating semi-transparent clothing items and "No Panties" signifying an edifying lack of underwear! The table below shows some of the clothing based attributes that can be applied to sets.

Table 5.1. Some Clothing Attribute Icons

Icon	Keyword	What It Means
	nopanties	Absense of panties from the model's atire.
	seethru	At least one item of clothing is significantly transparent and revealing.
	nude	The model appears nude, or merely wrapped in a dressing gown or towel.
	nonnude	The model appears clothed at all times in this set.
	uniform	The set features a recognisable piece of specific trade related workwear.
	schoolgirl	The model pretends to be a schoolgirl even though she should be too old for that, an old favourite.
	cheerleader	An American favourite; a dialect of the schoolgirl theme!

There are other icons that can also appear in this group that are related to location or the action featured within the set, but we will return to that topic later on when looking at the dynamic filtering options provided by the menus at the top of the page.

Moving to the right hand group of the bottom row in each image set tile, you will see we have three rows of information. The top row gives the generalised location of the set concerned: Lounge, Bedroom, Studio and so on. It's possible to tell WACS you only want to see the Bedroom sets, or only the Lounge sets, and so on. These are generalised terms picked from about 12-15 alternatives to ensure that they serve a useful purpose in making general selections of sets having a similiar theme.

The next row down gives you the basic categories: Group Orgy, Straight, Lesbian, Toys, Masturbation, Solo, Clothed, Interview, and so on. In fact the very same categories you were asked to make choices on as to what to exclude when you first logged into wacs back in Chapter 2. This is followed by information on how many images are contained within this image set.

The bottom line consists of useful links - the BKI and MVI links are to the photographer for this set. These take you to the Photographer's index page so you can find his/her other work. Next to this is a link to the set index for the set - labelled index - the icon and set title have links on them to the set page (the prettier paged version) instead. You can therefore choose which form of the set thumbnails you wish to look at directly from the model's page itself.

	Tip
	There is also a photographer pull-down menu at the top of the page but that does something different - that selects this models set with the choosen photographer. This link tells you more about the photographer in question. There's a lot more about the pull down menus in the next chapter on dynamic filtering.

Next to the index link in the bottom right hand corner of the image set tile you will sometimes see some additional icons. The table below gives some of these with what they mean.

Table 5.2. Additional Link Icons

Icon	What It Means	Notes
	connection member	This set is a member of a connection - a specialised, named group of sets linked together my a very specific theme, action or item of clothing - "Warrior Women", "Brazen Nudity In The City", "ART's Oriental Tunic Dress"
	additional information	This icon shows that a longer description of this set exists that either describes it, or gives a related story.
	gallery of icons exists	The set has a collection of additional icons related to it; either artwork, a selection of thumb nails, or something like that - more commonly used on video clips but available for all sets.

We'll return to the concept of connections in the chapter on the various indices later in this book (Chapter 12, Tour Of The Indices) - however you do need to be aware that it's a relatively new feature and the WACS site you're viewing may well not be using it yet. In fact, we'd have to admit it's not exactly easy to create a connection at the moment but it's a neat feature and one we will be focusing on improving in future releases. We have included an example of how connections can be used in the chapter on indices later in the book, so be sure to check it out.

The Model Page Video Section

This is the section of the standard model page which deals with video clips; it is tiled in much the same way as those for the image sets. As before the icon is at the top, then the description, and then the information section. Once again the information side is divided into three sections; the left hand side is for additional models featured, the middle is for rating and set attribute icons and the right hand side tells you more about the video clip. At the top is the location, next is the type of action featured, the type of video file (MPEG, Quicktime, WMV, etc), and then if known the duration. Below that you get the photographer link (if known) and the other icons described above about additional descriptions, icons and the like. Since there aren't separate paged and unpaged set indexes for video clips, no second index link is included.

Model Page: Alternatives Menu

The first menu is called Alternatives but would be more accurately termed "Alternatives and Tagging" but there wasn't space for that. The top two (or sometimes three entries) give you access to the other versions of this model page. If you're looking at the regular size thumbnails version of the model page, it'll offer you the detailed and mini thumbs versions of the same model's page. If you're looking at the mini thumbs version, it'll offer you the detailed and regular size thumbs pages, and so on. Additionally if you've used one of the other menu options to make a subselection of sets of just one type or one location, the current size model page minus the current sub-selection will also be included in this list. This makes it an easy way to cancel out any further sub-selection you may have made - of course the back key on your web browser would normally have the same effect.

Below the Alternative versions of the model page, there are three more entries which are to do with creating a saved search of this model's sets. These create respectively (and in order) a search set of all sets of both video and image set types with only those sets of excluded types missing. This is useful primarily as a check-list for downloading the sets you want from a given model. The next option below does the same thing but only selecting the image sets that are currently displayed - this can then be used by the WACS Slide Show program to give you a slideshow of this model's sets or by the rungq command to do the same via an external image viewer. The final option selects only the video sets by this model; at present this is primarily a download check-list but we have intentions of adding features to better handle this in the future.

When you select any of the saved search options, you'll see that a number of small tick icons appear by each of the sets as they are added to the saved search. The saved search set will be given the next free search number and will be titled appropriately. Note that the saved search is not completed until all of the ticks have appeared as they show the progress of the actual indexing procss. Your new saved search should appear at the top of your saved searches list next time you visit the front page and can be edited to remove any individual sets you don't like, but more on that in the chapter on searches.

Model Page: Photographers Menu

Unfortunately not that many sites provide any kind of identification of the Photographers involved in their sets, but since most of the good ones have a very distinct and individualistic style, it's often nice to just see those sets that have a similar feel to them by selecting a single photographers work. This menu shows you which photographers are known to have worked with this model, and allows you to select only those sets that were taken by the specified photographer of this model. We hope in due course to promote exchange of information about the major photographers and their work on sites where they are not directly credited through the WACS-Meta project.

When a selection of a single photographer's work is active, an additional message will appear in the masthead section of the model page saying something like:

Showing only sets by photographer BKI

There is a link on the Photgrapher's initials taking you to a condensed index of their work. We will cover these condensed indexes in a later chapter. The selections made here can be cancelled using the back key on your web browser, or by using the appropriate option from the Alternatives menu.

Model Page: Liasons Menu

This one is only active if the model has some lesbian or group orgy sets involving other models who are also known by the WACS system. It lists the other models who are known to have appeared with this model and in brackets after each name are the number of sets and video clips in which these two have appeared together. Clicking on a name here will make a sub-selection of just the appearances of these two models together, which will once again be acknowledged in the masthead by a message saying something like:

Showing only sets with model 255

The number given is the other model's reference number and the link here will take you to the other model's model page.

So this screenshot looks a little different - this one is taken not from our demostration site but from our internal test server. Since we don't have any Lesbian sets yet that we've taken ourselves, we couldn't show this feature in action from the demonstration site. You may also notice that Sabrina is pretty prolific - we've collected 67 sets featuring her. The five sets with Jo May mentioned here are from the website Sapphic Erotica, but obviously we don't have the rights to show their copyright images.

Model Page: Set Types Menu

This menu contains a list of all the types of set that exist for this model, and choosing any one of them reduces the sets and videos displayed to those marked as being of the specified type. If you choose Toys (for instance) from this list, the sets shown will be reduced to just those featuring toys as the primary type. Note that this will only select those sets with a primary subject of toys; lesbian, straight or group orgy sets which also feature toys will not be included. To do that, you need to use one of the more advanced search features. Once again, the presence of this sub-selection will be listed in the masthead section of the page.

Model Page: Locations Menu

This is the penultimate of the dynamic filtering options and this one controls the location in which a set was taken. In the normal WACS distribution there are approximately 12-15 standard location titles which might appear. In the screenshot above of Roxanne's model page, you'll see we have four locations: Lounge, Bedroom, Sports and Studio. The odd one out perhaps is Sports which isn't quite appropriate to the set but was selected because the action was in a locker room, a place normally associated with sports activities. As before, if you select one of these the sets displayed will be reduced to only those set in the location you chose.

Model Page: Attire Menu

This is the final one of the dynamic filtering options and this one allows you to select the general type of clothing featured within the set. There are a growing number of defined words used in the WACS system which include things like: Underwear, Nightwear, Nothing, Partial, Sports, Elegant, Casual, Smart, Medical, Military, Schoolwear, Business, and Swimwear. Once again this allows you to reduce a large collection of image and video clips to a much smaller and more accessible grouping of like items when perusing large archives. This feature becomes particularly useful with those models who have a massive number of sets and when used in the search system which we will cover in a later chapter.

Model Page: Navigation Menu

The navigation menu appears all over the place in the WACS system and will take you to some of the key and significant pages. In this example, it's a fairly simple version containing the Front Page (or Main Menu) which you've already seen; along with four new ones. These are the three New Additions pages; one each for models, one for sets and one for video clips, plus the alphabetic index of models. All of these will be covered in more depth in later chapters. Note that the default link on this menu, which works if you just left click on navigation, is to the Main Menu and that works even before the model page has fully displayed.

Detailed Model Page: Identities

Below the masthead on the most detailed version you have the identity details for this model. As you can see from this, Sabrina has 6 identities which we've found in our travels - from the top they are SE (Sapphic Erotica), JAFN (Jenny And Friends), TF (Teenflood), AMK (ATK Galleria, formerly AMKingdom), KPC (Karup's PC) and finally SE (Sapphic Erotica (again)). You'll notice that there are two entries for sapphic erotica, this isn't a mistake as we'll explain in a moment.

Working from left to right, we have first a link to the model's page on that site (if we know how to construct the necessary URL), along with a link you can use to sign up with the site. If you use this link, the WACS developers will get a commission on your sign-up and you'll be contributing to the WACS project at no extra cost to you. Moving on to the next box, you have the WACS code letters for this site with a link on it to other models from that site. Next we have details of when we last checked that model's index page on that site, and when we last noticed a change in that index page (ie when we found something new). Finally for this box we have our status for that model on that site; basically if we've found nothing new when we checked more than three months after the last new set was found, the model is flagged as dormant. If it's an old identity no longer used on the site, it'll be marked as Gone - as the first of the entries for Sabrina in the example above is. We keep this information so that we can continue to use it for identification purposes. Some of these sites we've just not been back to since so the status has never changed. The final box, on the right hand side, contains the necessary details to find this model on this site. This consists of her reference numbers (aka keys) - two are allowed - and her name on this site. Sabrina has been remarkably consistant in being called Sabrina on all but one of the sites, which calls her Sabrina M. Many others are called very different names across the various sites they appear on.

It is our intention to try and create a repository of these idmappings and make it available as an additional resource for people to use. Keep an eye out for mention of the WACS-Meta project.

Detailed Model Page: Downloads

Whenever WACS interacts with another website or a new model is loaded into the system, it tries to keep track of what sets by that model exist, whether it actually has them or not. These records are used to obtain those sets when the opportunity arises - typically when you take out a subscription to the site and give WACS your username and password to use to do downloads for you. This list shows what sets and video clips WACS knows about for Roxanne from the Karup's PC site; the fact they're listed here indicates that the WACS server doesn't have them yet (or possibly doesn't know it has them - sometimes the case if they were downloaded independantly and aren't identifiable).

	Tip
	If you want to know more about download records and how the various statuses work, please refer to the reference documentation for WACS administrators.

Detailed Model Page: Set Info

Finally we reach the set details themselves; as you can see, the icon is pretty much the same as usual but much more information has been added compared to the thumbnail-based set pages. The middle box has the description, official name of the set and the zip download and slideshow links, plus larger versions of both the ratings and attribute icons for the set. The icon and the name both have links on them to the set page for further browsing. The ratings consist of three values, each between 1 and 5, scoring the set overall, for variety and for technical quality; a 5 rating being the highest and 1 the lowest. The right hand box contains a pretty intense collection of information so we've marked up a screenshot with arrows to make it easier (we hope!). to understand.

Detailed Model Page: Detailed Info Analysis

Starting at the left hand column, the top entry is simply the set number, but with a slight twist. While the icon and description to it's left links to the set page, this one links to the set index (ie thumbnails for all the images in the set in one big page) - this is a short cut to a very useful page. Next to that is a link marked details which links to the set info page; the one we met earlier that samples images throughout the whole set to give you an idea of what happens. Below that is the general set type category that this set it currently classed as. Below that we have the number of images in the set and the dimensions of those images, both for portrait format images and landscape format images. If only one is present, it's likely that the set only contains images of that orientation. Next we have the format of the contents; it may be an image format like JPEG or PNG, or one of the many video formats like MPEG, WMV or QuickTime. Finally, at the bottom of the left hand column is the (relative) actual location in the file system of the directory that contains this set.

At the top of the right hand column, although nothing is shown in this particular example, is where the icons related to connections, additional descriptions and any additional gallery of icons will appear. Immediately below that is the generalised location marked up for the set (if one exists, if it doesn't this entry will be missing). Below that is the generalised description of the clothing type being worn (at least at the start of the set) which can be useful when searching. Next down is how this set was obtained and what site it originates from; for historical reasons these default to usenet and unknown although of course we could not condone downloading unlicensed material from usenet. Alternatives are subscription for a subscription website, or as in this case original for original material of our own. Next down (ID logo) indicates whether the set has a burnt-in logo (branding) in the images; Y means yes, it does; N means no, it's plain and unbranded; U means unknown.

Below that we have the name stem, this is what the prefix on all of the image files in this set is. It might be merely the model's name and a set number as here, or it could be a more complex reference like those from ATK Group sites (atkpremium.com, atkexotics.com or atkgalleria.com) where it might be something like sab001BKI_189012 (not an actual reference, but in their style). Whatever it is, having it given here can make it easier to connect up downloaded sets with their WACS identities. The next entry, if set, is the photographer's ID code. The final group of information is the key dates - when the set was added to WACS and when the data for this set was last updated.

In the WACS rating scheme, each set is rated in three categories - general, technical and variety. General is an overall impression of the set with a score of 3 out of 5 being a mid-point. A 2 would signify an uninteresting set without anything actually wrong; a 1 would signify a rather poor set with out-of-order images, unhappy model or awful concept that just doesn't work or even no coherrant thread at all. A rating of 4 out of 5 would signify something dramatic, memorable and significant or just very competant and pleasant. If the set makes you say "Wow!" out loud, it probably deserves a 5 out of 5 in the general rating. We reckon only about 2% (1 in 50 sets) should ever score full marks!

The variety rating is solely about the unusual nature of the set - how unusual it is; a set can be great quality and only score 1 of 5 in variety quite easily. Similarly a set could have a great concept - maybe a babe in a wetsuit having just caught a mermaid's tail with a harpoon on the deck of a fishing boat and then the two have sex - and thus score 5 out of 5 for variety - after all, bet you haven't seen that scenario before! But if it's all shot with an on camera flash so they look like cardboard cut-outs (disaster lighting), it can still score low (maybe even 1 out of 5) in the technical quality rating. Speaking of the technical quality rating; if it's a 640 x 480 image taken with a single on camera flash, it's probably a 1 out of 5; if it's a 2048x3080 image good enough to poster print as an ultimate glamour poster, or a well-made HD video, it's probably a 5 out of 5. A measure of the photographer's artistic skill is also included as well as pure technical merit; a great photo with smooth lighting may get a 3 out of 5, a better angle and composition with an extra gleam in the eye or teasing glance from the model caught would rate a 4 out of 5.

Detailed Model Page: Detailed Video

The format of this is much the same for videos, with running time and codec details replacing the number of images section; pretty much everything else is the same. Which brings us to the end of the description of the detail page, and of the various versions of the model page. We now move on to look at other aspects of the WACS system; the more specialised pages.... the next chapter looks at New Stuff.

Newly Added Models

This is the new model page, featuring just one new model, namely Roxanne, who was added on the 26th of August 2006! Since this user guide was prepared in June 2008, you may be wondering how that came about. Generally new models are the least frequently added to a site, sets or videos appearing far more often. Therefore the new model page will wind back up to two years until it has found a reasonable number of new models (currently defined as more than five). Since we've only got two models currently featured on our prototype demonstrator site, it's a little short on entries here. We do intend by the time we launch our demo site to have increased the number of featured models significantly.

Quickly going over the entries we have here; there's the smaller of the two headshot icons, her name, and then some descriptive information. The top line is a general shortened description, then a little background info on where she's from and what kind of sets she does, then her attributes, and finally a summary of the current position. This includes the overall statistics for number of sets, images, videos etc, and details of any sets that are known about but not online. Due to the way WACS works, it is normal to add the model first, then download and install her sets. If the model record is added, but the sets have yet to be downloaded or unpacked, the statistics may not show any sets as yet.

Along the top of this page we have three pulldown menus; the first one favourites contains links to the index of models for each of the specially flagged categories of Favourite Models (introduced back in Chapter 5). Next along we have the various search options offered in the Search menu and the standard navigation menu discussed towards the end of Chapter 6.

Newly Added Image Sets

This is probably the most used of the new items pages, as this covers the newly added image sets. It's loosely based upon the detailed model page line entries introduced in the previous chapter, but simplified somewhat to remove the more esoteric elements. The icon, description, download and slideshow links are the same. Next you have the physical location of the set, which in the case of the first set here indicates the set has been added to the Toys category in Gallery 001. Below that you have the three ratings bars, and at the bottom you have the set icons which for the first set consists of the razor and brush signifying the model is shaven, and the pierced nipple icon showing she has a nipple ring. Additionally the dildo icon has been added as the set has been marked as a toy set, and since an item of her clothing has been marked as transparent, the "See Thru" icon is also here.

Moving over to the right hand side the set is described as a toys set taken by photographer BKI; it's set no 11, an original photo set to the site which is given as being "www.beaky.name" (which is the home of Beaky's blog but doesn't currently offer general access to the sets shown). The bottom entry is the model's name and is of course linked to her model page, in this case the detailed version. There's a link on the set number too to the detailed set index, the link on the bold text description itself taking you to the set page.

As you continue on down the page, you see three other sets featured; note that they are respectively in the uniforms, babes and toys area and that the third one was taken by Mr Video (photographer MVI) rather than Beaky (BKI). At the very bottom we have the summary of new sets for the day, the total for the week and a link to browse the previous week's new sets. The menus offer you "Related Lists" - last week's new image sets, this week's video sets and last week's video sets. You also get the standard menu of search options and the standard navigation menu.

Newly Added Video Clips

This one covers the newly added videos, providing links, information and their icons. As well as the icons, you see information on the general type of the video, ratings, where it came from and links to the model pages for the models featured in it. Where it's a lesbian or group orgy movie (or set), all known models will be listed alphabetically. It's very similar to the previous page for new image sets and should be a pretty familiar layout by this point.

There are of course other ways to find sets, and some of those will be explored in the next chapter...

Browsing A Gallery

While obviously we're once again limited by the number of sets we have available to us, here is an example of a toys gallery. We have the usual menus along the top plus two additional ones offering access to the other image gallery areas and the other the video galleries. There is then a red divider bar with links to the condensed index on the gallery name (left hand side), and a link to the individual gallery itself on the middle section. The number of sets featured in this gallery is then listed to the right hand side.

Significant here is that the sets shown are merely a sampling from the gallery, normally the icons and descriptions of four or five sets selected at random. Only if there are too few available sets to do a random sample are all of them shown (as here). Click on reload on your web browser and the selection shown will change. However the order in which the galleries appears and which entries appear in the gallery, and what is selected to be highlighted can all be configured by the WACS site manager, so the latest or best rated sets may be shown instead of a random selection.

Moving Between Galleries

Once you're looking at an index of galleries, it's easy to move to a different gallery; the left-hand most menu will offer you the available image galleries and immediately to it's right is the video galleries menu. The layout of these isn't quite the same as that in the main menu (aka the front page) as all image and video galleries areas will appear on each of these menus.

Gallery By Models

It's also possible for a WACS site manager to choose for a gallery display to be orientated by the models who feature in it rather than the actual sets contained. In this example, the general babes gallery has been set to show a random selection of models who feature within it rather than the actual sets themselves. Other galleries remain orientated towards displaying sample icons from sets instead, as the theme takes a kind of priority over the model involved.

As we've mentioned, the index of galleries above takes only a random sample of the sets available within that gallery. If you want to see all of the sets in the gallery, you need to click on the specific gallery name - gallery001 for instance - on the title bar of the index. Once you've done that, you'll be presented with the whole gallery laid out for you.

Uniforms Gallery 001

The layout here is very similar to that used back in the medium size thumbnails model page, with the exception that the model featured is always given instead of just any Also Featuring models. By this point the layout should be fairly familiar so we won't recap it here; if you came straight here model icons and attributes are covered in Chapter 3, The WACS Main Menu, aka Front Page and Chapter 5, The Model Page.

What you will notice is that there's quite a selection of menus available here; the first of them is titled Similar Sets. This one will list all the other galleries in the same category, so if for instance you are in the Uniforms Gallery No 5, this will list all of the other uniforms galleries available to you and allow you to go there. The next two are the image galleries index and the video galleries index, ie the other different categories that are also available in addition to the category you're currently looking at (in this case, Uniforms).

Toys Video Galleries

Here we have an example of how a video gallery looks (a very empty one I'm afraid in this case). This is the toys video gallery index. As before the video gallery index layout it very similar to that of the images version, and has all the menus allowing you to navigate to other galleries areas for both images and videos.

Video Gallery Detail

As with images, this is very similar to those entries from the model page with the video movie type and running time replacing the count of images in the details given. As usual, movie files icons and descriptions have a yellow background to them while sets have pink. This can easily be changed by the WACS site manager and some may well have choosen to do so. Again the links to other gallery categories are joined by links to the other galleries within this section.

This pretty much concludes our look at the various browsing tools within WACS; the subsequent chapters will look at searching techniques and the short form indices.

Model Search

Here we have the basic model search web form; this is where you enter the criteria you wish to search by. After the usual top line menus, you have two distinct areas - down the left hand side you have the pull-down selections for basic attributes; on the right hand side you have each of the standard model attribute icons. The pull down selections are reasonably simple to use and follow normal web practice; the icons side is a little more complex - each icon is followed by three options: a tick, a question mark and a cross. All default to the question mark which means no selection is based upon that attribute. Click on the tickbox next to the tick icon associated with an model attribute icon, and you require any matching models to have that attribute; click on the tickbox next to the cross icon associated with the attribute icon and you require any matchimg models to not have that attribute.

At the bottom you have an optional search title you can use to help you find that specific set of search results later in the index of searches. You also have the search number box, and the two action buttons - Search to actually perform the search and Defaults to restore the original default values should you make a mistake. We'll return to what the search number box does later.

Model Search Example 1

The example above shows how one might search for UK-based models with a nipple ring or stud - ie one with the pierced tit attribute. The three yellow circles highlight the areas where we've made that selection; the tick saying "must have pierced nipple", the pulldown menu specifying nationality of UK, and the title changed from the somewhat unhelpful Default Model Search to Pierced Tit UK Models. Once these selections have been entered into the web form, all that remains is to click on the search button itself.

Search Results: Model Example 1

Here are the results of our search - in this case, just one model, Roxannne, has matched the search criteria. You can of course click on either Roxanne's headshot or name to visit her model page, or as mentioned in the box above, you can make use of the resulting saved search.

	Tip
	If you don't want to keep the saved search once you've made it, do be tidy and delete it immediately. If you leave it lying around, WACS will nag you about it when you log in at some point in the future.

	Warning
	As the search is performed the results page is progressively drawn - if you don't let it complete, not all models who do match will necessarily have been added into the saved search. Similarly if there is a cross rather than a tick in next to each models name, there has been some technical problem in adding this model to the set. You shouldn't ever see that, but if it happens there is a problem.

Image Search

Here we see the basic form for the standard image search; it's layout is very similar to the model search screen we just looked at but as you can see it has a lot more icons because it includes all of the possible set attributes as well as the model ones. With the slightly more compressed layout, it is perhaps not quite so obvious that the tick, question mark and cross icons are to the right of the attribute icon they are associated with. There are also a range of new options down the left hand side of the page: these are top level areas (types of gallery), ratings, locations, photographers and entered keyword.

The ratings implementation is based upon the three ratings we discussed earlier in the detailed model page chapter; there are three: overall rating, technical quality and variety. In this search screen, you can only choose to select on the basis of one of these ratings at a time (something we do plan to address in a future release). The choice of which of these is a pull-down selection in the title with the default being to use the overall rating. The tick boxes below allow you to select the values for that rating that you want included.

	Warning
	Note that on some sites, particularly the older ones, not all sets may be rated; including the unrated selection will probably mean a large number of matches of lower quality sets, so do remember to untick that option when trying to find just the ones with the very best ratings.

Let's take a moment to look at some of the new icons that are offered by the search screen which we maybe haven't seen before. The main group we'll look at here is those related to Locations, the table below shows some of the location based icons.

Table 10.1. Location Attribute Icons

Icon	Keyword	What It Means
	outdoors	Main action of the set takes place outdoors
	public	Set takes place in a public place (Public Nudity)
	country	Set takes place in the countryside
	transport	Set involves or takes place in a piece of transport equipment: train, boat, plane, car, bicycle, ATV, SUV, helicopter

Of course since WACS is primarily designed to handle adult material, there are of course a significant number of other attributes you might want to know about a set, most notably the action that takes place within the set. The next group of icons we're going to look at are those related to the action taking place within the set. The table below outlines the main ones.

Table 10.2. Action Attribute Icons

Icon	Keyword	What It Means
	fuck	Straight Sexual Intercourse
	lesbian	Lesbian Sexual Activity
	blowjob	Sexual Activity includes a Blow Job
	dildo	Sexual Activity includes use of a toy of some kind

There are of course a number of fetish attributes that are also available for marking up sets, but most of them are fairly self-explanitory and we won't go into gory detail about those just here. The fetish attributes are there, and if there's a major one we've missed, please let us know. Contact details are all given on the web site referenced at both the start and end of this book.

Image Search Example 1

Here we are doing a simple search for those sets that include a model holding a weapon, be it a gun, sword or knife. We've obviously selected the tick (yes to) weapon attribute icon, plus we've also requested the lower quality sets as well by ticking the reasonable and mediocre ratings boxes, and we've choosen to name the set Girls With Weapons.

Image Search Results 1

	Warning
	As with the model search, you need to wait until all of the ticks have appeared next to the sets before moving on or you risk loosing some sets that do match from the selection made and stored.

Here we have the results of performing that search - as before we have links near the top to view the saved search using one of the saved search viewers, and an option to delete the search immediately if it didn't produce the sort of results we were expecting. Note that each of the gallery categories is listed as the search engine makes it's progress through each one in turn. Each of the sets featured here can of course be clicked on and that will take you to the set page for the set concerned. You can easily hit the browser back button to return you to the search results which will mostly work. Should the browser decide the data has expired, you'd then have to use the search set index to find your results again, but they're still there.

Now we've looked at a simple search, let's cover a couple of the special abilities provided by the fields on the bottom left of the search form. We have a new pull-down selection on the bottom line which allows us to select between requiring all criteria to match or to match any of the criteria given. This should be used cautiously as using it on a common attribute (shaven, tattoo, etc) could easily result in an unusably large selected set. However using it to find any sets featuring a model with piercings could be done by selecting yes to piercedtit, piercedclit and lipring and then selecting match any criteria. Of course on a specialist body piercing fetish site, that might not be so great a plan either!

We mentioned earlier that there is a box for saved search number, which normally defaults to next; ie the next available set number. If you specify this explicitly, you can append the results of this search to those of a previous one by giving the search number given to the previous set here. This gives you a mechanism, for example, for searching for models with a shaven pussy and nopanties and for models with a shaven pussy who are nude and combining the results into a single search set.

Image Search Example 2

Here we have an example of doing a search for models who are wearing either stockings or a body stocking (a keyword search for Stocking) and no panties. On this occasion we decided not to alter the default action of leaving out the poorly rated sets (reasonable and mediocre), so these are only the better or unrated sets included in this selection.

Image Search Results 2

As you will see from the result page above, it searched through the area babes and found nothing; then proceeded into lingerie and toys where it found one in each.

	Tip
	Note that the keyword search system is normally not case sensitive so you don't need to capitialise the first letter, etc, in order to get a match

Video Search

The Video Search form is almost exactly identical to the image search form; in fact the only real ways to tell them apart are the title bar of the web browser window, and in this case, that only toys are listed as available gallery areas to look in. In this case we'll select all the videos shot in the lounge.

Video Search Example 1

We decided to call this set Videos In Lounge and then performed the search, which produced the following result:

Video Search Results 1

Once again, the matching searches have been saved into a saved search; in this case the number allocated was saved set number 30. So what you may ask can we do with this saved search; well we'll cover that in the next chapter....

Index Of Saved Searches

Here we have the list of saved searches - as you can see it is divided into two columns; the left hand side is for set based saved searches, the right hand side for model based saved searches. Looking first at the left hand column, you'll see first the saved search number, next it's title, then the number of sets it contains, and finally some update options. There's a very similar layout to the model-based saved sets on the right hand side.

Notice that the first three of the set-based saved searches, 22-24, offer only options to view as a slideshow or to clear marks, but not to delete them. This indicates that these are published public saved searches and not your own ones; these ones will not be shown on the front page as that only summarises the latest of your own saved searches. The later three searches, 27, 28 & 30 are our searches and so we do have the option to delete them here. There are actually two different links available on each set title; the link on the main title is to the thumbnail-style saved search viewer, while the link on more... is to the detailed version. The same general concept holds true for the links on the model-based saved searches as well, although the page they're actually displayed on is rather different necessarily.

Saved Search: Set-based Index

Here we have an example of the standard form of the saved-search index, in this case showing our saved search no. 27, Girls With Weapons. As you'll see this set title is included in a banner along the top of the page, along with the fact it's a set-based search (S) and that it has 3 sets contained within it. This index shows sets in the order in which they were added to the index by default, so if you watch this index as a slideshow or using another tool like rungq, this is the order you will see them in.

While this index is useful for examining the set, it lacks some of the other features you might also want, so there is also a detailed index available, but more on that later.

Saved Search: Model-based Index

In this screen shot we are displaying the saved search we made of UK models with pierced tits (saved search no 28). We only have the one model who matches, Roxanne, but this does also show that her name is colour-coded according to her rating, the key to the colours being given at the bottom of the page. Clicking on her icon or name will take you to her model page (the one with standard size thumbnails).

Saved Search: Set-based Details

Here we have the detail saved search screen displaying one of the public tag sets, set 22 Sabrina's Image Sets. Most of the layout should be pretty familiar by now, and we have the download and view as slideshow options just below each set description. Do note that the second option of the top-left Alternatives menu also includes a slide show option, but that is to view all the sets within this saved search as a single contiguous slide show, whereas the links under each title only refer to the individual set.

The other feature that is new here is that just below the set attribute icon is a link called "mark this set as viewed" - this temporarily marks that particular set as already dealt with. It will not be removed from the set, but it will be hidden for the time being until the clear marks option is selected in the saved searches index or from the pull down menu here. Originally the marking facility seemed like a good idea for everyone to be able to access, but it does affect what others will see too. It is possible this feature will be restricted to only those sets you own in the future so that other people viewing the public saved searches don't find that sets are missing from their display too.

When you do a search, not all of the results are necessarily ones you'd want to include in a slideshow or keep around, so there is a way of removing specific sets from the saved search using the options on the detailed saved set page, providing you have the rights to do so. Typically this means it must be one of your own Saved Searches.

Saved Search: Set-based Details (Own Sets)

In this example, we're looking at one of our own saved sets, no 27 Girls With Weapons, and so in addition to the mark set as viewed option, we also have the option to delete this set from this saved search. This provides the ability to edit the saved search to remove any sets that matched but weren't really what you were looking for.

It is likely that more advanced saved-search editing facilities will be added in a future release.

Saved Search: Model-based Details

As we mentioned earlier, we also have a detailed viewer for model based saved searches, and here it is. It normally appears in a two column format, but since we only have one model in our saved model search, it fills her entry out to the whole page. This page includes a lot of extra details, including her identities for various web sites. We'll return to this page in it's more normal form as an index of all models in the next chapter. It does not currently offer an editing option for model-based saved searches, but once again this is planned for a future release.

Slideshow: Playing A Saved Search

In addition to the various indices detailed above, you have probably the most useful feature of a saved search - you can use it to give you a slideshow of the selected sets. This is a screenshot of viewing a slideshow of a saved search, in this case no 28, Stocking No Panties. The picture shown automatically advances to the next one every three seconds (or whatever you delay choose in preferences) until it reaches the end of the saved search. The navigation buttons shown can be used to go back or forward a frame and pause and resume playing at any point.

For those of you who use Linux/Unix as a desktop OS, there is also an additional tool for viewing slideshows called rungq - this will be covered in the penultimate chapter.

Alphabetic Index Of All Models

Here we have the headshot index for all models, which is often unmanageably large but in this case with only two models featured, it's actually quite small. It can additionally select by first letter of the model's name, a mode which it is used in when there are far more models to deal with. As usual there are links on each models headshot and name which lead to her model page. This same index can also be used in many other ways; we saw an example earlier in the chapter on the detailed model page where it was used to show all models from a given website. It can also show all the members of each of the favourites categories, and this is used in the index from the Main Menu for favourites.

Detailed Alphabetic Index Of All Models

Here is the detailed Alphabetic Index of All Models, once again rather small due to our demonstration sets only currently featuring two models. As you can see, this index includes the biography, the set statistics and the model's web site identities. As with the short-form all models index, this same screen is also used for members of each of the favourite categories, for model-based saved searches, and for showing those models featured on a given website.

Condensed Index Of Image Sets

Here we have the index of all the galleries that exist, in the short form condensed layout. We've taken this one from our demonstration laptop WACS server because it holds a reasonable number. If you click on any one of these gallery links, you get the same thumbnail index as you would if using the high-level index with random sampling. This is of course much quicker to use if you know where you're going.

Condensed Index Of Video Clips

And finally it's back to our official demo site for a very empty example of the video condensed index! The principle is exactly the same as for the image set and it shows you what categories there are and how many galleries each one features.

There is of course also an index of Photographers, and since we preload about a dozen of the more famous and prolific ones working in the adult field into WACS, the initial index is fairly well populated. And then of course there's Beaky and his friend Mr Video listed as well because there are actually sets by them on the WACS demonstration site...

Photographers Index

If you then click on the photographer's name or code letters, you get taken to a photographer's set index page. This gives you a few basic details of name and location, a collection of statistics about the various sets that they've produced and a list of locations in which those sets were taken. There's a link on each of the locations which will show you an index of the sets taken by that photographer in that location. Finally below these you have a compressed index of the galleries which include work by this photographer.

Photographer Detail Page

Index Of Connections

Slightly outside the other mechanisms in WACS is a way to do Ad-Hoc indexing of sets called connections. They are very similar to saved searches, except that they are far fewer and can only be constructed by the WACS site manager. They are also different in that when a set belongs to one of them, that fact is advertised in the other set and model page references by way of the connections icon. This means that if a set has been made part of a connection, you can quickly and easily follow that theme back to the sets it contains which will mostly share a common theme. Both the slideshow and rungq also support using connections.

Example Of A Connection

Here's one of those two example connections, this is the one called Adventures Of A White Sofa because the same white sofa features at some point in all these sets. This gives you an idea of some of the enterprising sideways views that can be offered through the use of connections. Of course, it's up to your local WACS site manager to dream up the inventive and obscure connections that link sets together in an interesting way!

As the old adage goes, Size Matters - this is particularly true with WACS! Often the images from high quality adult web sites are fairly large and of high resolution; while this is fine on a high performance desktop PC with a big screen or when printed out, it can actually be a bit of a pain when working on a smaller screen such as on a laptop PC. If the image is too large, you'll only get to see the top part of each image when browsing through a collection or watching a slide show. Even if you can get your web browser to scale the image, you're still downloading more data than you need to.

WACS has extensive facilities for improving things visually by reducing the size of each image before it sends it to you such that you get to see the whole image. You can select what size best suits your laptop (or other display device) by using the preferences system.

The Preferences Screen

The top bit of the preferences screen gives you information on what account you're signed on with, how you're getting access (permanent permissions or temporary lease), your current priviledge level and when your lease (if you're gaining access through a lease) expires. The next section covers the preference exclusions (any types of set you don't want to be shown) you set at the start of this session. You can edit and revise these using the tick-boxes here. Note that the changes do not take effect until you click on the Change Settings button.

The third section is the most complicated and this controls how WACS communicates with you. The first option titled Use Direct, allows you to specify whether you want WACS to obscure the names of the icons it uses. It's normal action is to do so, but not doing so can make a page a little faster to load, particularly if it contains a lot of thumbnails. The WACS site manager also has to enable this option in order for it to work.

The next option, Image Page Style, sets whether the images WACS presents when you click on a thumbnail in the set page or set index are surrounded by navigation buttons or not. If you choose to take the framed images, the web browser typically doesn't apply any scaling and so the image may be too big for your screen and gain a scroll bar. However the frame preloads the next image and makes it easy to move on to it by just clicking on the current image. The image should then load instantly as it should already be cached. If you choose not to add frames, you get none of the preload or navigation benefits, but your web browser may well be able to scale the image for you.

We'll return to the next three options; image size, image scaling and image quality in a moment. The final option in the preferences editor is to select the wait time between images in the WACS web based slideshow - normally this defaults to 3 seconds (assuming the next image can be retrieved within that time period). This can be set to anything between immediate and ten seconds in a number of steps.

So what about the three image options? The first of these, image size, sets the size you would like the images reduced to for most effective display on your screen. The options currently offered by the pull-down selection are: 320x240 (mobile phone, data pad), 640x480, 800x600 and 1024x768. The second option, image scaling, controls when WACS uses reduced size images and when it uses the normal size ones; the choices you have are to keep all images at their original size, resize only for slideshows, resize for slide shows and set pages or always resize. The third option, image quality, has a similar or greater effect on the perceived speed than the size of the image and that is because of it's effect on bandwidth.

If you're accessing a personal WACS site remotely, chances are you'll be using it through the uplink side of an ADSL broadband link which means the speed will be nothing like as good as you experience on your home network. Once again, WACS has the ability to help with this by making the images smaller before sending them - it can both make them smaller in dimensions and file size - the options discussed above to reduce the dimensions play a very important part, but you can also tell WACS to reduce the detail in the picture completely separately from it's dimensional size. What are normally quite presentable looking pictures can often be sent with about a quarter of the detail of the original image; a just passable image but which still gives the basic idea can be a tenth of the original size. The quality option in the preferences sets the amount of this detail-reduction is performed when the image is resized. Note that the quality controls only work when the image is being resized anyway - if the image is sent at original size, it is also sent at original quantity.

Your own personal preferences and sensitivity to artifacts (unwanted abherations in the picture) will have to guide you as to what settings offer you the best combination of quality versus speed - try various values and see what you prefer. Changes made through the preferences system take effect at the next new image downloaded, ie almost immediately.

Rungq in action

The rungq command (and for that matter runmp) can take any one of:

To view a saved search containing images you can either simply give the number of the tag set, or you can prefix it with t or tag and it will invoke the Linux/Unix image viewer gqview with a list of actual directories containing the sets to be viewed. This allows the viewing of a slideshow full-screen and at the best possible quality without using a web browser as an intermediary. Generally a local image viewer can do a better job at going full screen than a web browser can.

To view a connection is very similar as you give it's number prefixed with c or conn . You can also view all the sets for a given model using the same mechanism but changing the prefix to m, mod or model. Additionally any of these can also be filtered to show only sets of a single type, so for instance if you want to see only Toy-based sets from model no 10, you can do: rungq --cat=T mod10.

Rungq should usually work on the web server itself; getting it to work on other hosts means making the files available by NFS in a suitable place, setting up a suitable wacs.cfg file (a copy of the one from the web server usually suffices) and getting the database connection working from Perl. This usually means installing the MySQL client side code (or Oracle equivalent), the relevant Perl DBD/DBI drivers and setting the access permissions on the database to allow database connections from the other host.

Just as the rungq can take a collection of different sets and make a slideshow of them, the runmp command will take a collection of different video clips and string them together as a movie show. The two commands are very closely related and accept all the same options. Both may be used on a single tag set (saved search) or connection which contains a mixture of set types and they will merely ignore the type that they don't handle.

Wacs-PHP Simple Skin: Main Menu

The starting point for exploring the Wacs-PHP simple skin sample web site is the Main Menu shown here. The title and navigation bars are common thoughout the sample site, and although all links go somewhere, in the initial release only a few are significantly functional! Since the cornerstone of WACS is the model page we decided to implement the equivalent of that first. To get there you can either follow the link for newest models or go to the model directory.

Wacs-PHP Simple Skin: Model Directory

This is the model directory. It's still fairly simple and will take as long as it needs to to display all of the models known on this WACS site. Future in enhancements will include pagination, most likely by first letter of the Model's name.

Wacs-PHP Simple Skin: Girlie - The Model Page

We decided to call the model page girlie.php which we figured was utterly politically incorrect but absolutely and accurately described what it covers (or is that uncovers!) in a nice and short name.