Photo Club Hub 2.5

Release 2.5.0 of the Photo Club Hub iOS app is now available on Github and Apple’s App Store.

The main changes are:

• Requires iOS 17
  Release 2.5.0 requires OS 17.0 or iPadOS 17.0 or later. If a device is no longer supported in iOS 17 (e.g. an iPhone 8 or older), the App Store will automatically select a suitable earlier version of the app. Requiring the latest iOS version allows the app to use certain new iOS 17 APIs without first waiting a few years for older devices to disappear.

• Who’s Who Screen
  
  This screen shows an alphabetical list of all photographers that are accessible via the app. Since release 2.4.1, the names are sorted on family name first (so John Doe is under the D rather than the J). This is because, once you have many names, there could be a lots of Johns. And I am guessing that you might know the last name without knowing the first name. If you only know a fragment of a name (John or Jon or Jan), there is also the search filter at the top of the screen.
  
  The name sorting has been also internationalized, despite iOS not having this feature: Jan van Doesburg is sorted under the D rather than the V.
  
  The Who’s Who screen now also has thumbnails per photographer that link directly to the photographer’s Portfolios. In most cases there is just one thumbnail per photographer, but the thumbnails can scroll horizontally to expose additional thumbnails.
  
  Example: let’s say John used to be a member of ClubPrevious but, after moving to a new town, John left ClubPrevious and joined ClubCurrent instead. Then the screen will show two images below the photographer’s name: one linked to John’s work as a member of ClubPrevious, and another linked to John’s more recent work as a member of ClubCurrent.
  
  To clarify for the users, each thumbnail has a caption such as “Former member of Photo Club Previous”. This let’s you know which club the image links to and tells how the photographer is related to that club (such as “Admin and member of Photo Club Current”).

What’s next? As you can see on GitHub, a next update will improve the Maps on the Photo Clubs page. This is because Apple’s MapKit framework for SwiftUI has changed in iOS17, and some old features have been deprecated. Longer term the main focus needs to be on allowing photo clubs to maintain their own lists without relying on code updates or centrally stored data.