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Incoming Features

jack	Date: December 10, 2007 @ 6:14 PM So as an effort to better inform everyone as to what's going on, I thought it might be a good idea to list a few cool things we should be rolling out shortly: * Skins - the whole site should be skinnable. I will be developing a few skins myself and probably releasing some documentation so people can make their own. You will be able to skin the site so when you're logged in it appears in that skin, and skin your artist page so all vistors will see it that way. The three themes that will be avaliable on release will be (blues (the theme you see now), classic (old DM blue), and minimal (speaks for itself)) * Videos - you will be able to upload videos through you artist manager to be shown on your artist page or in the tutorials section. * Improved feature queues - no duplicate features, more random rotation, fancy ajax (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AJAX) * Various other bug fixes, spelling amendments and removal of various annoyances. Subject to change depending on how things go, of course. I will keep you posted.
jack	Date: December 10, 2007 @ 6:15 PM I should also add I am considering an edit function that will be avaliable for 5 minutes after posting, for forum and song comments.
HenriRoger	Date: December 10, 2007 @ 6:33 PM Very good news , thank you
evansorchid	Date: December 10, 2007 @ 8:19 PM That sounds great, Jack!
NickSawyer	Date: December 10, 2007 @ 8:28 PM
ShadowMom	Date: December 10, 2007 @ 10:10 PM "removal of various annoyances" -- you better not mean me, Jack.
evansorchid	Date: December 10, 2007 @ 10:21 PM I think Mom's on to you Jack.
jack	Date: December 10, 2007 @ 11:17 PM Well I was more referring to the erratic layout and shoutbox behaviour, but I suppose I could make some arrangements..
BlackMage	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 4:59 AM "Skins - the whole site should be skinnable." May God have mercy on us all.
ShadowMom	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 6:56 AM Are you calling me erratic??!! I am NOT! Mostly! Okay! Now and then... yes and no! Depending on the circumstances.
Distilled1	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 9:17 AM finaly skins! Black, if its templates it will be nice ...if it goes crazy like myhotlayout crap it could be bad. And HELL yes Videos!!!! FINALLY!!! and I just joined blog tv cool I can post some of my live sets on DMusic and not just the music! need beta testing????
independentm...	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 12:24 PM Vids! OMG, hell yeah! Vids! Can't wait.
independentm...	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 12:24 PM
ChillinBuzz	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 12:26 PM On 10th Dec 2008, ShadowMom said: "removal of various annoyances" -- you better not mean me, Jack. I don't think so, Mom... Old DM classic skin will be awesome! If anyone can remember it...
ShadowMom	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 1:06 PM Okay then...I'm just paranoid. I'm not sure which is worse. THINKING someone is talking about you, or actually HAVING someone talk about you.
Tattoomom	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 2:10 PM YAY!!! SKINNABLE!!!! Do we bring our own knives?!?!?!
ChillinBuzz	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 3:27 PM Awwww Mom
jack	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 4:10 PM I should clarify, it's templates, not like Myspace. There will be an appropraite procedure in place so we're not overcome by Hello Kitty.
ChillinBuzz	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 4:12 PM Damn. Hello Kitty is cool Not. Is it going to be the existing layout, with colour variations? Or actually a semi or full retro skin for the classic colour and look?
jack	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 4:16 PM it'll be a full blown skin, with all the bells and whistles - of couse there's a capacity to simply allow for a different colour scheme too, as a whole new facelift can take a long time to get working. I should be releasing a preview of the skinning features soonish, depending on what else gets done first.
Tattoomom	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 4:21 PM I'm psyched about the video feature! I think it will encourage more DMers to make videos! And a visual is always very nice to go along with the music!!! I suppose there will be GUIDELINES regarding content.
ChillinBuzz	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 6:04 PM On 11th Dec 2008, Tattoomom said: I suppose there will be GUIDELINES regarding content. Yep, Bill will have to leave out the naked female backing band.
ebarbarella	Date: December 11, 2007 @ 6:19 PM the best news ever! can't wait to be able to upload vids here I'm using Hello Kitty in my journal so no complains here Go DMusic!!
Tattoomom	Date: December 12, 2007 @ 1:00 PM On 11th Dec 2008, ChillinBuzz said: [QUOTE info=Tattoomom,December 11, 2007 @ 4:21 PM] I suppose there will be GUIDELINES regarding content. Yep, Bill will have to leave out the naked female backing band. [/QUOTE] HEY!!! I'M the only naked female backing into Bill's.... ummm....yeah....what ChillinBuzz said...
ChillinBuzz	Date: December 12, 2007 @ 5:34 PM
jack	Date: December 12, 2007 @ 8:05 PM Here's a small preview of the direction I'm going. Obviously I've done this in a couple of hours so it's not very good, I was going for a minimal theme here (no images - short loading time). http://images.dmusic.com/jack/sample.png Aside the top bit it's essentially a new style sheet, theoratically the whole appearance of the site could be changed, including the location of all the widgets, etc.
ChillinBuzz	Date: December 12, 2007 @ 9:28 PM nice colour
jack	Date: December 12, 2007 @ 11:58 PM I have to say, I've taken a liking to it, but then again, I'm a little biased. Anyway, this isn't by any means what an actual skin will look like, it's moreso my testing skin to make sure the code is in place - unlikely it'll make it into the final package of skins on release. [#100] Skinning: How do I get started? That's an article on the sort of format that's expected. If I see any interest from the community (it is, after all, a music community rather than a programming one) I will be posting a sandbox site for users to test their skins on before submitting them for release. If you want a custom skin on your artist page, you will need to read that article and get working!
ChillinBuzz	Date: December 13, 2007 @ 12:17 AM Let's see Mom write a n00b's guide for that! Not quite getting the logged in variable and wondering about the skin name variable, although if you are validating templates prior to going live, you'll notice any clashing.
ShadowMom	Date: December 13, 2007 @ 6:47 AM Hell no!!! I don't DO skins... or validating templates, nor do I play in sandboxes.
Distilled1	Date: December 13, 2007 @ 9:19 AM can't wait to grab a template and start working
ChillinBuzz	Date: December 13, 2007 @ 3:30 PM hey Rich, i wonder how easy it would be to write a script that can generate a template for this? i've managed to write easy scripts to do similar things but they've mostly used random variable settings.
Israfel	Date: December 14, 2007 @ 9:37 PM No Hello Kitty??? Ah, that's it! I'm sooo outta here!
moam	Date: December 14, 2007 @ 11:39 PM Holy shit!!! Hello Kitty doing heroine??? What will these geniuses think of next
ChillinBuzz	Date: December 15, 2007 @ 12:38 AM it's heroin you cheesy crusty rat-infested lard bucket
TnyjMuzic	Date: December 15, 2007 @ 7:12 AM Hey Jack. What about some of the other promised features like Selling Mp3 Downloads.
ShadowMom	Date: December 15, 2007 @ 10:51 AM cough In certain contexts, heroine is correct. Maybe he knows something we don't... and don't want to know, either!
ChillinBuzz	Date: December 15, 2007 @ 10:54 PM no it's not, Mom. he's showing Hello Kitty with needles. now shush!
jack	Date: December 16, 2007 @ 9:18 AM an update on this: you can note me if you want access to the tutorial template. please note it's not a complete template by any means but should help you get the jist of what elements you will need in your own templates. Starting tomorrow I will be working on a sandbox mode so you can test it out. Regarding the issue of selling MP3 downloads - this feature has been active for a long, long time at DMusic but I don't know who it's avaliable to. I will ask around and get back to you.
TnyjMuzic	Date: December 16, 2007 @ 9:27 AM Jack thanx for looking into the selling MP3 Downloads matter for me. Every since i joined Dmusic the sell download feature has not been active.
ebarbarella	Date: December 18, 2007 @ 1:13 PM The "sell download featured" is active for some members i believe because it was active a while ago to test how it works ... we have it active but what sucks is that when you have an mp3 for sell ppl cannot listen to the version hifi ... which is not a good idea, hopefully it will get fix and active to everybody soon Jack ... sending note now, im not sure tho how hard it is but i can try at least, i love making templates, i promise not to use the kitty Go Hello Kitty Go!
ChillinBuzz	Date: December 18, 2007 @ 4:58 PM it has been active but not site-wide, just the 10 users that were asked to test it with, they include me, Victors Skull, Jennae, Ebarbarella and I can't remember who else now... there's a list of those who got to test it but it's buried in my drive archives somewhere. Barbs, removing the hifi option when selling was essential, since the hifi option is the actual mp3 and if left on, anyone could rip it and they'd never buy it... so for mp3 selling, a hifi stream would need to be created as well as the lofi stream that is created, something at 96kbps perhaps, so it's not good enough to be ripped but good enough to listen to... difficult situation that, since it will require a hell of a lot more space if mp3 selling goes site-wide.
jack	Date: December 18, 2007 @ 8:28 PM The top brass says that it isn't infact ready, so I apologize for the misinformation there. It still needs a lot of work before it's released to the public, so I'll be picking that up shortly.
Rodrica	Date: December 19, 2007 @ 4:54 AM I like the idea of the 5 minutes to edit forum and songs comments because my fingers don't always type what I want them to Questions for Jack: 1. Would the edit forum/songs posts function be for non-subscribers and well as subscribers? 2. As we are a very "open" site and much info. gets picked up by search engines, would it be possible to introduce more protection for members from spammers and malicious posts by (a) allowing the "delete post" function on song comments for non-subscribers as well as subscribers and (b) allow all members a delete function for posts on their personal pages? I think it would help ppl feel more comfortable knowing this was available to them...and it is something that is already available on some other sites so would help DM stay competitive.
Distilled1	Date: December 19, 2007 @ 12:31 PM I am testing the MP3 sales as well
jack	Date: December 20, 2007 @ 8:12 AM On 19th Dec 2008, Rodrica said: I like the idea of the 5 minutes to edit forum and songs comments because my fingers don't always type what I want them to Questions for Jack: 1. Would the edit forum/songs posts function be for non-subscribers and well as subscribers? 2. As we are a very "open" site and much info. gets picked up by search engines, would it be possible to introduce more protection for members from spammers and malicious posts by (a) allowing the "delete post" function on song comments for non-subscribers as well as subscribers and (b) allow all members a delete function for posts on their personal pages? I think it would help ppl feel more comfortable knowing this was available to them...and it is something that is already available on some other sites so would help DM stay competitive. 1. Yes, 2 a) Not up to me b) Deleting, no, however something could be arranged where you can 'hide' posts from everyone but yourself until an admin can deal with them.
ShadowMom	Date: December 20, 2007 @ 8:17 AM Question, Jack: Do you think the 5-minute delay is going to cause some problems with threads that are very active? Say User A posts a comment, and User B has a funny response, but while he's typing and previewing and editing for 5 minutes, User C-- in a bad mood that day-- makes a snide remark. Now User B's comment may not follow, but it will look like a reply to User C. Get my drift? Will we be able to see any posts made in betweeen?
ShadowMom	Date: December 20, 2007 @ 8:18 AM I to amend that. It's not that important.
ShadowMom	Date: December 20, 2007 @ 8:19 AM And if during that 5 minutes, another user comments, is it a good idea to allow that editing?
Rodrica	Date: December 20, 2007 @ 8:35 AM Thanks for coming back with an answer so soon Jack. A bit disappointing that we can't have the same level of protection that's being offered for free on a certain other site (not myspace!). Oh well...no harm in asking I guess
jack	Date: December 20, 2007 @ 9:16 AM It will effectively be the same level of protection, as to everyone else, the comment in question will appear deleted - the only people that will know it is still there (and therefore, the content of it) will be yourself and administrators. On the issue of editting- maybe we could have an editted by message and perhaps an expanding box that shows the content of the old message? This isn't high on my list of priorities yet so it could be a while before anything happens at all.
ShadowMom	Date: December 20, 2007 @ 10:36 AM I can wait... I have more than enough with Preview. I don't always do it, but it's nice to know it's there.
ChillinBuzz	Date: December 21, 2007 @ 4:39 AM some sites put "edited by {username}" at the bottom of a post when the user has edited it, so that would be a good idea too. invisible posts. good idea again. not applicable to helpdesk tickets (sorry Bo )