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New look to music page....

pmscpc	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 3:58 AM Err - I'm sure you haven't finished yet, but there are a couple of things you may like to consider about the new things - like the words you are using. a "SNAG", is a problem. "Add To Playlist" sounded pretty straightforward to me. Yey and Nay might not be cool if English isn't your first language. The whole music page is a bit ugly looking too. 2/10 - must try harder.
Arthen	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 6:11 AM =D at first i thought I accidentally highlighted all the text!
Bill43	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 9:28 AM I thought my ISP had burped!
Bill43	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 9:29 AM DM picks looks like it used to though.
MarcSalmon	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 10:04 AM i thought i'd highlighted it all by accident as well. i dont like it
Jesuszilla	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 11:01 AM I thought the same, although I think it looks better once you have put in song description and all that.
Arthen	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 11:22 AM maybe should try to follow the sense of color design and layout like Deviant Art.
ashleighj	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 11:24 AM apart from the lack of small icons, i rather like it. but i think the icons really helped point out the different links more than plain text does. and i wouldn't mind if the text was a smidgen larger. i think it's a nice start
Jesuszilla	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 11:29 AM Maybe the song titles should stand out a bit more.
ChillinBuzz	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 11:30 AM i wondered about the folder icon on the first song actually being tied to the name of the folder instead, that would look a little better, or the icon against every song in the folder.... hmm, maybe not? otherwise i cant say theres anything much wrong, sure a few icons would work out better perhaps, and the YAY/NAY bit is going to confuse ppl (tip: hover m ouse over them...) but its pretty nice and yes it does look a bit better when the details are inserted... do we really need a time stamp with the date stamp on song info? and maybe the song title in bold, it doesnt seem to stick out given the coloUr scheme... minor quibbles though Fu da Man :brucelee:
BlackMage	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 11:41 AM I really don't like it. Page designs from hell.
fu-dog	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 11:47 AM It was an experiment. Best way for me to get feedback is to do a minor change thusly and have you call comment. The old lay out is hella cluttered. Please, someone, anyone, all of you, do a mock up of a new page in html or as an image (don't worry about making the links function) and pass it on to me. I'd love to make something prettier and more functional. Also, note that it may look someone empty and strange, but that's because most users have not taken advantage of the new extended song data. Click on the title of your song in the current music manager to add your info. To see an example of what the more full version of the new layout looks like, checkout the top song on my test page, http://devacc.dmusic.com/ or the top song on chillinbuzz's page, http://chillinbuzz.dmusic.com
BlackMage	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 11:54 AM Now it looks better, still could use some flawing tho'.
ChillinBuzz	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 11:57 AM i think less text will make it look less cluttered.... wheres my damn art app
djfacemachine	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 12:01 PM
Dizeazed	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 12:07 PM Most definitely need the little icons back for the "hifi, lofi, dl, add to playlist, thumbsup & thumbsdown".
BlackMage	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 12:09 PM Yep.
Maffmatix	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 12:11 PM All the words should BE highlited, not seperate from the bars.. if ya understand me.
ChillinBuzz	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 12:30 PM i think the icons should return... perhaps anyways, Fu, as for that folder icon comment i made... http://images2.dmusic.com/users/c/h/i/chillinbuzz/15159.jpg no its nowhere near finished but its just to show the location of the icon for now...
Jennae	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 12:36 PM I can't say I like it... sorry. The blue blocking thingy is not facied most. appreciate the effort though
Jennae	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 12:37 PM Stats???
Apertome	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 12:41 PM yeah what happened to # of thumbs up/down, and now I can't see the stats even for my own music ... I also agree that some of the small icons were useful visual cues
ChillinBuzz	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 12:53 PM more comments! more ideas! its cool saying it rocks/sucks/needs more work but apart from the icons needing to return or something, then what would YOU suggest as a layout?
furiousBall	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 12:53 PM i think you need to do conditionals around the new info so blank lines aren't displayed when there isn't any info on that line.
ChillinBuzz	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 1:43 PM wonder if making some of that track info insertion applicable or allowable when uploading the track for the first time would encourage ppl to fill the gaps more. color schemes? would that detract from the overall theme of the site? or would that be a subscriber feature in the making (color schemes that is)???
BlackMage	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 2:04 PM Don't try to fix what isn't broken. The old desing was the best one.
JFF	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 2:05 PM not so keen on the look, but I like all the new features excellent. It seems this site is moving in the right direction fast
Maffmatix	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 2:15 PM I don't really like it.. looks like my browser got messed up..
Jesuszilla	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 2:40 PM I quite like it now, but whatever you do, please keep song descriptions!
cardboarddea...	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 3:03 PM Woof! I'm offline for a couple of days and everything turns topsy turvy! Cor blimey, guv'nor!
Bill43	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 4:10 PM I think for the casual user the acronym "D/L" would be meaningless. I think there should be a division between "Download this tune" (little CD icon) and then "Play -hifi - Lofi" (little speaker icon?). It would at least give the people that aren't familiar with DMusic a way to figure out what is in front of them. As far as the Thumbs up or down thing that keeps changing???? Again... to the casual user who's not familiar... I just think it should be "dumbed down" a bit.
pacificYO	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 5:48 PM definently looks neater than before.. but the thing that irks me is that little space in all the songs besides the top one where you can fit an icon.. ..might as well let us add pictures to that ey? but to save bandwidth have us link to the picture from a different server.
invocati	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 5:55 PM Whatever.
Jennae	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 6:16 PM Invocati that is in dm emoticons
pmscpc	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 6:28 PM Oh no! Web design by comittee! Fu-Dog - I didn't know you were "all alone" - you could create a mock up somewhere before everyone starts demanding their fave colour . Then maybe everyone shouting might not seem like such a critical thing... if it is.
invocati	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 6:29 PM O.K. Jen !!!
ChillinBuzz	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 6:45 PM interesting reactions so far Fu dont you think? and yes, this site is moving forwards and yes, things will change that ppl may not like and no, if the majority get on with it, it wont change and so on, etc. ad infinitum et nauseum. (color schemes, gimme gimme gimme )
Jennae	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 6:46 PM invocati
sinai	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 7:59 PM two things... when are the stats gonna return? and how in the hell do you put pictures next to the songs?!? i know that's been asked, answered and filed away, but i missed the memo on that one... other than that, new look is fine with me
fu-dog	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 7:59 PM The stats that you see in red are fairly incorrect. They count your own listens, etc. If you folks would really like to stare at blatently wrong numbers, be my guest. I've re-implemented the old page style. The new page style can be accessed via the top right corner menu. I'll be adding other layouts there as i receive them from considerate and skilled users. So send me links and ideas, damnit. Yes, CB, interesting reactions. I'm glad to see so many folks speaking up though, even if it's not the most useful. Thank you much for trying to keep the thread on task.
marcxpx	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 8:09 PM how do i change back to the old style if i clicked the link for the new block style?
ashleighj	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 8:31 PM marc -- you can click on "music" under artist navigation on the right menu. fu-dog -- at some point, you also fixed the folders so they're not in alphabetical order by the first song in each one (which are also alphabetical). you rock.
fu-dog	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 8:40 PM Ah. Did that around the same time. Just needed a couple characters in the query that grabs all the data. Eventually we'll set it up so users can sort by date, folder name, song name, album name, etc. Hmph. There's so much here that could use good coding love...
Jennae	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 8:49 PM we need to clone a few more dogs up in da dm house
ChillinBuzz	Date: November 17, 2003 @ 8:55 PM what i'd give to know the coding for here... eats PHP manual oh, SQL too?
pmscpc	Date: November 18, 2003 @ 4:07 AM fu-dog, you da hot dog. IF (and it is a big if) I have time today, I'll try and arrange those tables in a way that's both pleasing to the eye and functional. Hopefully, you as superprog man, will be able to translate that into something useful.. EACE:
pmscpc	Date: November 18, 2003 @ 4:08 AM Perhaps I meant - ?
acatalept	Date: November 18, 2003 @ 7:34 AM very nice, fu-dog, very nice (and i'm speaking of the forest for the trees here) - especially the extensive song data, much needed didn't see the new blue bars in its original state (snag? yay/nay? came to the party too late), but methinks "D/L" should be changed to the full word "Download", and maybe "Tell a Pal" should be "Tell a Friend" for the reasons pmscpc originally stated - niggles really, though. i'm [slowly] working on a design or three over here, the gears are grinding away, sorry i'm so slow (perfectionism is the cruelest curse to those of mediocre talent ). especially having trouble making high-quality, intuitive icons and symbols for some things without blatantly ripping off those commonly used everywhere else... any icon wizards out there? [trying to contain smoke emanating from ears]...damn, think i need a little lube in there...
Jesuszilla	Date: November 18, 2003 @ 9:04 AM I think the new one looks much better, have a look at this link. The old one looks far too bland. You should try filling in all the song information. http://davidc.dmusic.com/index.php?sec=index&subsec=newblue I asked a friend in RL and they thought the same.
ashleighj	Date: November 18, 2003 @ 9:24 AM i think "Tell a Pal" should be changed to "Tell an NTSC".
acatalept	Date: November 18, 2003 @ 9:27 AM hey now, that does make all the difference having all the details filled in still think the track titles are sorta... unreadable at a glance - maybe a much lighter background with dark text? or move the titles' left indent over to line up with the descriptions? dunno - but that's a minor quibble. i guess i can't really complain until i've thrown my hat into the ring
acatalept	Date: November 18, 2003 @ 9:29 AM lol @ ashleigh... but what if they live in europe and their VCRs won't play it?
kredd	Date: November 18, 2003 @ 9:55 AM like the new look this morning
withering	Date: November 18, 2003 @ 10:01 AM Have to agree with Jesus about the descriptions, think the new design is worth it for that feature alone... Very good! However, about the missing stats I think they should be brought back! COMPUTERS want accurate information or nothing, PEOPLE want any blatantly wrong & misleading information you can manage to throw at them (which years of programming have taught me ). Even if they're somewhat incorrect, they do give you a clue if anybody cares at all about your music. Comments and Votes require interaction apart from clicking "HiFi", and is therefore even more inaccurate, since not everybody will interact. It would look less crowded with some icons for "Download", "HiFi", "LoFi", "Up", "Down" etc etc. Perhaps a little more neutral than today though, something simple, in a single super-intelligent shade of blue perhaps?
withering	Date: November 18, 2003 @ 10:19 AM ...Another thing not exactly related to the new layout but .. There are way too much caching going on at this site. Think you should set Expires:0 or not more than 10 minutes ahead. Now, I have gotten used to the (bad) habit of ctrl+Refresh'ing all artist pages everytime I enter, to make sure I get the latest page with all the new & hot tracks. Also, my (and others) thumbnail artist pictures have gone awol in the last days... Is this related to the new look?
fu-dog	Date: November 18, 2003 @ 10:39 AM The new counting system i'm using to determine the "today's top X listens" is currently only based off of unique IP address. It records a user's ID number if they're logged in, however. My plans were to re-do the stats for the artist page using this same data. It would give you a 'total clicks', 'total unique clicks by ip', and 'total unique clicks via user' for each song. Not to mention the ability to track the history of the song over a given period of time. Isn't that better than those skewed little red numbers? I'm tellin ya folks, those are soooooo wrong. Why do you desire invalid numbers? Free your egos! --- The D/L and Tell a Pal were there because Download and Tell a Friend/Email a friend took up a lot more space. Same reasoning behind the Yay/Nay (now Up/Down) instead of the thumb icons. I was setting up the page to hold as much information as possible since we don't currently have a paging system for the artist's page. Those of you with 20+ songs have biiiiiiig pages. In the interim between our current and the next super-cool DM i was looking to make something clean and functional. Thems the driving ideas. Pick and choose and create the new. --- ofwitheringashes: There isn't any caching, save for "today's top X listens." Everything else is pure (which is a problem that needs to be addressed soon, actually). It's probably your browser cache settings. I've explained the thumbnailing issues here: http://www.dmusic.com/forum/help/6174 I should have that repaired by tonight.
withering	Date: November 18, 2003 @ 11:07 AM I'm totally with you, fu-dog. And agree that the new design is sleeek. My ego was only worried that there would be no more stats at all... The point about the caching is that when you return dynamic data you have to explicitly include the Expires header, or else well-behaving browsers will cache it. My browser is only doing what the w3c tells it to do...
fu-dog	Date: November 18, 2003 @ 2:38 PM Don't take the ego comment personally. Sometimes i get off on a philosophical bent; code does that to me. You have a point with the caching. I'll be fixing that situation when i finish converting the site to a new template style. Then i'll be able to define on a page-by-page basis when it should cache or when it should force a refresh. Until then...
Lcrowley	Date: November 18, 2003 @ 2:42 PM While you are doing that stuff Fu-dog... maybe you could add an icon of sorts to the comments that would let us know when someone "new" has added a new comment? for those on dial up it is an extra step to look and see.. maybe just as setting the word comment to change colors when a new comment is added ? as far as the new layout, as I mentioned, I love it .. it is cool looking .. but I think the voting thing should be more up there .. where it is easy to see for the new user ..

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