Likely this will have to be done in stages. Really the hold up is lack of time.atari_midi wrote:Yeah, all you say makes a lot of sense to me.
I will be happy to assist beta testing the new site - whenever you feel it´s time to get it tested.
How the pages looked so far are kinda like this..
The songs are also listed on the same page..
Hits and downloads, not really important, though those numbers could be used by the "top songs/albums" section on the main page. So While they may be pointless to list them on the album pages, the actual data for it would have to remain in the database anyway, otherwise top songs and albums might stop working.. a problem for another time.. but I think there is just to much info listed and looking cluttered. I did experiment with various layouts but its starting to get a bit complicated with all the scripting which is going on.
A lot of people didn't enter info about their albums or songs or upload any images, so its caused a lot of "broken content". Of course its like that already, but more visible on the new site.
The point I "stopped" at was programming the PLAY buttons etc, thats why they look all odd, I not made up my mind what type/style/size buttons to have yet.
The player actually works, but I need to write the scripts to link the play buttons to loading the song in the player.
There is also huge amounts of work when it comes to the "front page" and the top albums, star ratings, leaving comments, play lists etc.
As said before, The less complicated the site is, the easier it will be to maintain in the future. New feature can always be added over time anyway.
As nobody has uploaded any new songs for along time, is it even worth (at least currently) writing the uploading scripts ?
Dumping content from the database and playing songs shouldn't take to long to setup along with a new site overall. Though the homepage will look pretty bare until the whole thing is finished.
I want to keep the homepage looking similar to how it is now, but I don't know how it lists forum topics on the main page and top articles and things like that. If the site isn't being used much, then a lot of those "features" are a little pointless.
All the site pages and menu's have been ported over and working. Aside from the search functions. But the bulk content is there and looks almost identical to how they do now.
One thing which is a issue relating to content, is the actual database. Really it needs a new one creating. Currently I am re-using the current database and extracting data from it. Though I think a lot of "info" isn't used or just not needed. Though if I kill the current data base and create a new one, theres no turning back. so need to be really careful what I do with it all.
I know the site isn't used much, aside from playing songs. So would people rather have a limited but updatable site, or wait for something which may take years longer to ultimately create ?
The example here is, While there are broken links, pages, and near impossible to make any changes, A new site could go up, basic functional , so people can play songs, and view albums etc, but then the site could be fixed very quick. If a link is broken, or needs updating it could be done in seconds, aside from basically not getting done at all on the current site.
Both sites would remain online until the new site is finished fully, but basically the old site would be disabled from any new uploads or registrations, and likely the forum would have to be closed on the current site but re-opened on the new site. I should be able to clone the forum over, so no posts will be lost, but the forum would look like atari-forum does, so a more familiar layout.