So, I thought I'd let you all in on a recent screen-shot of the rewrite site.  I know I've been quiet recently, but don't think that that means I'm not hard at work

This is a summary page of stats on all media types.  The stats are a little sparse for now, but it's a pretty modular system, where we can insert just about anything we want.

Click the link to get the full size image:


A few notes about new site features:
-There are currently 3 types of media, as evidenced by the screen-shot: Music, Lyrics, and Tabs.  We could add more later, but I'm not sure what else we'd add :P

-We've talked about how it'd be nice if multiple people can have credit for "collab" songs, where more than one person helped make the song.  Now, that's a reality.  Each "project" (song, lyric, whatever) can be owned by multiple people.  The exact same project will show up on the profile of anybody who owns it.  You can see on the summary page that there are sometimes more than just 1 "author" to the project.  You're only seeing my test data, but many many people could own a project, not just 1 or 2.

-Users can mark their projects as "in progress", "completed", "dropped".  The classification helps divide up your songs, so that others can easily see what you've been up to.

-You can also mark your projects as "hidden".  Hidden projects are still viewable by the owner(s), but not by other people.  It won't show up in the forums or when other people view your profile.

-You can upload the same project multiple times.  If you want, the site will keep old versions of the media (mostly useful for songs, not lyrics, etc).  When you upload the project for the 2nd time (or 3rd or 4th), you'll "update" the project, instead of cluttering up the place by adding multiple versions of your work-in-progress.  As a side effect, all projects have a "last updated" date.

Here's a sneak peak at a rough "Profile" page for myself.  click to see it full-size:


The project with the gray background is marked hidden, but I can still see it because it's my own profile.

On the todo list next:
-Add back in some good old bandamp functionality, like Biographies, etc
-Work on the Forums.
-Begin work on a new BandAMP skin

later, y'all
TLS

awesome man!
Im so glad to see somethign getting done with this, although the pictures are blocked on my computer.
Can you send em as an attachment to me through my email? (craig123456789@hotmail.com)
Thanks!

go ahead!!!!

wow .. very cool ,  looking forwards to this.. This is still my favorite site.  I am making a big effort to plug back in.. It;s up to us to keep this going by posting new songs and commenting and voting ( I know I was a big slacker lately, just got real busy for awhile).

I know what you mean.. I haven't been interacting with the community at all recently.  Once I get this going, I'll happily contribute more!

I want BandAMP to be even more inviting than it already is.  People need to *want* to keep coming back.  I think if we combined an awesome community with some real progress, we'll start to see improvements.

TheKunadiun is helping out with a new skin for the site, which I've project-named "Clean".

In addition, I'm wanting to add a tool (project)named "Critique" to help make the task of writing reviews much easier and more effective for everyone.  I'll be sure to get some more info posted once I've got some solid ideas in order.

Tim

I can digg it

Sounds good!

Wow.. another major change.. Well I vote all for..

More media could be videos ofcourse... maybe via an embedded function via youtube or googlevideos or some way, as I doubt bandamp server is the best place to host videos. Although if we could somehow pull it off to have bandamp be an allround media host... Hmm

Anyway so far I say Yes ofcourse, a new fresh design, I welcome it!

Videos... I like it!  I hadn't thought of that.  You're right about the AMP servers not being a great place for that initially.  But, perhaps I can at least give the site an interface to integrate YouTube videos without having to deal with YouTube externally.  I'm sure they've got an API available.

Status check: Working on the Forum/Topic/Post structure right now

will there be a beta version of this? any changing to the database?
what will happen to the old stuff?
or will it start with new and empty tables?

You have most definitely put some hard work into it and you have most definitely got some solid ideas.

I really like your glossy buttons, supperfuturistic.
And I think you have some very good ideas concerning the setup and functioning of the site.
So are you 'replacing' the existing bandAmp code with a 'new' forum code?
And updating the new code with the bA database strings?
Way to go TLS!!
Sounds like each song becomes a 'forum' with voting, categorizing, sub-threads (containing songs) and special privileges (like mods are designated by the forum 'admin') for certain members (connected to the song).

So the main forum page has a Music forum, once a visitor enters the music forum would they then get to see three lists of music to listen to  : "in progress", "completed", "dropped" Projects ?

As for more forum tabs, there are so many to choose from...Links, Gallerys, Spamers corner/Adds and all the forums on the existing forums page....Tech Support, Gear Talk etc

Keep up the amazing work......as long as it doesn't cost you your marriage...!
How is married life anyway?  

I've thought about that, TK, but I'm not sure precisely what to do about the old database.  We could import it, but that might bring with it a lot of unused data.  To minimize the clutter when we try to go into the new site, i propose the following idea:

When the site goes live one day, the database will be empty and separate from the existing one.  However, I'll make a tool that users can use to import their old songs/lyrics into the new database.  To them, it'll just be a page where they select an item and wack a button.  Perhaps there can be a checkbox to let the user choose whether they want to have the song's replies moved to the new site as well.

Once I get this thing operational, we can put it in a beta domain of the current site.  We'll want a good little bit of testing before we start messing with migrating data.



I hadn't thought about a division quite like that, but I like the idea a lot.  I'll see what I can do.  I'm glad you said that before I got too much further in the site creation.  An excellent idea.

And yes, I'll of course add in some more tabs as I get around to them.  "Chat" and "Battle", although in my screenshots, don't do anything yet :P

I can help out with any programming you need help with.
I am currently working as a web developer for TD Bank.
Tonnes of experience.

Please see this:

http://forum.bandamp.com/Feedback/14472.html

Man this looks quite good!!Good job!!!