Hey all, just wanted to check in and let you know what I'm currently doing with my time.

There are a couple parts of the site that have proven to be a little bit tougher to perfectly emulate.  The one I'm currently working on is the music page on your profiles.  It's no big deal to enable uploads or put down some privacy controls, but there are a few flaws with the page that actually make it kind of hard to perfectly duplicate.  For example, you can only currently look at download stats on a song that you DON'T own (because that dropdown for joining battles is in the way when you ARE logged in), and anonymous users have the "add to playlist" button, even though they're not logged in.

Altogether, it's just little stuff like that where I think it makes more sense to rejigger it around and smooth off some rough corners, instead of spending time trying to reproduce the oddities that are purely accidental as BandAMP evolved.

I'm going to publish a major milestone Beta sometime later this week.  It'll be missing the battle system (although the ratings themselves will work), but I think that'll be an area best redesigned anyway, and I don't want to do it without your input.  I know TK wrote a good post a while back in the Ideas+Feedback forum about the battle system.

Anyway, I'll continue on this and have an preview posted later this week.

Cheers Tim, looking forwards to checking your beta site out.

So why would you want to duplicate elements that are mistakes in the original? An update is to work these things out is it not ?

But the functions we do need .... even if they have ended up as oddities as the site evolved .

Exciting stuff ..... 

You're absolutely right about mistakes in the original-- I'm simply trying to avoid trying to make up new features or altering existing ones without a good reason.  True mistakes are being corrected, but quirks might need more input on how to fix them, and that's not the phase of development I'm trying to focus on yet.

There are a few things that will probably be omitted in this initial demo, namely:
- the spellchecker
- the stats counter for music downloads
- chat

The spellchecker can be added in easily enough, but it does feel a bit antiquated, particularly since most modern browsers have their own spellchecking solution.  I don't think it's a bad thing to include it before a final release of this update, but for now it's secondary.  The stats counter and chat can be duplicated as well, but they're written in specialized PHP that I need to examine more closely first.

Thanks for taking your time to make our site better 

Thanks

I'm a bit busy running around today, but my goal is to post the initial beta site tonight (Pacific time, the -8 timezone).  I need to visit my massage/chiropractic person and get straightened out before much longer.