The NinSheetMusic Redesign Suggestion Thread: Site features

[MaestroUGC]

Change is coming, my children.

Maybe...

I'm all for a rating system, but I think we should have two. A User based system, and a system where the arrangers and uploaders take a critical look at the sheet and give a suggested proficiency rating, with some indications as to what techniques are employed. (Fast runs, octaves, jumping chords, multiple lines in a single hand, etc...) The latter wouldn't be a star system like the User based one, but more akin to film rating, where it tells you what to expect in the sheet.

[BlackDragonSlayer]

I think Maestro's idea is a wonderful compromise, as it gives the best of both worlds (and is quite similar to other review websites).

[SlowPokemon]

Ahhh, sort of like Rotten Tomatoes' "users" and "critics" option?

[MaestroUGC]

Essentially.

[K-NiGhT]

What about forum members only boards? Things that guests can't normally access?

[JDMEK5]

Frankly, I think that idea sucks. You're going to have people who have been playing for ten years rate it easy and noobs rating it super hard. We as a community should decide the difficult level.

Piano grades 1-2: One star
Piano grades 3-4: Two stars
Piano grades 5-6: Three stars
Piano grades 7-9: Four stars
Piano grades 10-ARCT: Five stars

How's that? That seems like a pretty unbiased system due to different abilities around the table.

As for original ideas, a lot of people seem to use Sibelius. It would be nice to figure out some kind of way to let them in too without breaking program consistency, but I'm at a loss as to how we could do that.

[KefkaticFanatic]

I would say difficulty is still relative to some extent so I don't see any point in rating song difficulties unless you start allowing multiple versions of songs so that there are "easy" or "hard" arrangements of the same piece.  Somebody at any level should be able to determine how difficult it is for them by just looking at it.  Perhaps it has merit in that you could sort by difficulty, but I don't think you're ever going to have a very accurate rating.

In terms of overall site design, you could just use something like JQuery UI if you wanted a low effort way of getting a moderately nice design down.  That way you can easily implement sorting and give the pages a slightly more modern look...
For archive see: http://www.datatables.net/

I've done tiny bits of web design (JS, JQuery, Dojo) so I might be able to help there if I have time..  Not much database work though so eh.

Allowing for sheets to have their own pages is one thought, so that comments could be left with feedback, videos, etc.  A way to avoid abuse and perhaps promote the community would be to require a forum account to post any comments.

[JDMEK5]

A way to avoid abuse and perhaps promote the community would be to require a forum account to post any comments.

I like the sound of that.

Allowing for sheets to have their own pages is one thought, so that comments could be left with feedback, videos, etc.

We should have a spot for each song so people can post videos of themselves playing said song.

[Onionleaf]

While I have to agree that adding a rating to each and every sheet would have many complications, adding a Download count/number of views might be an alternative or an extra option. Sometimes it is helpful to see what sheets are better when ranking them by popularity (so this could be part of the Search feature). Since there are three different links (PDF, MUS, MIDI), maybe they could be accumulated into one count?

[Jamaha]

In terms of overall site design, you could just use something like JQuery UI if you wanted a low effort way of getting a moderately nice design down.  That way you can easily implement sorting and give the pages a slightly more modern look...
For archive see: http://www.datatables.net/

Hm, looks promising. Thanks for the links.

Allowing for sheets to have their own pages is one thought, so that comments could be left with feedback, videos, etc.  A way to avoid abuse and perhaps promote the community would be to require a forum account to post any comments.

Yes, that would be the plan.

Also the idea is to require the forum account for pretty much everything, except browsing and downloading sheets. Submitting sheets, comments or videos would be managed via the forum account so we can just use the forum's account system.

[Jamaha]

Focus Suggestions: Sheet archive!

Time to get some ideas on specific parts of the site. The most important one (not counting the uploader) is probably the archive itself.

So: What information would you like a sheet to contain? How do you want to browse and sort the archive? Things like this. Discuss.

[SlowPokemon]

A bit off topic, but is there a link to the free download of Finale Notepad on the main site? Might be helpful to people who don't know how to open mus files.

[JDMEK5]

^We need that.

And maybe a search box? I know you can just use Ctrl+F but not everyone does.

Games of a franchise should be listed in chronological order? As opposed to alphabetical.

This would be the time to say "Let's add the Guitar Section!" but.... You know, I'm going to revive that.

[The Deku Trombonist]

Being able to sort by console as well as series/franchise would be cool. We probably should expand our series list to include Pikmin, Professor Layton etc too but I guess that'll come with the new uploader.

Having little banners to click on when sorting by console/series would be really neat too (a bit like what they have on rpgmusic.org, except prettier and probably larger).

I'm not so sure about chronological order. Perhaps as an additional option, but I can't imagine that everyone will know the order of the entire franchise they're browsing.

A bit off topic, but is there a link to the free download of Finale Notepad on the main site? Might be helpful to people who don't know how to open mus files.

Yeah, that'd be handy. Can this be added to the Help page, JaMaHa?

[Jamaha]

There's a link to Finale Reader (which redirects to Notepad) twice on the help page. Guess I could update it to actually saying Notepad though.