The NinSheetMusic Redesign Suggestion Thread: Site features

[Tobbeh99]

Hmm, are you talking like, when you enter a page it shows you the games and then you click on each game to show its songs? That would actually probably be a great design feature, since as it is now with the games being alphabetical and some games having like the entire 50+ song soundtrack arranged, it's a bit messy and long.

This might be a really good idea, kind of what I've done in my arrangement thread with the games that I've arranged a lot of songs from like Zelda Oracles or Seasons/Ages.

I think that might something to do when the list gets too big, reaches a certain number of sheets, but if it doesn't the I think it remains the same as it is now. I'm saying this because if you have games from a series that doesn't have that many sheets such as pokémon and Zelda, it might look a bit empty with having it tabbed down. 
And final idea might be to have the games show some of the sheets and then having the rest tabbed down. For example Pokémon R/B/Y: showing maybe half the sheets and after that at the bottom having an arrow, which if you click on it will unfold the rest of the sheets. I think this one might be the best idea.

[Altissimo]

I think that might something to do when the list gets too big, reaches a certain number of sheets, but if it doesn't the I think it remains the same as it is now. I'm saying this because if you have games from a series that doesn't have that many sheets such as pokémon and Zelda, it might look a bit empty with having it tabbed down. 
And final idea might be to have the games show some of the sheets and then having the rest tabbed down. For example Pokémon R/B/Y: showing maybe half the sheets and after that at the bottom having an arrow, which if you click on it will unfold the rest of the sheets. I think this one might be the best idea.

I dunno, I feel like that might be confusing to new users who might think that's all the sheets the site has to offer since it's like, there are sheets there, why would there be more you can't see?

[skiaak]

You can click on the game to reveal the sheets, that's what I meant.

[Tobbeh99]

I don't know if I were a bit unclear. I meant as a "show more button", this way you will still be able to see approximately how many sheets there are, such as "oh Pokémon R/B/Y has a lot of songs arranged", but still not take to much space. Because I find it a bit unnecessary if let's say a game only have one song arrange, that you click on the game and then there shows one song only. With my idea you can get a grasp of if there are lot's of sheet for a certain game or if there are only a few arranged, and also save some space, not making the list to big.

[Tobbeh99]

I don't know if any updater or staff-members have seen this, but they've been some discussions about some interesting ideas here and it would be great to hear what the updaters/staff-members have to say about these:

About the series headings, which titles I think should have and not have one:

Should have one:
Kingdom Hearts
Phoenix Write(maybe)

Shouldn't have one:
Harvest Moon
Metal Gear
Dragon Quest(maybe)

*Wright

I love how we have more sheets from the Mother series than Kingdom Hearts and Metal Gear put together.

Anyway, PW needs a new heading much more than KH.
You're probably missing the fact that Apollo Justice and Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth 2 are both AA games (Which PW is a part of). Not to mention that two more AA sheets are approved for the next update.

I think this has been discussed previously but, it would be nice if you could see number of downloads/week ,or whatever that popularity meter shows, when you hold over the popularity bar.

I don't think so. I think most people prefer to have it categorized as series since there such a wast amount of games and different games for each system it seem a bit illogical. And the list wouldn't be much shorter I believe, it would be as long as there are games for that system and songs arranged for that, meaning that NES's list would be very long for example.

And at current state this isn't much of a problem, the only series having maybe to long lists are Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, maybe Pokémon and Other.

One suggestion I have however is that if you click on "sheet music" on the main site you'll see the option of searching for arrangements based on series, arrangers or consoles and below if you want to search for Duets.
I think it would be great if we had this search function implemented on the front page somewhere. I think it would be a better design choice and making it easier if people want to search for those categories.
I've also thought the design on "sheet music" looks a bit poor. The text looks so tiny and then below an entire blank page. The poor design probably has with people not caring much about the subfolders ("sheet music" "About" "FAQ" "Staff").

This might be a really good idea, kind of what I've done in my arrangement thread with the games that I've arranged a lot of songs from like Zelda Oracles or Seasons/Ages.

I think that might something to do when the list gets too big, reaches a certain number of sheets, but if it doesn't the I think it remains the same as it is now. I'm saying this because if you have games from a series that doesn't have that many sheets such as pokémon and Zelda, it might look a bit empty with having it tabbed down. 
And final idea might be to have the games show some of the sheets and then having the rest tabbed down. For example Pokémon R/B/Y: showing maybe half the sheets and after that at the bottom having an arrow, which if you click on it will unfold the rest of the sheets. I think this one might be the best idea.

[Altissimo]

1) Ace Attorney needs its own heading
2) Being able to view the number of downloads would be a terrific thing
3) Each game in a series should have a show/hide option because as it stands some of the pages have like hundreds of sheets and it can be a nightmare to find a given game/song. Especially when they're naturally in alphabetical order which imo is a bit ridiculous

[Latios212]

Good ideas, but unfortunately no one but Jamaha can do any of this for the time being.

[Zunawe]

Knowing it's a bigger task than can likely be completed, the overall layout of the main site could be revised. It's not poorly made by any means, but it feels inefficient. I don't have a ton of experience in UI, but navigating to a specific piece of music just doesn't feel as straightforward as it could be. With over 2500 sheets, a search bar is almost necessary. And though the home page is fairly decent, most of the other pages that aren't lists of sheets feel overwhelmingly empty (i.e. the browse page).

Again, I'm fully aware that this is a big project, but I figured I might as well say something while I was thinking about it.

[Sebastian]

If Jamaha (and/or the staff) is interested, I'd love to help.
I have experience and plenty of time.

[Jamaha]

Good points all around. I've created an Ace Attorney category as it definitely needed its own series. I agree that the current categorizing is rather arbitrary - mostly a remnant from the old days. They were created based on the sheets back then and have remained rather static after that. One problem is the Other category itself, more on that later.

It's not poorly made by any means, but it feels inefficient.

To be fair, I feel it's rather poorly made. The right sidebar is rather pointless. The left sidebar presents a problem with the sheet categories. The Other category is rather nondescriptive. Ideally I would like to have a series for every game and not put any games into the arbitrary Other category. However, with the current layout it would result in a really long list in the sidebar that would be difficult to navigate. Not to mention the fact that it would stretch every page along with it.

Many of these problems can be traced back to me, which is rather unfortunate. It is difficult to find time for NSM with my work and PhD studies and all. Also, one flaw of mine is that I get overly excited about something for a couple of weeks and then completely forget about it. You've probably seen that happen multiple times on NSM. I should find a way to fix that and slowly work on NSM every once in a while.

Now, the challenge is that I'm not an UI designer. If you saw the different measurement software I've written at work, you would agree. So there is the problem of design vs. implementation. I can definitely implement a new UI assuming I can figure out what kind of UI I should implement. One idea I had was to make a topic for brainstorming the new site layout with a mockup I could update based on the suggestions. Once we figure out what the ideal site layout should be, I could then implement that one.

[Altissimo]

\Ideally I would like to have a series for every game and not put any games into the arbitrary Other category. However, with the current layout it would result in a really long list in the sidebar that would be difficult to navigate. Not to mention the fact that it would stretch every page along with it.

Only problem with this is that some games have one game and one sheet, which would make it kind of useless and Serebii levels of ridiculous-to-navigate. Maybe split up the Other category into "GBC games, GBA games, NES games" etc? Just a thought, a placeholder maybe until another solution is found. Oh, you could make every series its own category but games that are not part of a series can be ordered according to the console.

[Tobbeh99]

Only problem with this is that some games have one game and one sheet, which would make it kind of useless and Serebii levels of ridiculous-to-navigate. Maybe split up the Other category into "GBC games, GBA games, NES games" etc? Just a thought, a placeholder maybe until another solution is found. Oh, you could make every series its own category but games that are not part of a series can be ordered according to the console.

I don't know about this, I think the alphabetical order is best for the other section. The problem I think lies in that there are so many games with only like 1 or 2 sheets, and then there are those games which have lots of sheets but there only one game, not a series. But on the contrary Super Mario, Pokémon and Legend of Zelda has equally many sheets if not more.

[Altissimo]

I don't know about this, I think the alphabetical order is best for the other section.

I'm thinking if we keep the Other section as is we should still arrange by series if the series aren't already together alphabetically and have like a separation between "Series" and "Single games", cause I think it's a bit ridiculous that some series (like Ace Attorney before it got moved) are just scattered all over the place.
Really though I don't think anything except the left sidebar should be alphabetical tho

[Zunawe]

One idea I had was to make a topic for brainstorming the new site layout with a mockup I could update based on the suggestions. Once we figure out what the ideal site layout should be, I could then implement that one.

I would support this. The rough ideas I can come up with all seem to have glaring flaws, and getting a dedicated thread for it would definitely make it easier to piece together the best design. (Assuming people have an idea of the work behind certain implementations and what might be impossible)

[Sebastian]

Here is an idea that I think would be a very helpful addition to the submission system:
Could there be a way to submit (along with the musx, mus, pdf, and midi) an original recording of the song like a youtube link or MP3? The original recording wouldn't go on the site, but would be there for the Updaters when reviewing time comes. This would be much easier than posting a youtube link on the thread every time you make a new submission.
Thoughts?