Young Composers Roadmap - August 2006 Onwards

Young Composers Roadmap - August 2006 Onwards

Soon, Young Composers will undergo a series of major changes, the most significant being that we plan to switch forum software from Invision Power Board to vBulletin. Alongside this change sit the other two planned major changes: the introduction of music management software, and the introduction of social networking software.

In order to help give members a feel that they are involved in this ongoing process, as well as to keep everyone up to date on where progress stands, a roadmap with a list of changes or new features planned for the site will be maintained below. As and when new features on the roadmap are implemented, the appropriate entry/entries in the list will turn green. If a feature is put on hold or we are experiencing difficulties in implementing it, the entry will instead turn orange. If a feature gets scrapped altogether, the entry will turn red.

[P] prefixed to an entry indicates that this feature is being considered as a possibility only.

Without further ado, here is the roadmap:

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Overall Status

Forum software conversion complete. Now planning introduction of social networking software (plus friendly URLs for forum).

Planned Changes

• 
  
• New forum software (vBulletin)
  • AJAX (realtime) shoutbox
    
  • Custom profile field for Skype name
  • 
    
  • "Orphaned thread" system which highlights music posted in the forum that does not appear to have received much attention
    
  • Friendly URLs

• Music management system (software package not yet fully decided upon. Note that in order to upload digital audio files such as MP3s to this system, you may required to pay a small subscription fee which will act to offset the added cost your music's presence will bring about)
  • Ability to upload MP3s and other files in digital audio format
    
  • Friendly URLs for presentable and easily-accessible user pages (e.g. youngcomposers.com/music/users/Mike)
    
  • Ability to add comments etc. to posted music

• Social networking software (custom designed)
  
  • Maintain a MySpace-like personal page with information about you, links to your music etc.
    
  • Buddy system
    
  • Create bulletins when you post new music to attract attention to it
    
  • One-to-one realtime IM contact with another member
    
  • [P] Blog system

• Other
  • Site-wide authentication - one account signup will grant member access to the whole site

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Probably the one feature that will take the longest to roll out is site-wide authentication, meaning in laymen's terms that once you log into one piece of software, you should remain logged in to every other piece of software as you browse around the site. This may not actually even be entirely possible in the end, but rest assured that we will work hard at achieving it.

There will also be new specific bugs forums added which members may use to report any issues they encounter; an inevitability taking into account the magnitude of the planned changes.

New entries will likely be added to the roadmap as and when we get a clearer idea of exactly what there is to achieve.

Hope you like what you see, and of course don't hesitate to ask for any extra features you think are missing to be added to the roadmap. Please remember to be patient regarding progress though! Things like this, especially when done properly, take a lot of time and effort. Finally, any members possessing expertise applicable to the plans are encouraged to offer their services, as having an extra hand around never hurts. Specifically, we are looking for anyone with digital image manipulation skills (e.g. the ability to adjust the hue/saturation of GIF files in Photoshop, and specifically the ability to batch process or batch edit files).

I should have been clearer: hopefully everyone will have the ability to upload MIDIs, Sibelius/Finale files etc. to the new music management system, but digital audio files like MP3s may only be uploadable to subscribers.

Our system should be superior to Soundclick or any other free provider out there because it will be more presentable, what with the friendly URLs, links to your pages elsewhere on the site, etc. The fee should only be relatively small amount, by the way. And who knows, we may end up not needing to charge anything anyway.

:shifty:

Oh wow oh wow oh wow oh wow......!!

Small change: I've edited my previous post in which I gave a specific estimate of what an example subscription fee might cost, and replaced that phrase with simply "a relatively small amount", which should hold true no matter what happens. The reason for the change is that Michael doesn't want to make any promises or give the wrong impression at this stage, which is understandable.

I should have been clearer: hopefully everyone will have the ability to upload MIDIs, Sibelius/Finale files etc. to the new music management system, but digital audio files like MP3s may only be uploadable to subscribers.

Other then the ablility to upload Mp3s to the site, what other "privleges" does a subscription buy, if any?

Or, are there going to be other features or areas of the site that require the member to pay?

Other then the ablility to upload Mp3s to the site, what other "privleges" does a subscription buy, if any?

We'll definitely throw some extra incentives in with the package. Possibly things like extra storage space, a fancy title beneath your name, access to subscribers forums, etc.

Or, are there going to be other features or areas of the site that require the member to pay?

No, I believe this would be the only new feature for which you would be required to pay, as it's the only one that is foreseeably going to cause us to incur significant extra costs.

PAY to upload music .MP3

man where is this community heading...

PAY to upload music .MP3

man where is this community heading...

The space/bandwidth required would be too great for the forum to make up for any other means of gaining money. Hardly anyone donates, it seems. While it may seem harsh, it's for the best. Pay to upload a bunch of MP3s, and you'll make sure that the bandwidth required is covered. Otherwise, it's possible that the forum could acquire a sizeable debt.

Looking very gooooood !!! I got all exited now !!

I'm sure that I will be canceling my soundclick subscription for this one.

I wished that I could be any help regardig the graphics. I am very good at photoshop and graphic design, but I am in the middle of a very difficult composing period since I am trying to finish my master degree. But anyway if there is something that I can do, which will not take too much time, ex: small logos or manipulations on graphics, I am willing to do it.

I don't actually need any help with graphics for now at least as I've all but finished the new skin - something I certainly didn't expect to achieve within a day of receiving the software, and also something that I believe can be put down to just how efficient vB's skinning system is.

And, with that, here are some tasters:

http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/style_images/vbindex.png

http://www.youngcomposers.com/forum/style_...es/vbthread.png

First image is the new board index, second is an example thread (with some actual posts from this thread included to simulate what it might be like). As you can see, I've based the colours largely on the Light theme we have at the moment. I'm hoping that by using more contrasting shades, the on-screen text will be rendered more legible than it is at the moment.

There are still a few more things to sort out, but the finished product will definitely look like something a lot like this.

Well, I didnt like the colors so much. In fact I dont like the current ones either. I was hoping that it will be something different. It's kind of dull. I would advise some different colors in there instead of the same tones of brown.

Could you suggest specific colours?

Primarily, we want to remain unique. Most other sites use the classic colours like blues, greens etc. Our colour scheme is quite distinctive.

EDIT: And of course there will be a skin selector, as Daniel says below.

There will be different skins to choose from, I'm sure.

Excellent work, Mike :blush: Looking great. (despite certain inherent uglinesses that are a part of VB)

Yes I agree that this sites colors are distinct than other forms. It's just that it is built on only one color that makes it boring after a while.

If you want to keep this brown look of the site than it might be more interesting to put more colors to the edges, borders, and other elements. You might also completely re do the main banner with manuscript paper, piano and pen, to be more relevant, and make them with color dont make it exactly the same as the whole site.

My suggestions to contrast with brown would be: This , This or maybe THIS

these are just my suggestions but I realy do think that you need more colors.

Brown and purple? :blush: I'm no designer but that sounds like a losing combination to me.

If you look around, forum skins (and often websites in general) are primarily based around one colour. vBulletin and IPB are both based around blue, for example. It's rare that you get a truly multi-coloured design as normally people just seem to use different shades, which is what I've done.

I didnt mean to put different color all over the place. I just meant that it is too much of a same color. It looks like this is not bothering you.

Yes brown and some tones of purple will go well, if you can put them nicely. You could put purple to thin borders for example, or some of the text.

I really like this PopOrange I'm using. Bright where it needs to be, and soft everywhere else. My suggestion would just be to make a few skins with a hot color, like orange or red, that are basic and not too involved.

The Nightfly, I've tried experimenting by adding some purple and I'm really not feeling it... Where exactly in the skin would you suggest adding purple?

Forget purple, I cannot be specific without experimenting myself. That color was only a suggestion. My only point is that to put some colors in there. I suggested that you introduce colors in small places, like borders of things, 1px lines not thick. But I really cannot be specific without experimenting.

Ah, someone else who relies heavily on their intuition. :)

I'm probably not in the best position to judge just how friendly this skin is, because I've been staring at it for...more hours than humans should stare at things. But tomorrow, when it looks fresher before my eyes, I'll try to introduce more colour like you suggested.

Ok man, thanks for listening to my suggestions.

I wish you good luck at working this out.

Hmm. I still think the classic YC colours should stay as at least an option.

You know, I probably would have said the same thing as you 10 minutes ago, Daniel, but I had the brainwave of turning every quill in some of vBulletin's buttons purple and it actually does seem to work up against the brown. No way would I have believed purple went with brown unless The Nightfly had specifically told me.

I think a version with some purples in it will actually be superior to the old one.

Interesting. I'll have to see that.

While we're on the topic.... is there anything that can be done about those hideous buttons? :)

Like the Edit and Quote ones in the thread you showed us.

Ach I suppose I'll get used to them.

Also - does the member information stuff have to be aligned to the right in threads?

Also - does the member information stuff have to be aligned to the right in threads?

Hmm, I hadn't considered that. On reflection, it would seem to be remarkably stupid positioning.

I can't seem to isolate where it is in the templates at the moment though. Maybe some time tomorrow.