Popular Artists feature added to home page
Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Site News, Newbies, Help and Improvements
Forum Name: Internal news
Forum Description: Stay informed about the latest updates regarding the site
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=55437
Printed Date: May 16 2024 at 01:04
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 11.01 - http://www.webwizforums.com
Topic: Popular Artists feature added to home page
Posted By: Desoc
Subject: Popular Artists feature added to home page
Date Posted: February 09 2009 at 04:46
| Cool new Popular Artists feature on the frontpage. Are the bands listed chosen by some sort of mathematical equation, or just randomly hand-picked? |
Replies:
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: February 09 2009 at 16:05
|
As today I renamed it to POPULAR SEARCHES and it's dased on the searches made on the insite search engine order by number of times theses queries are made. Any suggestions regarding it ? ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: ClemofNazareth
Date Posted: February 09 2009 at 16:51
Why yes mailto:M@x - M@x , thanks for asking. http://www.progarchives.com/google-search-results.asp?domains=www.progarchives.com&q=ClemofNazareth&sitesearch=www.progarchives.com&client=pub-0447992028883143&forid=1&ie=ISO-8859-1&oe=ISO-8859-1&cof=GALT%3A%23b22222%3BGL%3A1%3BDIV%3A%23336699%3BVLC%3Apurple%3BAH%3Acenter%3BBGC%3AFFFFFF%3BLBGC%3A336699%3BALC%3A0000FF%3BLC%3A663399%3BT%3A000000%3BGFNT%3AFF9E10%3BGIMP%3A0000FF%3BFORID%3A11&hl=en - ClemofNazareth should be one of the popular searches.
 ------------- "Peace is the only battle worth waging." Albert Camus |
M@X wrote:Posted By: debrewguy
Date Posted: February 09 2009 at 18:36
As I've just sent off the Nick Barrett interview questions, I suppose I could email a mention of the appearance of this little group called Pendragon appearing amongst them. But I wouldn't want to get caught if perchance by the time he comes to our site that Pendragon has fallen off the list !
------------- "Here I am talking to some of the smartest people in the world and I didn't even notice, Lieutenant Columbo, episode The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case. |
Posted By: darkshade
Date Posted: February 09 2009 at 19:49
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i guess this would resolve all the "most popular band/artist on this site" threads and related. I thought Yes beat out Genesis but i guess not. funny how new Miles Davis is to this site and he JUST made the list ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/MysticBoogy" rel="nofollow - My Last.fm 
|
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: February 10 2009 at 12:51
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Ok , based on this discussion , i changed this to POPULAR ARTIST based on the last 30 days most viewed artist page. I will create another widget for the popular search. Thanks guys , hope this tool helps ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: Queen By-Tor
Date Posted: February 10 2009 at 13:36
Cool! Nice one M@X  It might also be cool to have 5 random artists on the front page so that the more obscure bands get to spend some time in the spotlight. That might be neat as well. |
Posted By: Easy Livin
Date Posted: February 10 2009 at 14:41
|
...and what do we think of the revised layout of the reviews?
Personally, I rather miss the album name and artist being shown above the review. I find myself reading the review and wondering which album it is about.
Other thoughts?
|
Posted By: Queen By-Tor
Date Posted: February 10 2009 at 14:47
| Likewise, although I really do like being able to navigate strait to the artist page rather than having to go through the album page first. |
Posted By: The Quiet One
Date Posted: February 10 2009 at 15:01
| ^Definitely! |
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: February 10 2009 at 16:02
|
Ok , I will look into option to bring the title and band name over the review. thanks for commenting ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: Windhawk
Date Posted: February 10 2009 at 16:07
Agree. Something along the lines of "Have you heard of these artists" as a descriptor, with a random 5 chosen among the 85% least visited band pages perhaps? What do others think? ------------- Websites I work with: http://www.progressor.net http://www.houseofprog.com My profile on Mixcloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/haukevind/ |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: February 10 2009 at 16:12
exactly my thoughts! |
Posted By: Raff
Date Posted: February 10 2009 at 16:16
Seconded . I'd rather see the old layout back, but if it's not possible, we'll survive.... |
Posted By: Epignosis
Date Posted: February 10 2009 at 16:40
Yup. ------------- https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays" rel="nofollow - https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays |
Posted By: Queen By-Tor
Date Posted: February 10 2009 at 17:12
| How about the old layout with separate links for Album and artist? |
Posted By: debrewguy
Date Posted: February 10 2009 at 17:52
You mean they're in actual order of preference. I was hoping that it was just random order for the top 30. Or do we prepare for the inevitable " this can't be a real/ fair / true representation" thread such as the top 100 lists and weighting issues debates. ------------- "Here I am talking to some of the smartest people in the world and I didn't even notice, Lieutenant Columbo, episode The Bye-Bye Sky-High I.Q. Murder Case. |
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 00:07
|
While trying to bring the BAND and CD Name over the front page each reviewsI realize that placing the cover bigger with the album and title name below only AND placing the reviewer name below the text drive more attention to the cover (nice prog cover) and invite us to read all the reviews , instead of filtering the BAND and REVIEWER we already know.. Opinion on this before i continue tweaking the layout ? Thanks ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: Desoc
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 01:39
I agree that there should be a "headline" to the review. But the way the information now is presented under the album cover is great, imo. And it's an improvement that the links to the album and the artist are separated. |
Posted By: Queen By-Tor
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 01:42
Maybe have the album name as the headline and have the artist name under the cover? I dunno, it could be interesting |
Posted By: Queen By-Tor
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 01:46
Oh - just checked out the front page and saw what you were talking about, M@X. Looks good! I think that some of the covers are going to need to be updated so that they don't look so... er... grotesque  , but it looks good otherwise.  |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 02:04
This is an interesting new feature, and it has both a good side and a bad side. It is indeed more attractive for those new to prog or new to ProgArchives. However, I have been using PA for about three years now and I have come to understand the ways of various types of reviewers. This is why I don't feel like consuming a lot of time reading random reviews which attract me by visual means. I always look at the new reviews and pick the ones which are written by reviewers I trust and/or written on albums I'm interested in. Becase of this reading habit of mine, it's tiring now for me to look at the upper right corner for the album name and at the lowwer left corner for the reviewer name, in order to decide whether I'm going to read this review or not. Before, it was easier: the band, album and reviewer names were all at the beginning of the review. |
Posted By: UMUR
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 04:20
| I agree with Swan Song here. The band, album and reviewer name in the beginning of the review looks better and gives you the info you need faster. The new feature where artist and album name is seperated is great though. A much needed and wanted feature. |
Posted By: Finnforest
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 05:16
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I'm with UMUR, put the info back at the beginning of the review. IMO.
------------- |
Posted By: LinusW
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 05:46
Yes. |
Posted By: kenethlevine
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 08:51
I agree with Finn 
|
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 09:57
|
Ok guys, thanks for the comments, greatly appreciated. I'll work this out today to add the header of the review back with the Reviewer name + Album/Artist Name ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 12:45
What do you think now guys ?
------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: Epignosis
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 12:52
|
I'd say the front page looks great. My only complaint would be not having the reviewer's avatar visible (as we used to have) on at least the actual album's page. I often try to scroll to certain individuals' review of a given album, and having the avatar present always made it quick and easy to locate. Other than that- great job. ------------- https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays" rel="nofollow - https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays |
Posted By: Queen By-Tor
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 12:54
|
Looks good! Although to be nitpicky I think it would look better if the artist name was a bit bigger and maybe it said "By" behind it, so "By Ayreon" or something of the like. And maybe have the overall rating of the album a bit larger. I do like that the review count is next to the rating now though! My opinion, anyways |
Posted By: Epignosis
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 12:56
|
Oh M@X, there's also this. http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=55499 - http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=55499 I hope I'm not being perceived as disgruntled.  ------------- https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays" rel="nofollow - https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays |
Posted By: UMUR
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 14:05
| I think the frontpage reviews look really good now. I have to agree with Epignosis that I miss the avatars on the album reviews page though. |
Posted By: Epignosis
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 14:17
|
M@X answered this, but I think he did so in the wrong thread (since my thread was about displaying the ratings of the albums in the top 20 for each subgenre). Here is what he said about avatars:
------------- https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays" rel="nofollow - https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays |
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 14:19
|
I will try to find a way to load the avatar without affecting the loading times of the main content. I'll try to load the avatar after the page is loaded.. To be continued... ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: Epignosis
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 14:21
Don't go to any trouble, buddy. It's not that big a deal to me, especially if it's a bandwidth issue. I'm far more interested in the "ratings at a glance" feature. ------------- https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays" rel="nofollow - https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays |
Posted By: Easy Livin
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 14:49
|
Thanks mailto:M@x - M@x , good to see the heading back.
As suggested, the inclusion of the word "by" between the title and the artist would be good.
Personally, I would not want to see reviewer avatars on the album pages, they confuse things. Leave the avatars to the forum.
|
Posted By: Finnforest
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 14:49
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I think the avatars on the front page are really a nice touch, but if there's a loading speed issue I can understand that.
Otherwise lookin' good. ------------- |
Posted By: UMUR
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 15:37
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Avatars on the frontpage isnīt a good idea IMO. They take away your attention from the cover of the album. Avatars on the albums individual page is another issue completely. That feature is great IMO and as Epignosis pointed out it helps you to quickly find a review by a certain reviewer. I forgot to mention that I really enjoy the new popular artists feature on the frontpage. Great work. |
Posted By: Finnforest
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 16:27
|
I like the Avatars but they can be smaller than the album. Some of the ones there now are HUGE! As far as review layouts go, I really thought the old layout was perfect. ------------- |
Posted By: Henry Plainview
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 16:34
|
I like the update, however, there needs to be a way to edit the album art, especially with this new display. Some of them have horrible resolution, and while I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be willing to spend two seconds fixing it for the artists they like, there is no way for them to.
mailto:M@X - M@X , are there any plans to change in the near future the way reviews are displayed on album pages? I liked the old way much more, the new one marginalizes normal members' reviews too much. ------------- if you own a sodastream i hate you |
Posted By: Raff
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 16:46
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I have to agree with those who said the old layout was perfect... If possible, bring it back, please!
|
Posted By: Tuzvihar
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 17:39
That's why there's the Errors & Omissions Team. At your service, Sir!  BTW, I really like it now! ------------- "Music is much like f**king, but some composers can't climax and others climax too often, leaving themselves and the listener jaded and spent." Charles Bukowski |
Posted By: Windhawk
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 17:59
|
I've updated hundreds of covers over the past few months - some more ppl helping out with that chore is much appreciated. Still loads of cover art here in tiny (100x100 pixels) resolution.
------------- Websites I work with: http://www.progressor.net http://www.houseofprog.com My profile on Mixcloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/haukevind/ |
Posted By: The Quiet One
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 18:11
| Not sure if it's been mentioned yet, but the 'stars' rating in each album are gone :( (not when reviewing) Is that going to be permanent? |
Posted By: Finnforest
Date Posted: February 11 2009 at 18:45
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Are you guys seeing the hugely oversized avatars on some reviews on the front page??? Or is my browser insane?
------------- |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 01:38
|
At this moment PA is looking wonderful at this end of the line - thanks M@x!
|
Posted By: Easy Livin
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 02:50
| Overall I like the changes, but I do feel showing the member's avatar in the review causes confusion, especially when that avatar is the sleeve of a different album. |
Posted By: Henry Plainview
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 02:57
It's not just your browser. I'm not sure why Max doesn't put a hard limit on the size of uploaded avatars, it would make that problem less noticeable when it breaks out and would save him bandwidth.
Oh, ok, is there a thread I can post in somewhere? ------------- if you own a sodastream i hate you |
Posted By: Rivertree
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 05:02
http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=36282 - you should use this one in the 'report errors & omissions here' section ------------- https://awesomeprog.com/users/Rivertree" rel="nofollow">  |
Posted By: UMUR
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 09:04
| Exactly my point Bob. The avatars take away the attention from the cover art and especially brings confusion when the avatar is another album cover. |
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 09:59
Windhawk you've done so far a HELL OF A JOB !!!! Really appreciated. ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 10:17
I liked it better with the reviewers' avatars on the homepage, but also I can accept that for newcommers it may have been confusing, especialyy in the case of cover-art-based avatars. |
Posted By: darkshade
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 10:24
agreed. ------------- http://www.last.fm/user/MysticBoogy" rel="nofollow - My Last.fm
|
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 10:29
|
I also agree that for now Avatar are a distraction from the reviews in the homepage and will be removed. Kept in the album pages though .... ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: Windhawk
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 10:55
Thanks :-) ------------- Websites I work with: http://www.progressor.net http://www.houseofprog.com My profile on Mixcloud: https://www.mixcloud.com/haukevind/ |
Posted By: Finnforest
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 11:49
|
Just my opinion, but I feel the reviews should stay at the top, not be pushed down by anything that was formerly in the "right" column. I would even move the sound samples below the reviews, but that's just because to me the reviews are the number one feature, as a user.
Also I notice the Avatar issue was not present at work this morning, meaning it wasn't present on IE, but it was screwed up on Firefox. ------------- |
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 11:53
|
Good suggestion Finnforest ! I moved the news and shows to the bottom of the front page. ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: UMUR
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 13:27
| I think everything looks beautiful now. Frontpage looks great and album review pages looks great too. A real treat. |
Posted By: Easy Livin
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 14:41
| Thanks for all the work mailto:M@x - M@x , and for listening as usual!! |
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 15:59
|
Thanks to you guys for bringing constructive comments. PS: What do you think of the SPEAKER in the reviews now ? ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: Epignosis
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 16:06
Just when you almost started to feel this site couldn't get any better... ------------- https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays" rel="nofollow - https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays |
Posted By: Queen By-Tor
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 16:07
|
Too cool, M@X! Non invasive and it lets you explore the artist faster. Excellent! (now how do we get one of those for interviews that have audio content attached to them?  ) |
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 16:10
Audio Interviews needs to be added as regular mp3. Like AYREON & others... ?? ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: The Quiet One
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 16:26
|
Wow! The speakers are great! Excellent idea M@X!! EDIT: I know this is not the reporting thread, but as we are on topic, King Crimson's review/s appear with the speaker but really don't have mp3's, as far as I'm concerned. |
Posted By: Epignosis
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 16:38
I'm afraid you'll have to contact Mr. Fripp on that one, Pablo. ------------- https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays" rel="nofollow - https://epignosis.bandcamp.com/album/a-month-of-sundays |
Posted By: The Quiet One
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 16:43
| ^No man, I know the copyright thingy, but bands that don't have mp3's the speaker doesn't show, that's what I'm reffering. |
Posted By: Queen By-Tor
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 17:05
I mean - is there a chance to have one of those speakers for each artist we interview? Bring up the audio content so that you can chill and listen to the artist while reading the interview, or for the few that have an audio interview, listen and read along - or something like that. |
Posted By: Finnforest
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 19:27
Max, not to be too demanding today, but since you asked I think the speakers are best left inside the artist page for one reason. I notice that the tracks available will often not be tracks from the album being reviewed, thus, a noob who doesn't know the artist may click on the song and think they are hearing something from that album. As we all know album quality varies wildly between albums. (I realize the album cover is shown in the pop-up but not everyone will notice) I think if the track was married to the album being reviewed it would be OK, but as it is now you could have a 5 star track present for one of the worst titles from the artist, giving a Noob the impression he was hearing that, assuming he's not bright enough to figure it out. But I realize how much work that would likely be, so feel free to ignore You said you like feedback, right??? ------------- |
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: February 12 2009 at 23:04
|
Finn, I also want to promote the player since it's under-use according to my web logs. It's a nice feature and I also bare that in mind while adding it. I think we should give a try for some days.... ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: harmonium.ro
Date Posted: February 13 2009 at 01:40
|
I agree with M@x about the player, it's a great asset to any site, actually I've been trying to implement it on my future site/blog but as I'm a coding illiterate I crashed trying to read various tutorials |
Posted By: Petrovsk Mizinski
Date Posted: February 13 2009 at 01:43
| Kinda cool feature I guess, if something I'll never use really. |
Posted By: UMUR
Date Posted: February 13 2009 at 04:01
| I like the new speaker feature, but agree with Finnforest that it should link to samples from the album thatīs reviewed and not to songs from other albums by the artist. |
Posted By: Pekka
Date Posted: February 14 2009 at 05:10
|
Since we're on the topic of the front page I'll make this question here. Is it possible to bring back the Prog News, Press Releases area to the Forum New Topics window? If there are to be only three forums displayed like there is now, I think the news section should be more importat than the interviews. edit: Oh, now I scrolled it all the way to the bottom, and there it is. Well, I think it was better up there with Lounge, Polls and Interviews. Now it seems kind of hidden under everything else. Hard to find if you don't miss it and search for it. ------------- http://www.progarchives.com/album.asp?id=42652" rel="nofollow - It's on PA! 
|
Posted By: M@X
Date Posted: March 25 2009 at 03:38
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Ok , i've changed the POPULAR ARTIST mechanism and it's now pretty LIVE, I mean it is based on the previous day data. So basically , it's showing the TOP 40 artists with most page viewed the day before today. Please comments. ------------- Prog On ! |
Posted By: Diaby
Date Posted: March 25 2009 at 15:04
Very cool, mailto:M@x - M@x ! The site is improving day by day, it's a fantastic feeling to belong here!  ------------- yeah |