With the help of Figgy, we updated the looks of the site to be more eye-pleasing. I started this site as a hobby but since Lotro-Music is shutting down I'm interested in taking it further.
As it stands now it:
Has a download cart to making mass downloading of multiple songs easy.
Allows members to easily add more songs directly into the listings.
Has a ratings system
Tracks files that you have downloaded so you know which ones you have and don't already have.
Has a Get MIDI function so you can listen to the part out of game so you can see if you like it before you download it.
Can sort by Artist, Song, # of parts, Date Added, Songs you have not downloaded, author, rating, or videos.
Ability to embed YouTube and Vimeo videos directly in the song's page so you can see and hear what multiple parts sound like before downloading.
Handling of multipart songs
ABC Tutorials
Ability for authors to Edit the songs they have posted to the site
Broken songs separation
Comments system
Email notifications
Coming Soon (Real soon): This list was getting too long and I'm not sure what exactly I'm gonna work on next.. Please check the home page often as I will post updates there.
Please note, the site is built for FireFox, Opera, and IE7+. The site makes heavy use of transparent PNG images. IE6 will display the transparent parts of PNG images as a white box. So, if the images looked like **** and you just assumed thats how they where, its not; please get on board with the 21st century and download a modern browser.
Recommended Browsers: (In order from best to worst) Download FireFox 3 Beta 5
New rendering engine that is faster than IE7 and is compatible with almost every site out there. No apparent bugs that I have noticed yet.
Download Opera 9.5 Beta 1
The fastest browser I have ever used but its got a few bugs and some wierd display quirks on some websites. The only one that afflicts TheFatLute.com is when you click GetMIDI it names the file 'ViewSong.html' so you would have to rename it with .mid for it to play.
*The current, non-beta version (9.01) of Opera is approx. the same speed as FireFox
Download FireFox 2.0
Will lock up for a few seconds while loading the SongBook page because of a slow rendering engine.
Your input please? I'm open to anything. I'll update this page as suggestions come in or I accomplish anything.
Thanks,
-The Fat Lute team (lol.. if you can call it that.. More like a duo.. Figgy and myself.. If we get a lot of community support we can call it a team)
Seems promising, but I have to say, I dislike having to sign up for new things..
I agree with you, but for 90% of the things I have planned for this site I need to be able to track who has downloaded what. You are still able to view the songs and could copy and paste the text into a file manually, but for the download cart option, I need to be able to track them.
However, I did try to make signup as non intrusive as possible. Heck, I don't even verify that the email address field is an email.. You 'could' type IlikeGoats in there and it would be fine.. I just suggest an email so that if you ever forget your password it can be reset. Also, I promise never to sell the email list to spammers or to email you without you asking to be emailed.
I change the song listing layout.. Should load much faster (especially in IE7) (size of the text part of the page was cut back from ~250KB to ~67KB) not to mention being MUCH, MUCH, MUCH easier to read..
*If you visited the site recently and the songs list does not appear in a table like layout please hit the Refresh button on your browser so it clears the old stylesheet from your cache.
I have a number of songs longer than 20,000 characters.
That's your limit.
...just sayin'...
sigh.. Didnt think I would ever run into that problem.. Lol, and it sucks cause thats a hard rework of the site.. Could you PM me the song text so I can use it for testing while I up the limit please.
sigh.. Didnt think I would ever run into that problem.. Lol, and it sucks cause thats a hard rework of the site.. Could you PM me the song text so I can use it for testing while I up the limit please.
Nevermind.. I got it updated.. 40,000 is now the max characters.. Hopefully that will do.. If not.... Sigh.. Let me know..
EDIT: Btw, I'm quite happy you're on my site, Cranberry. I love your work! You prolly already knew that though as I have personally added a few of the songs you transcribed myself when I had started the site.. Whenever I come across one that you transcribed but I added, I change it so it looks like it was added by you.
That goes for anyone else that finds a song that I bummed, just lemme know which one and I'll change it in the back-end to appear as though you had added it..
At first I was annoyed at the idea of a new site. I'd gotten into the (lazy) habit of sitting back and doing nothing while Giddily simply takes whatever we post here in this thread and puts it up on lotro-music.com. I mean hey -- what could be easier than doing nothing, right?
But turns out that your site is really a breeze. I appreciate that, really. I don't share everything I make. But those I'm willing to share I'll happily upload to the Fat Lute.
And since you asked: both Dire Straits "Romeo and Juliet" and Lucio Battisti "La Canzone del Sole" are more than 20k characters.
At first I was annoyed at the idea of a new site. I'd gotten into the (lazy) habit of sitting back and doing nothing while Giddily simply takes whatever we post here in this thread and puts it up on lotro-music.com. I mean hey -- what could be easier than doing nothing, right?
But turns out that your site is really a breeze. I appreciate that, really. I don't share everything I make. But those I'm willing to share I'll happily upload to the Fat Lute.
And since you asked: both Dire Straits "Romeo and Juliet" and Lucio Battisti "La Canzone del Sole" are more than 20k characters.
Well, I'm certainly happy to hear from you that the interface is easy enough to you.. I am especially interested in having the Add Song interface as ergonomic as possible.. You just added 19 songs in a row (only 4 parts off from making that stats board , is there ANYTHING you would like changed that would make doing a mass-add like you just did even easier?
And yea, I just checked, the largest song in the DB is now 'La Canzone del Sole' @ 24,168 characters
as I have personally added a few of the songs you transcribed myself when I had started the site.. Whenever I come across one that you transcribed but I added, I change it so it looks like it was added by you.
Like the Gipsy Kings songs? If you wanna point them out, I'll happily re-upload them from my account if you wish. No sweat.
Like the Gipsy Kings songs? If you wanna point them out, I'll happily re-upload them from my account if you wish. No sweat.
I cant really just delete them and re-add because there are ID's to each part that correspond to ID's in the DB when people download or rate a song.. Its easy enough for me to just change the ID of who uploaded it from mine to yours.. It will then read your name anywhere the 'Added By' is displayed..
Done, for those two anyway.. Sheesh, that actually was kinda a pain.. I'm gonna have to make a moderator backend to automate things like that.. Maunally editing DB sux.. Oh well, thats what I get I guess.
I'm a bit confused by the "My Library" function. When I click that link, it lists a bunch of songs, shows a 5-star rating system, etc. But none of the songs displayed are actually ones I'm responsible for (or downloaded). Is there something I'm not understanding here?
This is something that will be going in the "About The Fat Lute" page. But until that is fully written I'll take a swing at it here..
There are two ways that songs get put in there:
1. You use the download cart to download.
2. You Upload song with the 'hard-to-see' check box "Add to MyLibrary" checked.
*If you are seeing songs that fit neither of those options let me know so I can troubleshoot.
Hmm, I thought there would be more to say about it, but theres not.. Other than the rating system.. Just move the mouse there where you want to rate and click (It posts the rating to the system in the background; you wont have any visual clues that it submitted other than the rating will 'stick' when done)
Pretty cool site, if you are going to have duplicates though you might want a rating feature like http://www.lotroabc.com/testsite. (I just uploaded quite a few songs to this site) This site obviously isn't fully operational yet but so far so good. Much love to Warden and sdaorss0rc for putting in the work to get these two new sites up and running.
Cervantes of Meneldor Musician / Composer / Pipe-Weed Smoker
This is something that will be going in the "About The Fat Lute" page. But until that is fully written I'll take a swing at it here..
There are two ways that songs get put in there:
1. You use the download cart to download.
2. You Upload song with the 'hard-to-see' check box "Add to MyLibrary" checked.
*If you are seeing songs that fit neither of those options let me know so I can troubleshoot.
Then this is what's happening. I haven't downloaded ANY files, and none of the ones listed are my own uploads.
Pretty cool site, if you are going to have duplicates though you might want a rating feature like http://www.lotroabc.com/testsite. (I just uploaded quite a few songs to this site) This site obviously isn't fully operational yet but so far so good. Much love to Warden and sdaorss0rc for putting in the work to get these two new sites up and running.
Well, I want the permission of being able to rate to only goto people who have downloaded the song. But you're right, duplicates are going to be a problem. I'm still devising a system to handle duplicates and weed them out. Stand by for that.
My bad.. Those were my songs.. I had left a test query in there when I was designing the page.. Problem fixed.
Okie. I was reading what you wrote to mean that people who downloaded the songs could rate them, while those who hadn't could not. Which seems sensible. Now -- I'm not complaining, but the author of songs can also rate their own songs. We may be a bit biased, of course...
Okie. I was reading what you wrote to mean that people who downloaded the songs could rate them, while those who hadn't could not. Which seems sensible. Now -- I'm not complaining, but the author of songs can also rate their own songs. We may be a bit biased, of course...
Indeed you can.. I thought about that, but not too hard.. If they wanna rate it, then so be it i thought.. You can only ever have one rating per song.. I really dont care one way or there other.. Now is the time to speak if you would like me to disable rating of your own songs, speak now and it shall be done...
Excellent site, Great songs. Thanks for the work put in.
Thank you! The pleasure was all mine.. However, I suck at making music so you will never see any original work from me, just be sure to thank the transcriber if you see them in-game!
Thank you! The pleasure was all mine.. However, I suck at making music so you will never see any original work from me, just be sure to thank the transcriber if you see them in-game!
Will do. I can't believe that I have spent a year already playing this game, and just last night got into the music system.
It was easy to learn too. I just read the stickeyed forums and followed the instructions. Then the only hard thing you have to do is test out the songs and pick the best versions.
Now I break out into song whenever there is any downtime. People love it, it increases everyones enjoyment and I have fun listening to some sweet tunage instead of twiddling my thumbs.
Just wanted to let you know that of all the places I looked for music, yours was the only place where All of the songs worked AND there was an excellent selection.
Thanks again for your time well spent, you're making a difference. I will extend the thank you to any transcribers I meet in game.
Happy Trails!!
/Numenoreanx
Eldoreth LVL 50 MIN , Stoley LVL 50 BURG - Rank 4
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AKSE Achiever 73.33%, Explorer 40.00%, Killer 53.33%, Socializer 46.67%
Yea. I had someone in the codemaster's forums suggest that I list the songs by Transcribers only. Stating that having a list by songs such as thefatlute does de-values the transcribers work (as people dont take notice to who made it, they just download it and thats it). To a point I agree but a listing of that type defeats the purpose of making it easy to find the song you want and download it quickly.
Coding the site is the easy part, its the transcribers's work that gives the site its .... ummm... life..... So just be sure to take note of who made that song you love playing so much and give credit where credit is due.
*Soon, the transcribers name will be clickable to see other songs they have added as well as send PM's as soon as the comments system is done so that should help give more attention to the transcriber..
The way you have it now... able to RE-sort by each field... is perfect. Why remove useful utility? If someone wants to sort by transcriber, that's rather easy.
Cranberry is amazing.. Yer a close second.. Like .9 repetend close.
EDIT: I dont know what I was thinkin.. Obviously, with the images figgy made for the fat lute, and comming up with the name, and her ideas, she should inch out cranberry not vice versa.. sooo....
Figgy is amazing.. Cranberry is a close second.. Like .9 repetend +.9 close.
I added a few more files to your site. As I told you before, very nice work! Very easy to navagate!
I will be adding more as my time allows.
My Kin is waiting for me in the Rift at this moment, so will add some more tomorrow!
The file is fine, but I noticed a couple of things I would like to change,
As Tears Go By, I have the A and the S in caps, not a big deal, I also have artist listed as The Rolling Stones, but I see other listings of there songs with only Rolling Stones as artist.
Again no big deal, but would be better if that can be changed so it is grouped with the other Stones songs.
I'm just going to leave it for now.. However, I am working on it so that when you are viewing a song that you added there will be a edit button that will allow you to do all these things.
Ya know what I like best? That little listing on the far right when you click a song that shows what I can only assume is the suggested instrument. For a solo song it's not that big a deal cause you can fiddle until you find one you like best. But for multiple voiced songs, that is a Godsend (to me anyways) cause some songs sound great with one group of instruments but like complete poo-poo with other groups. Not to mention I can stop going "Now which instrument in lotro is supposed to be a piano? And which is vocals?!" hehehe
Please note, the site is built for FireFox and IE7+. The site makes heavy use of transparent PNG images. IE6 will display the transparent parts of PNG images as a white box. So, if the images looked like **** and you just assumed thats how they where, its not; please get on board with the 21st century and download a modern browser.
There are also download links I put in case you have no clue where to download these browsers.
Forgot to mention that anywhere and there are some people who are still using IE6
Not to mention I can stop going "Now which instrument in lotro is supposed to be a piano? And which is vocals?!" hehehe
HAHAHA, I'm exactly the same way and thats why I had to integrate that.. People would ask me to play the vocal part and I'd whip out a clarinet or something and they'd say, silly warden, vocal is for Lute.. I'm done being silly I tell ya! Done!
The Get MIDI feature seems to play the ABC through, which is a great thing to have. I know it's explained on the 'About Fat Lute' page but you may wish to have this even more prominently noted that it plays the actual ABC! At first I wasn't sure and wondered if it was linking a sample web midi or other the like.
Another thought:
This may help with organization and duplication since I know some transcribers do both solo/duet and group versions of a song. If it's not hard to change, you could alter the Parts column to be able to display more than just one number, for instance, '1 or 4' or '2 or 3' and then transcribers could post both the solo/duo and group parts all under the same heading. Moreover, I know some of my songs have all the parts embedded in the lute/harp and have supporting instruments like drum/theorbo to add depth - so it's actually 1 or 3 parts. All this could be reflected in the abc headers to let downloaders know what's up. In the upload section (I haven't seen this part of the site yet), you might wish to nudge uploaders to do it this way instead of having two separate entries.
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Are Minstrels still supposed to heal?
Originally Posted by SandioTech
Seems promising, but I have to say, I dislike having to sign up for new things..
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, is there ANYTHING you would like changed that would make doing a mass-add like you just did even easier?
........,......W a r d e n
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