The Fat Lute - ABC Site

[Warden]

The Fat Lute
www.TheFatLute.com
Formerly MyLotroBand.JoshKraker.com

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 Internet Explorer 7
A all around good browser. Pretty quick.

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)

[Mirthaar]

Cool I will check it out when I get home from work tonight!

[SandioTech]

Seems promising, but I have to say, I dislike having to sign up for new things..

[Warden]

Originally Posted by SandioTech

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.

[Crissaegrim]

Kudos! *tips helm*

[Warden]

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.

[durinsbane]

Site looks great!

Signed-up with no problem,
Submited a couple songs,
site was very easy and clear to use!

[Warden]

Well thank you very much! Not sure if you ever saw it b4 figgy did the graphics.. Pretty much owe it all to her for getting me so interested in it.

Just added a stats panel underneath the download cart:::

New Members: 23
Newest Member:
Durinsbane of Meneldor


Hehe

[Torney]

I have a number of songs longer than 20,000 characters.

That's your limit.



...just sayin'...

[Warden]

Originally Posted by Torney

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.

[Warden]

Originally Posted by Warden

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..

[Torney]

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.

[Warden]

Originally Posted by Torney

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

[Torney]

Originally Posted by Warden

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.

[Warden]

Originally Posted by Torney

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.



Grats on making the stats panel