Kineme.net Site Upgrade

I definitely think segregation your products, betas, of the wiki and the forum would clarify navigation, especially with respect to the site deisgn and menu. Everything currently bleeds together and it makes it a bit easy to find yourself someplace you did not intend to go, and the site, and colors are very low contrast, so fe things visually pop to help navigation. Headers and text are almost the same size, etc.

One pet peeve, the plugins feature this beautiful K logo, yet it is nowhere on the site. I would suggest using the colors and design from your plugins (white, orange gray, lightgrey) in the redesign. They work well together, are clean and modern the plugin has depth, and the K's positioning also follows the contour. I would highly suggest following in that direction.

Edit: I think this is great news. The site really ought to reflect the quality of the products and the community, not to say the current site is horrible, but I think it could be better. Good luck!

Maybe even go 1024px width too while you're at it? ;-)

Are you using a cms backend? One way of taming the menu of doom would be have menus which dynamically open/close; e.g. in Drupal there's the DHTML Menu module which provides this functionality. This would help at least reduce the amount of space taken up by the left menu.

Use of a three column layout would also help to make the site visually more compact reducing the need to scroll down so much.

I agree with vade about the logo use and the colours from it. Although going high contrast on black would be a nice hi-tech radical step departing from the grey crumpled paper look.

My site has a green on black design - however, users can also change themes/colour schemes for viewing the site as they wish; www.micronaut.info

Yes. The upgrade will eventually let us places links contextually.

I'm still a fan of 960px width as I don't browse in a 16:9 resolution (usually at 1280x1024, but sometimes I don't full screen my browser window. Maybe I should. ;-)

vade wrote:
I definitely think segregation your products, betas, of the wiki and the forum would clarify navigation

vade wrote:
One pet peeve, the plugins feature this beautiful K logo, yet it is nowhere on the site. I would suggest using the colors and design from your plugins (white, orange gray, lightgrey) in the redesign.

Yes, definitely on these.

One of the ideas for the front page was to throw up a new icon for each section of the site - like a dashboard (below the header). And then below that have two columns with a recent comment and a recent release/news item.

Oh, by the way, everyone was ecstatic to see an Amiga at Electro-Music Festival. :)

Definitely widen the over all spread of the page within an elastic design.

Definitely rationalise & tame the GMD :-) .

Repository Section - maybe a little more like a grid, with rows by type of example. [or by columns].

What about HTML5 and Fonts ? [just a thought].

Set the search box higher on the page alongside of the vertical sections navigation. Set My account / bookmarks higher up the page, possibly right hand side. Also set the Recent Comments and Recent Posts higher up the page - perhaps move to right hand side [3 columns]

Lose the background texture and go for an HTML 5 gradient instead.

Awesome, so it worked as advertised? Badass!

I second the suggestion of the Kineme logo as suggested by vade, but will add that I think the version that's in Quartz Crystal, with the (helvetica?) "ineme" part looks tasteful.

I kind of like the slim view of the site.

I like the fact that the crumpled paper adds a sort of organic feel, so it might be interesting to take the positive aspect of that into account.

(A kind of QC-centric forum arrangement where each post actually looked sort of like a patch, would be pretty over the top, but maybe not so good. Bonus points for something cool like the front post being an external provider, etc. That could really be taking it too far, so I say that with a kind of implicit understanding that it may well be a horrible idea. It is also likely infringement, so that is distasteful... maybe it would be cute for an official QC website.)

It would be cool to have the forum be able to flip from hierarchy post view (the current scheme) to the scheme where each post is ordered by date in one long screen wide list. One could set this in personal profile prefs. I know this is possible, but I'm not sure if it's supported by drupal?

I'm more of a fan of a picking a nice color scheme than going inherently dark w/ light type. The orange in the K logo could lend itself to some cool color compliments.

Steve didn't get to try it over the weekend, but people just liked seeing it.

I'm just thinking out aloud on this. Cwright and I were saying how a dedicated JS v QC space is really needed because the basics (and the non-basics) frequently get asked about on Kineme.

I for one have heaps of demo comps to share (and have posted on numerous threads), but most people are too unskilled/lazy/disorganised to sift through the forums to find them and profit from studying them. On the other hand if I was to make a full JS v QC Wiki, I'd probably do it under my own banner for flexibility.

I was wondering if some kind of Kineme.net scaffold could facilitate an organised conversation along JS_4_QC topic lines to flesh out from var time = new Number(); right through to generating structured objects, data arrays and QC useful things.

This is a great idea.

You just volunteered to contribute to solving my next JS issue, vade. :.)

So, would a dedicated Javascript space, actually be a dedicated Javascript space, or JS within the realms of QC?

Should there also be separate GLSL and CI spaces too?

I think it would be pretty cool if when you look up someone's profile, you could see all associated compositions. It would also be cool if we could add those compositions to "groups", independently of the repository, with the ability to add to the repository, or not.

So, I could look under your name and see a list of comps that are in your Javascript Examples section (or whatever you name the album), but some of those comps could be in your Audio Visualizer section as well, because you've tagged it both ways.

Yet, at the same time, this qtz may have originally been posted in a discussion forum.

It would be interesting if each user had something like a "favorite QC links", which could lead to links to discussions onsite, stuff on the wiki, or info that is offsite. Like being able to see someones bookmarks essentially.

The QB/QC app store idea I've mentioned in the past is another thing that would be interesting but I'm not sure if people would do it or not. I definitely would.

When qtz's load in-browser on a Mac, do they have to load in a way that takes up the whole browser? I've long assumed this to be the case, but maybe it isn't? In any event, one of the nice aspects of OpenProcessing.org is the ability to actually look at and interact with a composition in a small area of the browser, and have other info on the page, like comments, a user description, etc.

Nice idea for a JS in QC and non JS QC spaces.

I guess I don't understand at what point something would go in one section vs. another? Would something go in a javascript section just because it uses the patch?

To me, it seems like if javascript is the main programming language "in QC", that a basic javascript question isn't something that doesn't belong with the rest of the QC stuff, or needs to be scuttled off to some separate island.

Wouldn't it be kind of weird for a newbie to ask a question on javascript in a general QC forum, and to be pointed to a different area?

Your points about tagging and indexing are all valid but I'm trying to envisage something that is a little more structured and +not+ the status quo.

So somebody coming to the information is more likely to find something resembling an online text as opposed a pot of random conversations. More GPU Gems than

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The effort and editorial obligations of a GPU Gems type reference is too much. I think any JS v QC wiki should have some freedom to grow organically at the pace contributors feel comfortable with, hence my idea of some kind of scaffold put in place by Kineme to frame the topics/kb areas and just as importantly to guide a user through topics is logically progressive in a way that saves them much time and limits trial and error. Enough time gets wasted in JS patch when you've no idea why it wont work for you, I know that much.

I think the conversation topics makes it more interesting to build a knowledge base for the authors, but more problematic as a reference document esp. for less knowledgeable users. Not saying I know all answers just putting it out there as a problem to be addressed. Seems like a few of us agree with that much.

I like the paper background, type and no frills design but the page structuring of Kineme.net in general and more importantly how it's displayed to implicitly express the site organisation could be good places to start. Think apple.com — so easy; I'm always forgetting the Kineme site organisation. An elastic Div for main content area keeps everybodys happy.

gtoledo3 wrote:
When qtz's load in-browser on a Mac, do they have to load in a way that takes up the whole browser? I've long assumed this to be the case, but maybe it isn't? In any event, one of the nice aspects of OpenProcessing.org is the ability to actually look at and interact with a composition in a small area of the browser, and have other info on the page, like comments, a user description, etc.

Knock yourself out

Embedding .qtz objects just like say QT movies or images on a browser page. Passing values from a browser script to the published input ports.

Was thinking, "I have to come back to look at this…" and only bookmarked it but I have a website project coming up I'm thinking of doing a Mac-only version of with QC instead of Flash for the banners and fancy stuff.

Oh, I think I get where you are coming from. Just like in the wiki how there are already existing entries for the patches, which people can fill in descriptions for.

One thing that I really DO like about kineme is that it instantly looks like kineme, and I also like the organic aspect of the crumpled paper background. The font... not too crazy about.

A site map wouldn't be a bad thing.

Geez. I think that was one of the first QC docs I ever saw. Totally forgot about that.

...I think it would be cool if comps could get embedded that way for the purpose of discussion. However, I could quickly see my computer crashing if every qtz in a typical forum thread actually started rendering when I open the thread.

I like how at openprocessing.org, you have that gallery interface, where you can peruse through different files, and see little previews, without the program taking up the whole screen. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that things like that actually strengthen the processing community, as small as that kind of detail is.

Yeah except the wiki itself is perhaps a tad too prescriptive; for whatever reason user contributions are minimal.

Needs to be an artful solution to work… let's see what the K geniuses can come up with.

Maybe it's a case of needing editors/curators to keep rearranging the scaffold (organisational structure) for the coral and kelp to grow in the right locations, to use an artificial reef metaphor. I'm really interested in how information is organised/maintained (and have been prior to the www) — so this is maybe just a particular fascination for me. If some new schema works for JS v QC it might work elsewhere.

JS v QC resource is application specific to QC but a general JS tutoring resource as I see it. I tire of unrelated web-centric examples like in the JS textbook I own.

Type: to many similar but slightly different point sizes; needs more rigour and differentiation.

Fonts are not a fav's but readable.

I think one of the "elephants in the room" for me, when considering this, is the fact that it's called Kineme Interactive Media, but it doesn't encompass all interactive media.

Those details help no question. I often can't be bothered going from the RSS feed to Safari to get the comp to QC to view it. Conversely I wish I hadn't bothered. Even a still preview {play(); wait 2 sec; pause(); render image} would be without having to screen capture etc.

Load and render time are definitely the down side. 20 .qtz files loading at once even at 80px sq would be fun.

I don't understand what "Those details help no question" means.

I offered to do a whole branding for Kineme in exchange for plugins way back when I found my way here. It was just around when yanomano made the K so that was considered enough – given nobody had time to actual rebuild the website.

I get that logo in question is fun and informal but hmmm. Anyhow, I made a long paper strip and folded it into the letter K.

Then that process was mirrored in Illustrator with transparency on the 'paper strip'. Repeated for letters I N E M E also. Muted tones and multi-colour. Quite constructed but felt organic too — like origami. I liked it anyhow :-)

Yesterday I saw an faux 'origami' font on some website where you can build your own fonts from bitmap shapes or something and it reminded me of the K I N E M E logo I'd drawn.

Oh mrraddcliff make the font you type a message in the same font it gets published in if you can. Too many glyph difs these days. Some fancy web font HTML5 stuff getting about atm including lost worlds fairs

gtoledo3 wrote:
… and see little previews… Maybe I'm wrong, but I think that things like that actually strengthen the processing community, as small as that kind of detail is.

Those details help , no question (about it).

Heheh, ok. The comma makes all the difference. I was thinking "what question is being asked?"

My comments about looking at the qtz's in some kind of gallery that is like openprocessing.org also go along with this thought pattern:

Sometimes I think "man, I really want to browse openprocessing.org and see what's going on!" It's cool to see the grid of recent updates, be able to click on them, see compositions that are before/after the current comp chosen via the little cover-flow esque interface, or even click on someone and see a more "profile-like" profile where they can link their better work that they've posted.

On the opposite side of the table, whenever I accidentally click on a qtz "link" in Safari, I go "oh crap", and immediately try to back out of it before it starts rendering. It takes me out of my normal browsing experience.

I like the idea of incorporating some kind of element OF qc or interactivity into the site.

Like the stylization/branding of this:

http://gli.tc/h/blog/?p=55#comments

To me, this is really awesome, because it takes the look of the technology, incorporates it into the page, and is very memorable and unique.

So everything went fairly well last weekend. That means tomorrow we're actually going to be doing the upgrade!

Okay. We're back up and running for the most part.

There are a couple of little things that I still need to work on.

If you notice anything not behaving properly please post here. There are several little behavioral changes. I probably won't mess too much with matching the old style any more than it already is with the upcoming design changes.

Ohhh, there are upcoming design changes as well! Cool! I was going, "hmm, subtle, but not bad!". It will be a treat to see what is in store.

The RRS feed I'm getting now is sans author id (viewing in Mail at least). Also the Read More links are broken.

The wiki is still coming, I assume? I see a Recent Wiki Changes in the side links, but no wiki proper yet.

Can you access it via the Documentation link at the top? This is actually the wiki.

Can you specify which RSS feed you're pulling from? There are several on the site.

I tried the new topics and releases rss, and they seemed to be okay.

The RSS feed was broken --- as @usefuldesign.au reported, that feed was missing author names, and also post dates.

I uninstalled commentrss.module and in its place created a Views feed, since Views 2 can now handle comments itself.

@usefuldesign.au, let me know whether this looks good to you now.

Yes indeed! I can access it via the Documentation link. Cool! That seems nice. Thanks for hard work!

Looks Good. The "Read More" link got me here too.

Are their RSS feeds on Kineme apart from Comments and Quartz Composer Stuff?

kineme You are not authorized to access this page.Some wiki pages let me in, others don't.

yup. I too now seem to get that same lock out on (all) the Documentation/Wiki pages. It was indeed working well yesterday evening, however. Access to parts of the Documentation pages still seems functional via the Recent Wiki Changes link in the index, though.

Submit button for search changes back to gray when there are multiple submit buttons.

Either .form-submit should be styled the same, or .edit-search-block-form-1-wrapper .form-submit should be styled differently.

Not in response to Lee, just "in general" - If something in the composition repository doesn't have a picture associated with it, you can't click to access it through that menu.

Fixed Composition Repository links.

I was finding that I was getting a mixture of up to date and out of date information in the forum email.

& I've just sussed out that is because you were eliminating some 'lint' of sorts [amongst other stuff] & thus triggering a revision notice.

Wondered why I didn't see anything really new in say dust's humanoid post. [remove leading space from title in Revisions tab for the post].

BTW, the site upgrade does seem to be working well.

Like the way that the posts, topics and search are up higher in the page & the red new label for new post comments.

The email feeds from Kineme.net have been really whacky last couple of days. I got seven notifications of this topic. Two for this old topic, recently commented on. Also duplicate notifications of this topic.

On the comments side, some new comments are not coming through on the RSS – Comments feed. For example I have reply comments showing in the feed to very recent comments that are not showing.

The 'new' marker is useful : )

The new marker is useful, but I see it after I've already seen stuff a couple of times.

I guess we probably have all seen the same stuff with the email - it usually characterizes itself by seeing at least the start off post of a thread, in addition to the most recent reply.

Test.

The 'new' marker seems to work for me.

I've set prefs to only new topics. I get an email with just the first bit of the topic each time a new comment is posted in that thread.

I'd really like it to be obvious what Forum a topic is in when looking at it in browser. Mainly to see if it's in Repository forum I know where to come looking for it later if I'm interested in reviewing it.

Ping. Let's hope this works.

Yes. I fixed the bug that was causing these improper notifications. Only people with comment notification turned on should get this post. ;-)

I noticed yesterday that the userpoints reputation system wasn't working since the upgrade --- apparently Drupal's userpoints module was split into two across this revision, and we hadn't installed the new dependency.

Installed and activated. So you should be receiving points for new posts and comments again, and newly and improvédly you will receive bonus points when somebody else upvotes your post or comment.

still broken.

found and was allowed to view page via recent wiki updates link as suggested

(Sorry about that. The wiki should be working properly now.)

Was thinking a nice bit of coding for the new site could be to scan the plist of attached comps for non-stock patches and list (and also tag) them. I've noticed gtoledo is quite good at tagging his plugins but most posts aren't.

10.5, 10.6, 10.? is, I guess, going to far for a bit of back-end-chicanery but an option to tick the buttons when one attaches a .qtz file would be a nice prompt and a time saver for all concerned.

Yep, processing and coalescing metadata from uploaded compositions has been on the to-do list for a long time. (Trouble is finding the time to do everything.)

The site upgrade enables us to use a few newer Drupal modules, though, which may make this process a lot easier than it would have been before. Will investigate.

smokris wrote:
(Trouble is finding the time to do everything.)

Btw I just recommended your ParticleTools Demo: Pauli-Dyson-Lenard Exclusion video as an example of the kind of science demonstrations that would be capable (and obviously customisable in KN) if Keynote implemented QC in a more comprehensive way. It's on (fellow Melbournian) Les Posen's Presentation Magic blog. He has quite a following in the KN world and presents about presenting/Keynote etc regularly and even has an 'in' with the Keynote dev team as far as offering suggestions goes.

Which reminds me, that undocumented KN API you discovered could be pretty interesting to a lot of people if you found a way to open KN up to QC magic or anything else useful you think of.

Just trying to use "Quote" link on this comment and it just gave me the regular comment page not the quote text included as per usual. Just thought I'd mention it's a bug.

Tried a few times, I thought I was getting senile dementia and hitting the wrong link repeatedly!