Post by P.JBoy

Posted: 6/20/2007 8:05 PM
(Edited: 6/20/2007 8:14 PM)

Post subject: Site improvement idea: Reintroduce mini-thumbnails

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

At one point in the very distant past the site used mini-thumbnails to make it easier to navigate to the desired video. You can see this here: http://bisqwit.iki.fi/jutut/nesv-old/ This is actually a quite good idea, IMO. Current pages like http://tasvideos.org/Movies-NES.html are really long, take a lot of time to load and it's difficult to find quickly what you are looking for. Using mini-thumbnails instead could make this much easier and also reduce site traffic a lot (I'm quite sure many people who arrive at the site for the first time just click on that link, causing a whole lot of traffic). The mini-thumbnails might not be exactly as in the old site, but reusing the idea in one way or another could be a good idea IMO. Both the visitors and Bisqwit would benefit (because of the reduced amount of traffic). Edit: I don't mean that the current Movies-NES.html (and the others) would be *replaced* with the mini-thumbnails table, I just mean that it should be an alternative (and default) way of viewing those long lists. There could then perhaps also be a link to the full list be (perhaps with a warning about the size of that list).

Posted: 6/20/2007 8:13 PM
(Edited: 6/20/2007 8:16 PM)

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Raiscan

Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom

You say reduced amount of traffic, but these are images we are talking about. No matter what their size, their cumulative effect would be greater than that of 5-6 paragraphs of text, am I right? (Edit: I say this in the case of appending the thumbnails to the top of the existing page) Saying that, the idea sounds okay. It would perhaps need more order than is in the old site (uneven spacing and flow positioning make my head hurt). Edit2: Just out of curiosity, why were they left behind when the new site was created?

<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs

Posted: 6/20/2007 8:15 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Raiscan wrote:

You say reduced amount of traffic, but these are images we are talking about.

The current full list *is* full of images, one for each video. Relatively large ones. My idea was basically that these images would be replaced with much smaller ones (taking thus less space), as well as reducing the amount of text. Each image would be a link to the info about that movie.

Posted: 6/20/2007 8:19 PM

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Raiscan

Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom

I disagree with replacing the full size images in almost any way, simply because not only do they portray the game and what can be expected in the run of said game, but because they can be at times very entertaining.

<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs

Posted: 6/20/2007 8:21 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Who said anything about *replacing* anything? I said that this would be a navigation page to the individual movies, and that you could still get the full movie list (as given currently) if you want. It would just be a much lighter and easier way of finding what you are looking for. Edit: Ok, I used the word "replace" in my previous post, but I didn't mean replace the current snapshot, I meant it like "in the vast majority of the traffic which happens when someone opens the Movies-NES and other such pages, the large images would be smaller ones.

Posted: 6/20/2007 8:26 PM

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Zurreco

Former player

Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA

Are you saying that we should have the existing movie list (with full images) stay as it is, but add in a totally new page list with thumbnailed screenshots? Seems like a lot of effort on Bisqwit's part. Has anyone actually complained about this before? It seems like the only people who would struggle with this would be 56k modem users, in which case a thumb nailed image list of our extensive submission library would still kill them.

hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine

Posted: 6/20/2007 8:34 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Zurreco wrote:

Are you saying that we should have the existing movie list (with full images) stay as it is, but add in a totally new page list with thumbnailed screenshots? Seems like a lot of effort on Bisqwit's part.

Do you think Bisqwit constructs the existing movie list page by hand? Of course he uses a PHP script which automatically constructs the page. It's not harder to make a small script which would construct the thumbnails-page.

Has anyone actually complained about this before? It seems like the only people who would struggle with this would be 56k modem users, in which case a thumb nailed image list of our extensive submission library would still kill them.

Finding a specific video for example from the Videos-NES page can be quite difficult. Besides, it takes a long time to download even with a regular ASDL. Besides, making the site lighter and easier to navigate can always be done even if nobody has "complained" about anything. Not all features must be the direct consequence of complaints.

Posted: 6/20/2007 8:37 PM

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Raiscan

Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom

Do you have any designs in mind? just all the thumbnails one after the other on the same lines, or more like a contents page with a thumbnail/game/run title?

<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs

Posted: 6/20/2007 8:42 PM
(Edited: 6/20/2007 8:45 PM)

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Zurreco

Former player

Joined: 8/1/2004
Posts: 2687
Location: Seattle, WA

Warp, you didn't answer my main question. Are you proposing that we keep the current system AND offer a mini-thumbnailed list as well?

hi nitrodon streamline: cyn-chine

Posted: 6/20/2007 8:45 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Two possible ideas: Just put all the small thumbnails (with perhaps a small text attached to them) all in one line (letting the browser wrap the lines) or into some kind of table (eg. 6-8 thumbnails per line), or alternatively make a list similar to those in MovieStatistics, but with added thumbnails.

Posted: 6/20/2007 8:46 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Zurreco wrote:

Warp, you didn't answer my main question. Are you proposing that we keep the current system AND offer a mini-thumbnailed list as well?

Yes, my idea was that the mini-thumbnails page would be an *alternative* to the current Movies-* pages, shown by default, and perhaps with a link to the full list (something like "View full-sized list of movies (warning: large)".

Posted: 6/20/2007 8:55 PM

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

I've been thinking of offering an alphabetical list of movies, without extra information or screenshots, instead. Although, this is already close to that: http://tasvideos.org/ListAllMovies.html

Posted: 6/20/2007 8:56 PM

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Raiscan

Joined: 11/11/2006
Posts: 1235
Location: United Kingdom

Bisqwit wrote:

I've been thinking of offering an alphabetical list of movies, without extra information or screenshots, instead.

That gets a simple thumbs up in my opinion.

<adelikat> I am annoyed at my irc statements ending up in forums & sigs

Posted: 6/20/2007 9:08 PM

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Warp

Banned User, Former player

Joined: 3/10/2004
Posts: 7698
Location: Finland

Bisqwit wrote:

Although, this is already close to that: http://tasvideos.org/ListAllMovies.html

Yes, this is definitely in the right direction. Could use some fine-tuning, though (for example it's not immediately obvious that you have to click on the number in order to get to the movie page).

Posted: 6/24/2007 6:09 PM

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alden

Player (120)

Joined: 2/11/2007
Posts: 1522

Raiscan wrote:

That gets a simple thumbs up in my opinion.

Warp wrote:

Yes, this is definitely in the right direction.

Thirded. In fact I'm going to bookmark that page in the meantime to use instead of the other lists, which take way too long even on a decent connection. If the page could also be sorted by system (and maybe some other things like length) that would be all the better. In fact, thumbs should be optional imo (for lazy bastards like me that still have 56K's)

I make a comic with no image files and you should read it. While there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Eugene Debs

Posted: 6/24/2007 7:13 PM

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Bisqwit

Editor, Active player (296)

Joined: 3/8/2004
Posts: 7469
Location: Arzareth

P.JBoy wrote:

EDIT: oh silly me for not looking at the referrers, shouldn't it be linked to somewhere other than the Text Formating Rules though?

Yes, it should. In fact it is linked from the forums, in a thread whose name calls to fix inconstencies in the game names, in the Sites forum. (Too laggy right now to look it up.) But, got any idea where to add a link to it?

Posted: 6/24/2007 7:17 PM

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Kyrsimys

Former player

Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1286
Location: Finland

How about the front page?

Posted: 6/24/2007 7:20 PM

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DK64_MASTER

Joined: 10/24/2005
Posts: 1080
Location: San Jose

Bisqwit wrote:

But, got any idea where to add a link to it?

It seems like it would fit in nicely under "starting points," perhaps under the "List the recommended movies" bullet list?

<agill> banana banana banana terracotta pie! <Shinryuu> ho-la terracotta barba-ra anal-o~

Posted: 6/25/2007 1:17 AM

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FractalFusion

Editor, Skilled player (1941)

Joined: 6/15/2005
Posts: 3247

Kyrsimys wrote:

How about the front page?

DK64_MASTER wrote:

It seems like it would fit in nicely under "starting points," perhaps under the "List the recommended movies" bullet list?

Done. I forgot about that page after seeing it so long ago. At that time, it seemed like a bad idea. Not anymore.

Zurreco wrote:

Has anyone actually complained about this before?

Yes.

Zurreco wrote:

It seems like the only people who would struggle with this would be 56k modem users

Actually, even users who have anything less than insane download speeds. Not really struggle, but just don't have the patience. I have mixed feelings about the thumbnails, though.

Posted: 6/25/2007 1:20 AM

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DK64_MASTER

Joined: 10/24/2005
Posts: 1080
Location: San Jose

FractalFusion wrote:

Kyrsimys wrote:
How about the front page?
DK64_MASTER wrote:
It seems like it would fit in nicely under "starting points," perhaps under the "List the recommended movies" bullet list?
Done.

Sorry to nitpick, but... The url text "movie titles" doesn't fit with the header "List All Movies." "Movie titles" sounds a bit weird to me.

<agill> banana banana banana terracotta pie! <Shinryuu> ho-la terracotta barba-ra anal-o~

Posted: 6/25/2007 12:03 PM

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Kyrsimys

Former player

Joined: 4/16/2004
Posts: 1286
Location: Finland

I changed it a bit. I'm still not happy about it though, I can't really think of a nice and short way to express that the list does not have the additional information and screenshots that the traditional movie listing has.