Author Topic: [WEBSITE v2] MusicBee website and forum redesign  (Read 548277 times)

Skoop

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To be honest, with the color overlay and the text about MusicBee on top of that, the underlying image is obscured or unresolvable in large measure such that it just doesn't add much to the presentation at all.  I'd vote for just rethinking it. 

Someone new to the program isn't going to know what MB looks like, anyway.  So a blurry pic of a desktop doesn't bring much to the experience. 

As an alternative, you could have a link to user-posted pics of their own setups.  Or a thread in the forum for purposes of showing it off.

But the fuzzy color over a handful of grainy album covers...  Not working for me, if I try to imagine myself discovering the site for the first time. 


AvikB

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Another update with a new feature.
Now you can upload your addon directly to mediafire(or provide a mediafire or similar hosting site link).



one restriction is that you must use rar/7z/tgz/zip format.
Even though the size limit is 50MB(which i highly doubt 99.99% addon won't reach), i haven't tested it with anything larger than 50KB.

It would be really great if someone can test the upload with 2MB, 5MB, 10MB, 20MB, 30MB, 40MB, 50MB files and provide some result as a feedback.
While test upload it is recommend that you have developers tool enabled and go to console tab for errors.

by default there shouldn't be any red colored errors, but if found any please report back, also while upload a file if any error occurs that means the upload failed, and you either have to refresh the page(recommended) or close the upload box and reopen.




few major but not noticeable change is the main menu(top navigation bar). instead of hard coding it into html, i decided to create an array of menu items and then iterate through them, this reduces code duplication a lot.

a new addition is misc in the addon dropdown menu. Another addition is in the footer called press, This is intended for providing resources like logo, screenshots for bloggers/ reviewers.

AvikB

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To be honest, with the color overlay and the text about MusicBee on top of that, the underlying image is obscured or unresolvable in large measure such that it just doesn't add much to the presentation at all.  I'd vote for just rethinking it. 

Someone new to the program isn't going to know what MB looks like, anyway.  So a blurry pic of a desktop doesn't bring much to the experience. 

But the fuzzy color over a handful of grainy album covers...  Not working for me, if I try to imagine myself discovering the site for the first time. 
I was thinking the same thing, and browsing for some inspiration, but really what ones expect from an audio player homepage? I checked some audio player home pages, Itunes, Winamp(it has a lama on the top :O), aimp, mediamonkey and groove. Most of them barely shows any audio player related images. I do like itune and groove home pages. Groove home page has the vibe that other musicplayer pages lack.

Now back to square one, the most first image with a concert and joyful people is the one i liked, but it has some offensive sign, BUT the bottom image on the home page also has the same vibe without the offensive hand mark(hopefully), i can use it at the top and choose something else at the bottom.

the second image with the mac was good but it has a long nose/ and a mac, other than that it has a clean, well balanced calm look.

the third image from vpsaxman shows a monitor with musicbee, as you said for a new comer it has hardly any meaning.

it is really hard to get any image that represents musicbee or something. While i can try different design, i highly doubt it will make any major difference. All we need is a good image that has that clean, cheerful music listener vibe, no need to be related to musicbee.
Now i have no clue where to find one. So anyone with better image or design can suggest it to me.


As an alternative, you could have a link to user-posted pics of their own setups.  Or a thread in the forum for purposes of showing it off.
Unfortunately i am not planning to do it. The home page has 2 screenshots showing the main interface, if anyone is not convinced by it i highly doubt they will bother checking an entire thread. Also Musicbee is really small in size, download and testing out yourself is the quickest way.

vpsaxman

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Well, why not simply do something like this then?



Straight to the point and minimalist.

Alumni

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Well, why not simply do something like this then?

Yeah, that works for me. A minimalist design does seem appropriate in this case.

AvikB

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Well, why not simply do something like this then?

Straight to the point and minimalist.

we already have that screenshot on the home page. Just bringing it to top wn't make any huge difference. And beside the home screen is already minimalistic while having a colorful vibe.

i have rearranged few texts, and played with the gradient a bit, and changed the background to a smoky guy wearing headphones.
test.getmusicbee.com

now before someone complaining about smoking, you can suggest a better image from here, the licensing is perfect and they have some awesome images.
https://pixabay.com/

at this point i won't change the layout much, only align few things or change the gradient and image or remove few texts. but the look won't change.

@vpsaxman, while the suggestion you provided is minimal, but perhaps it is too minimal. the home page is separated in different section. and in-between there is a colorful with background with some minimal info. Since you removed the top one and made it colorless like the one after that section, while scroll it will look blunt. and inconsistent.
i am planning to sticking with the design i have so far. The color is what makes it beautiful, check out the update.

phred

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now before someone complaining about smoking, you can suggest a better image from here, the licensing is perfect and they have some awesome images.
https://pixabay.com/
I seriously don't think that picture works.  Especially the cigarette.  How about this one from the same site:
https://pixabay.com/en/woman-girl-headphones-music-977020/
I do like the text pushed to the left.  And the image of the woman still allows that.
I really don't like the cigarette.  It's Steven's app but I don't think MB should be promoting smoking.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

----------
The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here

Skoop

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I like this one.  Simple, not controversial, on topic, and plenty of space for you to insert text without blurring it or other fooling around. 


Skoop

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Here's another:



Or this one:



Or:



Or:




You get the idea.  Something pleasant but non-descript that you can write on.

Anything but the Marley-wannabe smoking.  Jeez.  What were you thinking?

AvikB

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now before someone complaining about smoking, you can suggest a better image from here, the licensing is perfect and they have some awesome images.
https://pixabay.com/
I seriously don't think that picture works.  Especially the cigarette.  How about this one from the same site:
https://pixabay.com/en/woman-girl-headphones-music-977020/
I do like the text pushed to the left.  And the image of the woman still allows that.
I really don't like the cigarette.  It's Steven's app but I don't think MB should be promoting smoking.


nice find :) , just updated. Few photoshop color correction and healing.

AvikB

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I like this one.  Simple, not controversial, on topic, and plenty of space for you to insert text without blurring it or other fooling around. 

unfortunately inserting texts in images is really bad design choices in 2016 modern web. while there are some exception but still.
I do like this image specially the color scheme blends well with the gradient.

I like the woman with headphone more. Mostly because having a picture of living thing always has a good psychological positive effect. But besure to suggest more, if it gets enough support from other user i will change it. :)

AvikB

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Here's another:

Or this one:

Or:

Or:

You get the idea.  Something pleasant but non-descript that you can write on.
All of these are bad, they looks amateurish and does not blend well. I like the first one you suggested.

Anything but the Marley-wannabe smoking.  Jeez.  What were you thinking?
just update it to the one phred suggested. jeez i knew people won't like smoking images :P

hiccup

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just update it to the one phred suggested. jeez i knew people won't like smoking images :P

That one was terrible indeed.
But there are exceptions:


Skoop

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Quote
unfortunately inserting texts in images is really bad design choices in 2016 modern web. while there are some exception but still.

Well that's what you were doing on the previous pages with the blue-red gradient pics with the MusicBee advert overlaid.