Any ideas what we could do to improve this place?

[LNerell]

Can we make an exception and allow as many Monty Python clips as we want?  ;D

[petekelly]

I love the 12k label but to me their forum seems more narrowly focused, if anything? Where are the forum sections for talking about NCAA football, salsa recipes, and jokes?

I think that forum is rather inaccessible in my view - style over content ?

Cool to see the Soundcloud/Youtube embeds, is this a new thing or could it have been included before ?

[mgriffin]

It's actually not too easy to set up soundcloud & youtube embedding. This forum software makes it easy for the forum administrator to do it, and nearly impossible to grant the ability to regular members. I'm still working on it.

[mgriffin]

Testing soundcloud embedding tag...

This is an instance of using the soundcloud BBCode tag
[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/stevebrand/through-the-lens-of-love[/soundcloud]


This is an instance of using the cloudset BBCode tag
[cloudset]http://soundcloud.com/stevebrand/sets/steve-brand/[/cloudset]

[mgriffin]

OK, that worked. I'll make a more formal post about how to use this, but for now there are two ways to embed soundcloud materials.

The soundcloud tag is for linking to a specific soundcloud track.

Code Select Expand

[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/artist/trackname[/soundcloud] - just copy/paste your track link between the tags.



The cloudset tag is for linking to a soundcloud "set" or playlist

Code Select Expand

[cloudset]http://soundcloud.com/artist/sets/setname[/cloudset] - just copy/paste your track link between the tags.



The above examples are:

Code Select Expand


[soundcloud]http://soundcloud.com/stevebrand/through-the-lens-of-love[/soundcloud]

[cloudset]http://soundcloud.com/stevebrand/sets/steve-brand/[/cloudset]


[mgriffin]

Last thing before I move on to YouTube embedding... I need to get tiny little icons for the soundcloud and cloudset tags... at present there are two "broken" icons to the left of the 'Insert Image' icon in the "Posting" window.

You can click on those, and they work -- the first one on the left is  soundcloud and the next one over, beside "insert image," is cloudset. By the time you read this, those may be fixed anyway.

[mgriffin]

OK, the SOUNDCLOUD and CLOUDSET buttons are working on the "Post" screen. The SOUNDCLOUD one is orange and the CLOUDSET one is green, just because I didn't know how to differentiate a cloudset and I don't have time to create an icon from scratch.

If anybody has a GIF format icon 21x20 pixels suitable for "cloudset," let me know.

I'll worry about YouTube embedding tomorrow!

[mgriffin]

testing youtube embedding...

Usain Bolt 9.58 100m New World Record Berlin [HQ]


Note: in some cases, the video won't come through, if the video's owner disabled linking of this kind

[mgriffin]

boring the crap out of everybody with tests (I'll delete all the failed ones later)

Omnisphere Visualizer - Burning Piano

[mgriffin]

OK, the trick to embedding YouTube videos is... there is no trick.

Don't use embed code, don't use any funny URL other than what appears in your address bar when you're viewing the video on YouTube.

I added a media sharing plugin for this forum that will make sense out of browser URLs that contain YouTube or other media formats.

Numina - Drift catalyst

[mgriffin]

Vimeo link test

Robert Rich Live @ Klusa Daba Festival 30.08.08

[mgriffin]

Google Maps embedding -- same as with YouTube and Vimeo, just copy/paste the URL out of your browser window. 

http://maps.google.com/maps?q=google+maps+timothy+lake+oregon&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hq=&hnear=0x54be39696339efeb:0x7013708f2d9af9ce,Timothy+Lake&gl=us&ei=gvqETqzrLojKiAKi6dzWDA&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CCEQ8gEwAA

[mgriffin]

I've created a "sticky" topic for instructions on the Soundcloud and YouTube embedding functions, so I suppose we can redirect this topic back to other suggestions for features not yet implemented.

Thanks again, everybody, for all the input.

[Jeff Sampson]

Yipes! I stray away for a few days....  ;)

...and I don't have much time at the moment so I'll try to be concise (here comes the Reader's Digest version?)

I like Hypnos like it is/was - didn't need the Soundcloud or YouTube embeds as I don't mind clicking through... but the tests look pretty cool. :)

Not interested in seeing the place become FB/Ning-lite.

More, concisely defined, topic areas? Yes, please.

Love the idea for a collaborate/help-me-with section.

Very much miss phone conversations - that's one reason why my phone number is in my email sig. (Hey, Jeff! add it to your sig here. D'oh.)

[El culto]

We did have a chat feature years ago, in the PhpBB software version of the forum. It was glitchy and awful so I ended up removing it.

I'll consider trying one of the newer SMF forum chat plugins and see what people think.

I'll also look into media embedding, if it can be done without turning this place into a mess.

It sounds like these two things would satisfy most people's desires without transforming the forum into something unrecognizable, so we'll start there.

As far as my counting is not messes up, I haven´t seen so much people asking for chat  ;D ;D ;D

[jkn]

Dude, like I totally love chat.  :-)

[hdibrell]

  I type too slow to chat  :(  Like a lot of others here, I like the forum pretty much the way it is. Some of the changes such as embedding music and videos sound pretty good, though. I also like rM for what it is. I didn't join it to get the same experience I get from Hypnos. It can be fun and there are some interesting people on it as well. I'm just glad we have these options. I can remember the days when I thought I was the only person listening to ambient music because I didn't know anyone else that did.

[mgriffin]

I've created some new topics, and slightly rearranged existing sections and topics. Maybe this will stimulate a different sort of discussion.

These are by no means permanent, though. Let me know what you think about these, suggest others, or point out ways in which the new sections are completely pointless and stupid! It's not too difficult for us to move threads around from one topic to another, so if one or more of these doesn't work, we'll move the topics out of it and rearrange around it.

I haven't gone through and started moving old threads to more appropriate topics, but may do so soon, depending on reaction to the new categories and topics I've created.

[mgriffin]

On second thought, I may start moving around a few threads, so some of the new topic sections are populated at least by something.

[mgriffin]

I'm afraid I'm making a mess with all these redirects. When I move a topic, should I just move it and forget the redirect?