List of improvements and feature requests
Hello there.
I've brainstormed a list of possible improvements for OGA. I grouped them by topics, sorted them by (as i think) importance and gave them numbers, so one could comment on them easier. Note that i don't expect that everything on this list gets implemented. Even though it would be awesome, of course. :)
These are mostly just my personal opinions, so friendly, constructive comments are welcome.
General / Site:
[1] Make emojis possible: At the moment we can't use them anywhere. Not in submissions, not in comments and not in the forum. Everywhere a nasty server error 500 pops up. Some other special characters seem to also lead to that error, see: https://opengameart.org/forumtopic/cant-submit-art-error-500
[2] Translate the site: Language choosable from the profile edit page. I can help with german.
[3] Markdown formatting instead of HTML for the whole site. Its safer than filtering out bad HTML. Including switching the WYSIWYG-Editor to a Markdown one. See the following thread for more opinions on this: https://opengameart.org/forumtopic/feature-request-markdown-support
[4] More AJAX: For example, instead of a separate / edit page for submissions, that page could just get some edit fields, so we dont leave the current page every time and completely load it the page again. The gallery pages would benefit from some nice AJAX, too.
[5] A mobile version of the site for small displays
[6] A font category because "documents" is too generic. Tutorials could get their own category, too.
[7] Emoji picker for all editors for easy access
[8] An own set of emoji images, so they look the same for everyone and on every device (which is important since not all devices / systems support all). I suggest Twitter's CC BY-SA 4.0 licensed Twemoji: https://github.com/twitter/twemoji
[9] Additional Mutant Standard emojis (https://mutant.tech/) on top of Twemoji because it goes along with it pretty well and provides important ones not contained in the official unicode standard (yet?) such as additional skin colors and gender neutral jobs and others. It also contains rpg potions, orcs and medieval weapons, which makes it perfect for a gaming centered site like OGA.
[10] A more modern appearance for the site: A possible direction could be: https://www.gamedevmarket.net/
Submissions:
[11] Preview feature before submitting, just like for comments
[12] A Liberapay field in the user profile and a button displayed in submissions, just like Flattr and Patreon. https://liberapay.com/
[13] Reduce the animation duration when scrolling through submission previews. Also, it seems to use JavaScript instead of CSS as the animations are not cancelable. Very annoying, smells like jQuery.
[14] Default texts and licenses: Being able to save default texts for certain fields like the attribution notice. So we don't have to fill everything out every time we upload something. Also, choosable default licenses which are then checked by default when uploading something.
[15] Deletion of submissions and collections without having to ask admins. ---> Already possible using the "Request deletion" button.
[16] Better audio previews with play, pause and stop buttons, duration display and a clickable bar. Gives better control and makes it easier for people to decide if they like a music track. And don't always download the whole file, only a few seconds after the current position. Saves bandwidth.
[20] Marking submissions as forks / derivates / remixes: Makes it possible to find more stuff in the same style or additions. Think of OpenClipArt where every submission links to their original or remixes on the right. Here, for example: https://openclipart.org/detail/192653/rabbits
[28] Possibility to download a submission as an archive if multiple files were uploaded.
[17] Generation of automatic previews of uploaded files (if not inside archive) in addition to the ones uploaded by users. I guess often people then wouldn't need to upload some themselves at all. Makes submitting a bit easier.
[18] Rotatable, zoomable previews of 3D files: Here is a demo using three.js (no zoom though): https://manu.ninja/webgl-3d-model-viewer-using-three-js/ (https://threejs.org)
[19] Possibility of audio conversion done by the server: For example, if someone uploads audio files in FLAC (not inside an archive) the server could convert them into other formats and put them into the submission page, so people don't have to do that themselves. Costs CPU, but saves a lot of bandwidth. Alternative: Let users choose the format before downloading.
[29] Display appropriate example tags when submitting, depending on the chosen main category. Helps people find good tags, so their stuff is being found easier.
[20] Mastodon share button: https://joinmastodon.org/ (Mastodon doesn't seem to support that yet, but for the sake of completeness)
Profiles:
[21] Make comments list, followers list, friends list and favorites list of users concealable / hideable
[22] Custom text, so people could say "Hello! If you like my assets, consider supporting me by ..." or whatever
[23] Move the project URL into the left sidebar
[24] Contact information fields for Mastodon and (all that proprietary and unfortunately sometimes necessary rubbish such as) Facebook, Twitter and Skype
Galleries (including those on profiles):
[25] Possibility to add submissions to favorites (star icon) and collections (context menu) right from the gallery page
[26] Choosable amount of displayed submissions per page (24, 48, 96, ...). ---> Already possible. Didn't see it.
[27] Optionally display submissions as a list instead of tiles. When displayed as a list, include their descriptions right of them.
am i the only one who thinks that the site works as intended, looks fine, and needs no major overhauls? like, responsive design? what for!? well, maybe it would be nice to broswse art on your phone while you sit on the bus or something, but still... it seems overkill to me. besides, people look at their phones way too much nowadays.
the only things that really need improvement, imho, are the search and browse features which show duplicates (also not a HUGE deal)? also, the tag system is a little clunky, but people choose their own tags, so i don't see how devs could improve without inordinate effort.
all that said, i would get behind Nos. [6] [14] [15] [16] [18]
regarding 18, i have worked with three.js quite a bit and would be happy to try my hand at an iFrame with a 3d model viewer
Good suggestions! There may be a valid reason some of these features operate the way they do and I'm just not aware of the reason. Not all of these may be feasible due to the way site's framework operates. Never-the-less these are some good ideas that we'll keep in mind as we improve the site. @MNDV.ecb: If you can come up with a proof of concept widget for that, I'd love to experiment with getting it implemeneted. :)
--Medicine Storm@MedicineStorm:
3: That's very true about old posts. I would suggest to just let them stay as they are and if someone edits them, only support Markdown. If the old description contains HTML, make it invalid.
5: I can't give a good example either because i haven't ever used the mobile version of a game asset site like OGA before. I just noticed that it's very hard to use the site on my phone because it's so tiny and i have to zoom in all the time. Also, "mobile version" means that the 300ms delay when tapping is deactivated. Note that this delay is a default set by browsers, not part of OGA. Read more about it here, it can be deactivated by a meta tag: https://www.telerik.com/blogs/what-exactly-is.....-the-300ms-click-delay
13: Of course i'm not talking about download speeds here... :) I'm about the transition between the images. It's happening even if all images are already loaded. It's often faster to close a preview box and select another image instead of scrolling through them. That transition is too long or, what's the actual bad thing, not cancelable. One should be able to scroll through 10 images in a second (if one has very fast fingers).
15: Oh, i didn't know that submissions are deleted right after clicking that button. I think it should be renamed to "Delete" then and belongs to the top beside the "Edit" button. "Request deletion" sounds like people have to wait for someone to do it.
16: OGA could just buffer the data like video and music sites do. They only download the data of a few seconds after the current position and dynamically load more as the file plays. That should save alot of bandwith.
21: It's a small privacy concern, yes. Of course, the lists shouldn't be accessible at all if made hidden, not even by URL.
22: Oh, i wasn't aware of that. "Website description" to me is a field i fill out to... well, describe my website. Not to say Hello or whatever. As you can see, a few of my suggestions are based on misinterpretions of words here. :)
23: I just think the URL is better placed on the left sidebar, because it displays profile data. The main box shows submissions.
26: I was about the gallery. You're right, it's already possible - i didn't see it. But for example https://opengameart.org/popular doesn't show as much options as the gallery. That seems to be another page template. I think the usual gallery should be shown instead of it containing the appropriate sort mode.
28: I can download 10 files relatively quick, too. But there are people not as fast / able as you and me, who for example have difficulties moving the mouse. To me personally, convenience is reason enough to implement such things. They make projects more inclusive and accessible to more people. A "Download as archive" button would not only be faster sometimes, but also more convenient because mostly a new folder is made when extracting an archive. That would help keeping people's download folders clear. Plus, that archive could contain a text file containing the link to the submission and the content of the attribution notice, similar to the "Download credits file" on the "My downloads" list. I sometimes have difficulties giving credits when i download stuff, use it weeks later and have forgotton where i had it from or from whom.
29: OGA could show the most used tags of the chosen art category. That may not be the best solution because there are so many tags, but a start. Also, maybe the submission guidelines should contain tips about good tags, so for example if one uploads a tileset, "16x16" should be used instead of a mere "16" (see here). And the example tags could reflect that. The auto-completion of tags already solves that partly though.
I'm glad that you consider my suggestions useful. :)
Good points. I think something I'm seeing is that a few of these features are already present, but many people don't know about them due to confusing wording. I can certainly work on making sure buttons and labels properly describe their function in a clear fashion.
Suggesting the most common tags in a given category is a good idea, or a good start at the least. The submission guidelines do actually suggest tagging tips currently, but I could include a list of tags that are helpful and common as well.
--Medicine Storm@MedicineStorm: Regarding a mobile version of OGA: I don't know what Drupal theme it is using, but there might already be a mobile version of it, but disabled for some reason. I think nowadays its standard that CMS / blog themes also contain mobile versions. It might be that OGA's theme is too old though, from a time where it didn't matter...
By the way, out of curiosity i asked archive.org's wayback machine if it has some nice snapshots documenting the change of themes of OGA.
- From before all the CSS is broken like in most of the snapshots -
January 2011 - https://web.archive.org/web/20110108011308/http://opengameart.org/
It looked completely different than today! :) That seems to be the theme OGA had chosen to start with.
November 2011 - https://web.archive.org/web/20111221072752/http://opengameart.org:80/
That seemed to be the time it went all blue like it is today. That theme hasn't really changed in the last 7 years, apart from the addition of the right sidebar and small improvements here and there.
I guess that answers the question if there is disabled mobile version. I don't think that was common 2011.
Yeah. The OGA theme is custom. You will not find it on any other drupal stie. It's unlikely bart created a mobile-update for this particular theme.
--Medicine StormI'll second the better audio preview and font categories. I'd recommend against translations though, unless you can guarantee they're kept in sync with the English content. My experience is that the translations end up being half done, or outdated, which is worse than not having them in the first place.
I think the current search is still inferior to the "beta solr-search" we had a while back, which in my experience was awesome.
One thing I would like is the ability to mark a submission as being a derivative/fork of one or more other submissions. Not so much because I want to be able to trace it back to its origins (the author can include that information easily enough) but because I want to be able to do the reverse: see if there have been additions/edits/modifications to a piece. I know, it'll depend on the authors correctly marking the progenitors of their own work, but it would be really neat.
And one other thing: I just noticed that you can't add/edit tags on a submitted piece (I decided I had been a bit sparse with the tags on my modified wartotaur sprite). That would be useful to have.
I thought we are using the solr search currently. What is different?
Tags are editable. It's not letting you change them?
--Medicine Storm@Bonsaiheldin not trying to be a jerk, i'm just acerbic by nature. pay me no heed.
@MedicineStorm the only problem i foresee as i fiddle with a viewing widget is the file format; would it be possible for the server to convert files to a standard format or two for the viewer? otherwise, coding support for multiple formats might be unreasonable / i don wanna. Keep in mind that i've not yet researched conversions that could be embedded within the widget itself. If the server prog cannot cope with the formats, i would do that next.
Well, I think you should go with whatever format works best for you. Or, if any format works just as well, so long as you know which one it is, let me know and I'll figure out which one is the most used/most-easily-convertable. Then when we implement #19 (for audio and 3D) it will take care of (most) other formats. :)
--Medicine StormI second what Evert said about marking submissions as forks / derivates / remixes. That would be a very useful feature to find more stuff in the same style or additions. Think of OpenClipArt where every submission links to their original or remixes on the right. Here, for example: https://openclipart.org/detail/192653/rabbits
You know what? I somehow missed the edit field for tags. I think that is because I was expecting it in the side bar on the left rather than in the main area where you also update the description. So I amend my previous request to suggest it be moved there.
Regarding the search, it does indeed work as it should from the advanced search. I never realised that typing in the search box on the main page does anything different from the search box on the advanced search (type "Lpc base" in the search box and it returns no results, but from the advanced search it does return stuff). So perhaps making the search box behave the same as the text search from the advanced search would work?
I have a suggestion...in the "Copyright/Attribution notice" area, it would be nice for that to be a reference to one thing, rather than each submission having its own. So for example, if I made 100 songs where I asked, "Please give credit to Joth" in the attribution field, then I change my name to XxSodaBiscuit999xX, I would have to go into EVERY submission and change that I want credit to be given to my new name. Having one reference would make it easier, or a "default" attribution field that can be overridden by a custom one if needed, so you still have some versatility.
@Joth: Good idea. Basically identical to suggestion #14 above.
--Medicine StormOops, I guess I didn't see that one! I second the motion.
There are times when things are attributed to you as an author, but since they weren't uploaded by you, they don't show up as one of your submissions and aren't linked anywhere in your profile. I would really, really like for that to change so that when looking at someone's profile you can see all their work. For example, some of my art was uploaded by William.Thompsonj, and I'm a co-contributor to an RPG Enemies collection by Redshrike, but none of those show up anywhere when you click on my name.
A thing I'd love to see is a "Report possible copyright violation" button. OpenGameArt should be a place where you can find assets without questionable legality. There are plenty other websites that don't mind stashing ripped game models or models of trademarked/copyrighted material. Right now it can only be reported for spam, but it's not the same thing.
I like the wording of "possible", it's more "Um, this looks iffy" than "This is STOLEN!!1!" and makes people more inclined to say something than recognize a problem and hope it's not really true or that someone else with more knowledge will randomly look at it. I have a "flag licensing issue" on mine, but I have higher access than most, and clicking it will automatically de-list the upload. I feel I have to be certain of there being a problem even if it gets reviewed. There's also no way for me to imput why I think it should be delisted, so the reviewer just has to guess unless I leave a "This is STOLEN!!!1!" comment. It's not ideal. I wasn't aware that there wasn't a way to report possible problems for normal members.
There is a way to report potential problems for regular members: mark as spam. It shouldn't be the same as a licensing issue, but for now it is. Marking something as spam doesn't make it more likely to be caught by the spam filter or something, it just notifies me that it needs to be reviewed. The need for review could be related to spam or licensing issues.
You're correct, it isn't ideal, but in the meantime, everyone should be using the spam button as a "this needs attention" button.
--Medicine Storm[1] Make emojis possible: Drupal 8 should fix this
[2] Translate the site: Its easy enough to add translations options however im not sure how useful it really will be as we wont be policing comments etc. Thoughts?
[3] Markdown formatting instead of HTML for the whole site. Not sure what this really fix's, it may be a bit more secure theoritically but thats never been a problem before so...?
[4] More AJAX: in drupal 8 this is possible, not sure if it will be a priority however as it would require a good deal of custom work from what i can tell
[5] A mobile version of the site for small displays, For sure, oga3's new theme will support mobile
[6] A font category because "documents" is too generic. Tutorials could get their own category, too. There used to be a lot more catagories in OGA1 that were removed in the OGA2 move. Are there really that many fonts and tutorials?
[7] Emoji picker for all editors for easy access Easy enough
[8] An own set of emoji images, Was looking at using emojione library
[9] Additional Mutant Standard emojis Could have a module for expanding the emoji library or something so people can contribute to it
[10] A more modern appearance for the site: Ironically none of the people who currently can work on the site design are real designers, if you got ideas or can help with the layout could use the help.
Submissions:
[11] Preview feature before submitting Maby, the preview feature has always been a pain to keep working so not sure if itl be part of OGA3
[12] A Liberapay field in the user profile and a button displayed in submissions, just like Flattr and Patreon. https://liberapay.com/ Easy enough
[13] Reduce the animation duration when scrolling through submission previews. Also, it seems to use JavaScript instead of CSS as the animations are not cancelable. Very annoying, smells like jQuery. Will need to see what options we got
[14] Default texts and licenses: Being able to save default texts for certain fields like the attribution notice. So we don't have to fill everything out every time we upload something. Also, choosable default licenses which are then checked by default when uploading something. Probably not too hard to add will check into it
[15] Deletion of submissions and collections without having to ask admins. ---> Already possible using the "Request deletion" button.
[16] Better audio previews with play, pause and stop buttons, duration display and a clickable bar. Gives better control and makes it easier for people to decide if they like a music track. And don't always download the whole file, only a few seconds after the current position. Saves bandwidth. The current system is borked and hard enough to make work as is, any sujestions on libraries or otherwise for this?
[20] Marking submissions as forks / derivates / remixes: Makes it possible to find more stuff in the same style or additions. Think of OpenClipArt where every submission links to their original or remixes on the right. Here, for example: https://openclipart.org/detail/192653/rabbits Think this would be easy enough to add
[28] Possibility to download a submission as an archive if multiple files were uploaded. This doesnt seem to complicated could prolly add it
[17] Generation of automatic previews of uploaded files (if not inside archive) in addition to the ones uploaded by users. I guess often people then wouldn't need to upload some themselves at all. Makes submitting a bit easier. Ill have to think on a good way to impliment this
[18] Rotatable, zoomable previews of 3D files: Here is a demo using three.js (no zoom though): https://manu.ninja/webgl-3d-model-viewer-using-three-js/ (https://threejs.org) We had looked into this i the past, issue always was file type support, know of any that support more filetypes? looks like that one is obj only
[19] Possibility of audio conversion done by the server: For example, if someone uploads audio files in FLAC (not inside an archive) the server could convert them into other formats and put them into the submission page, so people don't have to do that themselves. Costs CPU, but saves a lot of bandwidth. Alternative: Let users choose the format before downloading. know a good likrary for this? could maby use ffmpeg id have to check
[29] Display appropriate example tags when submitting, depending on the chosen main category. Helps people find good tags, so their stuff is being found easier. Actually looking into better searching so tags may become less important
[20] Mastodon share button: https://joinmastodon.org/ (Mastodon doesn't seem to support that yet, but for the sake of completeness) When they do lets talk :)
Profiles:
[21] Make comments list, followers list, friends list and favorites list of users concealable / hideable Not sure if this will be a priority on OGA3 but the theme will be open source so anyone could add these
[22] Custom text, so people could say "Hello! If you like my assets, consider supporting me by ..." or whatever Can already do this
[23] Move the project URL into the left sidebar New layout will be new so starting there first
[24] Contact information fields for Mastodon and (all that proprietary and unfortunately sometimes necessary rubbish such as) Facebook, Twitter and Skype Profile signatures kinda fix's this doesnt it?
Galleries (including those on profiles):
[25] Possibility to add submissions to favorites (star icon) and collections (context menu) right from the gallery page Sounds Resonable
[26] Choosable amount of displayed submissions per page (24, 48, 96, ...). ---> Already possible. Didn't see it.
[27] Optionally display submissions as a list instead of tiles. When displayed as a list, include their descriptions right of them. Maby going to work on the layout first then maby other modes can be added.
Any other sujestions please let me know!
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Full Steam Ahead! o/ <-- little ascii fist in the air holding a debugging hammer.
I know OGA is not a place for uploading games, but i would like to see a section, like the latest assets that showcase games that have been created that uses assets from OGA. Maybe link to a game page or a forum post for that game(show of your project). Seeing the assets being used is not something we see very often. Doing something like this may encourage more asset creation and indeed lead to additional assets for that particular game adding a benefit to the original asset set and just generally more engagment within the community. It may help bridge the gap between artists and developers expectations in some way.
a 'Like' or simular button, this could have the benefit of community curation, and help towards policing potential copyright infringements, offensive and spam material uploads. i.e, before an assets reaches the latest asset page on the front page, it has to have a number of 'Likes' to get there. All latest uploads would still show as normal but only show in a 'Dashboard' page where all users will still see them when they sign in.
just my thoughts.:)
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