Musicians' communty

Hello,

I am in the planning stage of creating a website community where music artist can post their MP3's, get feedback, etc.

I would like to get opinions of the order in which I should devlop the darned thing. I just need to draw on others' experience. For example, should I deal with the user issues first, or the content/layout, or the upload and download mechanism, or the forum/feedback thingy? Or is it just a matter of taste?

Maybe one of you will say "You'd be in a lot better shape if you did ________ first!"

Thanks for any short ideas!

B

I would recommend that you move this into the general forum, since this isn't really php specific.

To answer your question: This probably comes both with experience and a matter of taste, but I look at it from a top down approach. Plan out what your finished product is going to be and then step through each section completing each module as you come to them. Good planning is key here. As far as while section to start with? Does it matter? Are you going to release a section and make it live after you finish it or are you going to complete the site and then make it live?
This will be the main guide to what you do. If you are going to complete the entire site, then it really doesn't matter. If you are going to release a section at a time, then do those that are more relevant to the core design of your site.

do layout first, test it with different browsers. then do what Onslaught said. on my opinion

Thanks for the response. I guess what I am really getting at is I think I have to work out the user table on mySQL, and the sessions issues as well. I don't want to create the whole bunch of code, then have to go back and append conditional statements to the different moduels/functions based on user access.

So, I answered my own question, I think!

B

I think it is pretty much impossible to do that much planning that you dont need to go back and alter code / functions. If you cannot edit your code after it is written then practice because it is pointless building a web site without the ability or willingness to upgrade etc.

Just some input.

Documentation is also a big help in this area. Sometimes you can get easily lost in your own code six months from now unless you leave some comments on what you are doing.

Righ then, take a look at:

http://www.electromancer.com/

That's the site I have developed and am currently working on for the site owner. One thing I can tell you about creating a site like this (and any site) is that Onslaught is correct, plan what you're after. Decide what your final site should be capable of, then work out what is needed to make that possible. Create a product specification, that says what the capabilities for the end user are, and how they will work (ie, what pages link to what). This feature list will mean that you wont miss anything out.

With the Electromancer site we have a 3-level priority list running all the time, with ideas for features, or fixes needed, being added at their level of importance. This list keeps things organised, with things removed from the list when both I and the site owner have tested the feature works correctly.

As for database design, well believe me, it's not going to be as final as you'd like it to be. As people send emails saying things like 'it would be nice to order mp3s by whatever' then you realise you need to add fields to the database. Learn how to MODIFY tables.

You will have to go back and alter code, that's how progamming works.

Finally, one thing you need is patience. The Electromancer site started it's initial building a long time ago, we're expecting the final building blocks to be in place after 1 year+. 3 months of this was due to server wrangles with the providers not wishing to remove SAFE_MODE but still, it will take time.

(where's the_pedestrian?)

Check out www.directionsincollaborativeaudio.org as well, the_pedestrian (the scotsman in charge) is a frequent poster. I did a little coding for them WAY early on in their history.

I finished the site and it is up and running.

I found that creating the layout template was a good place to start. Then, just going section by section in no particular order. This was coded in php, and I think I was able to finish it so quickly because towards the end, there is no new code, only borring form earlier code and altering it a bit to fit needs.

Anyway, check it:

www.versionist.com

Thanks for all the suggestions.

B

Not sure if you wanted feedback or not, but here it is just incase...

First impressions when I got to the site, were that I ain't staying and the reason was because of the colours, red,black and white don't really go together in the combination you have used.

I did however stay and had a look around the site, content looks ok and I did a browser check for you which worked fine in Mozilla and IE on Win2K Pro.

HTH

I agree with Silky, the colours are very off putting to me.
I also find the font not to be to my taste, but both of them points are subjective so you can really ignore me if you like

On a usability level, you should link your logo as a hyperlink back to your homepage, and I wanted to click on the Stars in the header, but there just an image, although they stand out like links.

Also i felt that on a high resolution that there was a lot of wasted space on the page..

Thanks for the thoughts...

SilkySmooth - The colors are blue, orange and white - may want to check your monitor! - or maybe I should check mine!

No, for real the colors are

#FFFFFF - duh!
#808080 - orange
#000039 - blue

rendy - I intended for the negative space. Since my website basically spits out database info into tables, and really has no content like articles or pictures, I think adding to the used space may take away from it for some reason. But you are right about the logo - it needs a link. And the space with the stars is wasted, and will be used for something soon! I just put together a picture to fill it in for a while.

Thank you both for the feedback. Much appreciated and wanted!

BD

Hmmmm well I am running Win2K 1024x768 @ True Colour 32 Bit.

I opened up Macromedia Fireworks used #000039 and painted a blank canvas and zoomed in 6400% and I'm sorry to say it still looks more black than blue. I then switched my display colour to High Colour 16 Bit which still looked pretty much the same and then finally to 256 Colours, which I think is still the web standard?? and again still looked more black than blue.

So maybe you should take a look at your settings just to be on the safe side.

Also take a look at the following web site:

http://www.lynda.com/hexh.html

You will see your colour is right in the middle of the blues, and on this monitor it is definetly the darkest of them all so perhaps switch to one of the lighter shades.

As for the space, I think thats a personal preference and always will be, your site your call

Just a suggestion, hope it helps.