Just suggestions r.e. themes that might be good for ongoing development. I'm a little pressed myself at the moment but I figured down the road a spell.
1.Gateway Albums - user provided examples of albums that really opened up a genre for them. There has been some discussion of such here, the hands down winner seeming to have been Kind Of Blue.
2.Intro Collections - This works better for more vintage styles of music probably, but the theme would be comps/collections that would make for really good introductions to a genre/sub-genre.
(Crap, gotta work - Later)
The one thing I'd point out is that we wouldn't want a theme where the tags are listed as top-level menu items (or menu items at all) just under the banner. In fact, if this whole thing keeps going at a 3-4 entries-per-week clip, we're going to probably end up with tons of tags fairly soon - to the point where we're probably going to want one of those fancy-schmancy JavaScript "tag-cloud" plugins to show them all in a reasonably confined space.
@BigD - I really like the idea of intro collections. I especially like the thought of suggesting a set of tracks that could make up a virtual compilation album (i.e. tracks that can all be bought individually online and are not album-only) that would serve as a good intro into a subgenre, scene or label. So many of the actually marketed compilations are bounded by record label contracts.
That's a great idea r.e. virtual albums, so it could be like An Introduction To......Playlist. Which jogs my memory regarding the other thing I thought might be nice, and more personal, member's Favorites Playlists. Some could be genre specific, if wanted, but I have a Favorite Song playlist on the iPod and I'd be interested in what other people would put on theirs. What do you listen to when you need to get away from it all really badly? Or more upbeat too.
I suppose we could use the third column for tags. We'll have enough of them.
@ScissorMan: I think the tags in the header can be turned off. They certainly can be forcibly removed. I don't mind modifying a theme that we like the "feel" of to make it our own.
@ Craig, enjoyed the review - did not know of that band. Always interesting to see something I've never heard of called essential :-). @Greg, thanks for the Beach Boys piece. Nice tone, and informative without getting too far into the geekery.
Couple of suggested edits:
"in the mid 60s, The Beatles reigned the world of popular music." - I am not sure that "reigned" can be used transitively - "ruled" or "reigned over"?
"Brian Wilson describes the album as a Symphony to God but it is certainly not a religious inspired record, but I do understand what he means " - lot of buts in one sentence. Make the first one "though"?
I should say, if it were totally up to me I'd remove the entire paragraph beginning with "I was in my mid-teens in the UK when Smile was being recorded," because I see it as extraneous, and it doesn't really flow logically into its final sentence ("So has the wait for Smile been worth it?"). I mean, anyone who might have otherwise waited for that album has probably had it for at least 10 years now, and even if they didn't have it, it's not really a question of it being worth the wait - it's more a question of whether or not there's any point in releasing an "official" version at all after so much time has passed, and with so many other versions already out there. But I'll leave that up to Greg, I guess.
So far I like Crema the best. I also like Peava, but it's more complicated than 1-2 ranking. I like the look of Pevea the best, but I'm not sure we want to feature the posting date so prominently. It would call attention to the length of time between posts if we ever have a significant gap.
edit: I also like Night Transition. The post dates aren't as prominent a Peava. I'd be happy with Night Transition or Crema.
@scissorman
Good idea for a piece. Was that deliberate irony in the opening section - "as if this wasnt completely contrary to the whole purpose of language," rather than "as if this weren't"?
But it's not a counter-factual, so the past indicative is OK in that case, isn't it? IMO it's not really a hard'n'fast rule in informal writing anyway, but if it's wrong, let's change it...
@Scissorman - As I read your sentence is is a counterfactual, in both clauses:
Implied fact: this is contrary to the purpose of language; they act as if this were not so.
Implied fact: 'crowdsource' is not a word; they act as if it were one.
You're right that the norms are changing. I only pointed it out because it's in a passage where you are talking about erosion of grammar rules, so it seemed ironic...
You're probably right about a slow down GP, but man am I having fun right now. I've been working on a longish rap piece. Even pulled some books off the shelf for research.
Rut-ro! Night Transition has an email author link on the single post page. I'll see if I can kill it. <---edit: Done.
I'm getting mail from the blog that Night Transition is looking for an image it can't find. On investigation, I found that Night Transition makes a nice author blurb at the bottom of the single post page with a photo. I presume the theme expects to find an author image. It's not an issue for demoing the theme, and we can always use the avitars from here in a pinch. There's an item that needs to be filled in. For example Nereffid's blurb says
Stephen J Nereffid is
I'll check what's supposed to be filled in for that. Probably something in the bio.
I guessed correctly about Night Transition. The blurb it shows is "Biographical Info" in the profile. I stuck some Lorem Ipsum in Nereffid's to show what it looks like. Email link is gone from the author blurb courtesy of the delete key.
Here's the lowdown on the author image straight from the code comments. Can't say I think much of storing anything in a folder named /temp.
You will have to create an image (size: 80x80px).
Image name must match your wordpress username. e.g.: YourWordpressUsername.jpg (Let's say your Wordpress username is "Mickey", therefore your image name is: mickey.jpg
Save the image in the folder images/temp/
Note that I haven't read any instructions for these themes. This may be documented.
Given that this name is a pseudonym of a nickname, it very much depends on what your definition of "is" is.
I should have a couple more "Classical Highlights" things done this week. I had written chapter 1 of "A History of Classical Music Through Recordings" but last night I came up with a better way of approaching the whole idea so I'll have to rewrite that.
@Nereffid: I don't like the "is" there. There's no need to force every Bio to start with "Billy JoeBob is ...". I took "is" out and started the bio on a new line.
I don't think we can...? even if I change the upload folder setting, it's going to save everything in the theme's folder, not the default. It looks like we'd need FTP access to save things into a folder that's higher up than the /wp folder itself.
Aside from that, I do like Night Transition - it may be my favorite of them all, so far.
Yes I like the Night Transitions too. Someone said things will slow down - I'm sure that will happen. We'll all also start getting into a pattern of submission. We need some pace anyway
Comments
1 was among my top three, so I think that's the consensus.
I'll take a look at the added themes in a bit.
Craig
1.Gateway Albums - user provided examples of albums that really opened up a genre for them. There has been some discussion of such here, the hands down winner seeming to have been Kind Of Blue.
2.Intro Collections - This works better for more vintage styles of music probably, but the theme would be comps/collections that would make for really good introductions to a genre/sub-genre.
(Crap, gotta work - Later)
The one thing I'd point out is that we wouldn't want a theme where the tags are listed as top-level menu items (or menu items at all) just under the banner. In fact, if this whole thing keeps going at a 3-4 entries-per-week clip, we're going to probably end up with tons of tags fairly soon - to the point where we're probably going to want one of those fancy-schmancy JavaScript "tag-cloud" plugins to show them all in a reasonably confined space.
Craig
@ScissorMan: I think the tags in the header can be turned off. They certainly can be forcibly removed. I don't mind modifying a theme that we like the "feel" of to make it our own.
@Greg, thanks for the Beach Boys piece. Nice tone, and informative without getting too far into the geekery.
Couple of suggested edits:
"in the mid 60s, The Beatles reigned the world of popular music." - I am not sure that "reigned" can be used transitively - "ruled" or "reigned over"?
"Brian Wilson describes the album as a Symphony to God but it is certainly not a religious inspired record, but I do understand what he means " - lot of buts in one sentence. Make the first one "though"?
I should say, if it were totally up to me I'd remove the entire paragraph beginning with "I was in my mid-teens in the UK when Smile was being recorded," because I see it as extraneous, and it doesn't really flow logically into its final sentence ("So has the wait for Smile been worth it?"). I mean, anyone who might have otherwise waited for that album has probably had it for at least 10 years now, and even if they didn't have it, it's not really a question of it being worth the wait - it's more a question of whether or not there's any point in releasing an "official" version at all after so much time has passed, and with so many other versions already out there. But I'll leave that up to Greg, I guess.
Blue Lollipop Innocuous links in the footer. I didn't see any statement that the author would accept payment to allow us to remove them.
Night Transition Innocuous links in the footer. I didn't see any statement that the author would accept payment to allow us to remove them.
edit: I also like Night Transition. The post dates aren't as prominent a Peava. I'd be happy with Night Transition or Crema.
Good idea for a piece. Was that deliberate irony in the opening section - "as if this wasnt completely contrary to the whole purpose of language," rather than "as if this weren't"?
Craig
Implied fact: this is contrary to the purpose of language; they act as if this were not so.
Implied fact: 'crowdsource' is not a word; they act as if it were one.
You're right that the norms are changing. I only pointed it out because it's in a passage where you are talking about erosion of grammar rules, so it seemed ironic...
Your call.
Enjoyed the punchline!
Blue Lollipop: not opposed to it. Quite pleasant.
Night Transition - really like the look of this.
@Dr. Mutex, I think that's a good point about dates - our production is bound to slow after this initial burst.
Craig
I'm getting mail from the blog that Night Transition is looking for an image it can't find. On investigation, I found that Night Transition makes a nice author blurb at the bottom of the single post page with a photo. I presume the theme expects to find an author image. It's not an issue for demoing the theme, and we can always use the avitars from here in a pinch. There's an item that needs to be filled in. For example Nereffid's blurb says
Stephen J Nereffid is
I'll check what's supposed to be filled in for that. Probably something in the bio.
Here's the lowdown on the author image straight from the code comments. Can't say I think much of storing anything in a folder named /temp.
You will have to create an image (size: 80x80px).
Image name must match your wordpress username. e.g.: YourWordpressUsername.jpg (Let's say your Wordpress username is "Mickey", therefore your image name is: mickey.jpg
Save the image in the folder images/temp/
Note that I haven't read any instructions for these themes. This may be documented.
I should have a couple more "Classical Highlights" things done this week. I had written chapter 1 of "A History of Classical Music Through Recordings" but last night I came up with a better way of approaching the whole idea so I'll have to rewrite that.
Aside from that, I do like Night Transition - it may be my favorite of them all, so far.