IMSLP Forums

What's alread in my head a long time: would it be feasible to introduce a multifile template?

Currently, different parts or different movements of the same publication get a file template box for themselves. This creates sometimes terribly long pages (even longer in IE) , with the overview of the different editions available completely lost. However, all these boxes contain > 75% identical information. Mostly, it's only the title, rating, number of pages, and copyright tag that's different. Pub info, editor, scanner, etc are identical.

A multifile template would solve this: one box for one edition, with a number of files in that box.

Apart from the design nightmare it would be (help Leonard ), and the immense work of manually updating the 14000 existing files, another problem would be implementation in the site. would this be something that can only manually added post-submission, or already possible in submission? Would there be problems on server-side?

So tell me if you think this is worth the pain! Anyway, if we want to to this, I think we should plan it so that a couple of admins have time to cooperate. Everything still in precontemplation phase!

!!! Very good idea! I will be very interested if someone could design it

The conversion can be automated to a certain degree, though I'm not extremely concerned about it, since after all IMSLP will still live for a long time, and no additional work (i.e. combining the templates of submissions after the implementation of the multifile template) would be necessary after the switch, even if manual.

Great! If there are more interested, stand up! In the meantime, I will make a draft of the layout, but don't expect it before november, so if Leonard reads this and can't wait, go on. Maybe it's also a good time to update the colors of the normal file template to the main page and composer template colors.

Great idea. Maybe we should start by reworking the current template, and then base the multifile template on it. Some random thoughts:
* The current template is rather big; can we make it more compact?
* The template contains different types of information: about the file, about the score, info for the user, info for the admins...; can we organize this information in a clearer fashion?
As four grouping the existing entries: if they contain exactly the same data in certain fields, it should be possible to leave the bulk of the work to our untiring digital friend 5Y.

Well, the problem is that sometimes multiple files have slightly different information, for example, page count and publisher (I've seen several cases where the plate number goes up by one for each entry, though of course it'd be fine to group them as a range in the multifile template).

I agree completely with making it more compact. Unfortunately, as you might know, I'm essentially both HTML illiterate and a horrid web designer (just check out the first file templates) So I'll leave it in you and Peter's hands

this would be good for monochrome and coloscans of the same score to.

Also... it may be good to put together something (even if not very good, or just an extension of the current file template) as soon as possible. I say this because changing the template later on is extremely easy, but the same cannot be said for the manual combining of file entries. If we hadn't moved to the composer template ages ago, this composer template facelift would have been a much much harder task

imslp wrote:Well, the problem is that sometimes multiple files have slightly different information, for example, page count and publisher (I've seen several cases where the plate number goes up by one for each entry, though of course it'd be fine to group them as a range in the multifile template).

Well, but there must be some fields that are equal, or it would make no sense to group the entries. I mean, if all the fields are different and need to be listed separately, then the entries won't get much shorter by grouping them, so it seems a bit pointless (use headings instead).

Anyway, could someone list a few characteristic examples of entries that should be grouped, so that we (I) know what we're talking about?

An example that came to my mind immediately (partly because I submitted it haha) is Handel's Water Music. Basically, it is the same thing as the multi-file submitter: only the description and page count is different, the rest are the same.

I would suggest just hacking together a template based on the current file template that has the files with description and page count separated, and everything else the same. That way, we get access to |File Name 1=, |Description 1=, etc, and don't have to manually combine the entries that were submitted while we are actually redesigning the file template

First draft, loosely based on the composer template. The notes section makes it big, otherwise it seems more compact than the current one. As usual, feel free to post any proposals here in the thread, or variants directly on the drafts page.

(Of course, it can be used also as a single file template. And as usual, not tested in MSIE.)

Edit: That composer photo thing is obviously just a placeholder for the preview thumbnail - we could make a "not available" image for those, too, if we want.

Nicely done! Just one question: would it be possible to float the image, instead of having it take up a whole column by itself? Otherwise very nice... I already started writing the code necessary for this; and it should be released along with the rest of IMSLP v0.5

As expected, Leonard, this looks just fantastic. It is very clear that the multiple files belong to the same edition. The overall lay-out feels very light. The only element that brings it out of balance - in my humble opinion - is the Notes section. It gets too much emphasis, maybe because the eye is attracted to the dark gray bar, or because of the appearance of a frame of the copyright template which appears frequently in this section.

You're talking about a picture of a composer, but I don't see any picture?

In IE however, the background of the first lines appears white instead of brownish, and on hovering the file links, only this line turns the right color. The red lines and the little red box around the files are gone. The text in the Urtext template has also ignored the smaller size.

Also, in IE Bach's picture is just a black box outside across the edge of the composer template, and the arrows on the left cross the edge of the box...

Thanks for your excellent work.

@ Feldmahler: I'll have to think about it. It might be easier to shorten the column, so that the "Notes" section can take up the whole width. Otherwise the width of the right column of the central part might become somewhat unpredictable on narrow screens. But I could also try to solve this by changing the width of that column to fixed, rather than percentage based.

Peter wrote:The only element that brings it out of balance - in my humble opinion - is the Notes section. It gets too much emphasis, maybe because the eye is attracted to the dark gray bar, or because of the appearance of a frame of the copyright template which appears frequently in this section.

You're right, that section is rather problematic. I'll think about it some more. If anyone has an idea, post away....

Peter wrote:You're talking about a picture of a composer, but I don't see any picture?

I used the "no composer photo available" image as a placeholder for the preview thumbnail. Obviously, that's just for the draft.

Peter wrote:In IE however, the background of the first lines appears white instead of brownish, and on hovering the file links, only this line turns the right color. The red lines and the little red box around the files are gone. The text in the Urtext template has also ignored the smaller size.

Also, in IE Bach's picture is just a black box outside across the edge of the composer template, and the arrows on the left cross the edge of the box...

Where would we be without Microsoft? (In heaven, I guess.) I'll see what I can do to fix that.... (why can't we automatically install a decent browser on the visitor's computer?)

I made a random attempt at fixing the broken IE rendering for the file template. Probably it's more broken than before (can't check right now).

If anyone out there has some time on their hands (and M$IE on their PC), feel free to hunt for a solution. Hint: http://www.positioniseverything.net/