BaNaNaS Frontend - Input required

[TrueBrain]

For night and year BaNaNaS has a frontend. It is ugly. It is terrible. I have seen all kind of words describing it, most my own. Sadly, I am not a designer, nor do I pretend to be one. I need you (see Uncle Sam pointing at you?).


Please give me your ideas / suggestions / feedback how you think the frontend should look.



Attaching into that, we have been talking how we can make some kind of rating system in BaNaNaS, so you no longer feel the need to ingame download EVERYTHING, and only use a few.

To kick if off, my current idea is:

Allow to login via the client, after which you can fetch your predefined 'profiles'. On the web you can login to the website, and select which GRFs you want to be in a profile. A bit like NewGRF Presets, but online. After selecting, you download those GRFs, and you can play a game. On the web you can share these profiles with each other, etc etc. Cloud for Presets, I guess.


Ideas? Suggestions?


Debate!

[FooBar]

I just posted the below in the other topic. While I still could I removed it and post it here
These are some improvements that I would personally welcome in BaNaNaS.

• Stable and development 'branches'. Basically an option to have both stable and development versions of the same content side-by-side. The user can select if it wants to see stable downloads or development downloads. This will probably attract more users to help test new content that is still in development.
• An option to add a screenshot of the content, displayed before downloading, similar to GRFCrawler. It would be interesting if the game could automatically fetch PNG files off the interwebs and display them ingame.
• Category system for content, again like GRFCrawler. Combined with the previous, this will make it easier to browse the content for interesting stuff. Currently one still sort of has to know what to look for.
• User rating system for content, where stars can be awarded and a short review given. Think Nokia Store here (app stores of other manufacturers are probably similar, but I have no experience with those). Attaching a language to reviews would be useful, to filter out languages one can read. Ratings and reviews should probably stay with the specific version they were written for, I'm not sure yet. One needs an OpenTTD account to rate content (but not to download).
• All the above can be poured into a webbased frontent as well, next to the ingame frontent. This allows to browse the available content at work or something.
• And lastly (for now), maybe far-fetched, an option to add links to off-site content that is not hosted on BaNaNaS. I'm not sure if only authors or everyone should be allowed to add these (only authors is probably sufficient), but it allows authors who definitely don't want their content hosted on BaNaNaS to at least advertise it. Of course the game will not be able to download this type of content automatically, so I don't think everyone will move to hosting content on their own.

I'm not asking for all of this to be implemented, and certainly not any time soon. Like before, these are just ideas. Do with them what you see fit

EDIT: I like your idea of the "online presets". Fits well into my idea of finding what you like at work without having to have access to the game.

[Arie-]

First, I would love screen shots or preview of the images in the NewGRF's in one way or another. I've been struggling with station NewGRF's eg., there are a lot of those, but I never seem to remember which NewGRF's are which.

edit: Argh... Foobar...

[TrueBrain]

Downloading older content is a strong no-go. It is against our ToS, and many won't approve


Rating by star can be bad: a NewGRF you like can be horrible for me. We need some kind of fair way to weight NewGRF, in a sorting system where people can find what suits their needs.

[Supercheese]

There're some great suggestions here, sorting by category (e.g. Stations, Airplanes, NewObjects, etc.) would be top on my wishlist.

Some other tidbits for the Bananas webpage (http://bananas.openttd.org/en/), instead of having to click on "# Times" under the "Downloads" column to manually download a GRF .tar bundle, which seems counter-intuitive to me, giving the manual download its own distinct button.

Also perhaps giving the each field in the "License" column a clickable link to the license text (appropriate GPL page, CC-page, or even custom license.txt).

[FooBar]

Downloading older content is a strong no-go. It is against our ToS, and many won't approve

Who said anything about downloading older content?

If referring to my stable/development suggestion, only the latest stable and latest development would be available. Or if the author chooses not to use the development option, only the latest stable.
In addition, at some point the development download could be marked as 'superseded by stable', which makes it unavailable for download as well, leaving just the stable.

Rating by star can be bad

It seems to work fine on my phone, but maybe the number of OpenTTD users is too low for something like this. But a system to see 'what others think is good' would be beneficial in my view, given the recent queries along the lines of "what AI is good?".

[lawton27]

Rating by star can be bad: a NewGRF you like can be horrible for me. We need some kind of fair way to weight NewGRF, in a sorting system where people can find what suits their needs.

It can but I would guess that most GRFs would have a similar amount of very good or very bad ratings leaving a two exceptions; GRFs with unusually high ratings these are clearly enjoyed by most people and should be reasonable to advertise these most to those new to GRF and those with low ratings which therefore probably aren't too great so they would be at the bottom. Obviously this bundled with a more specific system of sorts would be great leading people away from GRFs which aren't worth their time but still allowing them to have their own taste.

[TrueBrain]

I should clarify a bit I guess: stars do work in general, but I think it is unfit for this. I was hoping people had better ideas that fit more.

[SAC]

Personally I couldn't care less about a rating system, but some people seems to like it - in some cases as a guideline of what to download as some files are more popular then others... But I also think that even more requires some sort of categories as files such as "town names" and the sort could be very difficult to find...

[XeryusTC]

The following post only applies to the in-game browser, but might as well apply to a web frontend.

First of all: filter by type. I am still surprised that this isn't implemented into the client. Sure you are able to sort the list by type but that still leaves a huge unmanageable list. Possibly allow for subtypes for newgrfs in a grf-crawler kind of way, example subtypes would be: trains, road vehicles, ships, aircraft, industries, towns, stations, town names and landscape/infrastructure. The main problem with this is that like in grf-crawler some newgrfs don't end up in the category you'd expect them to. Alternatively you could use the tags to group them, but a lot of tags becomes messy really quickly IMO.
Cutting down on the length of the list in this way is absolutely crucial IMO as it allows for easier selection of what you want. If you currently would want to download an aircraft newgrf (of which there are only 2 or 3) then you would have to look through all of the other types of newgrfs too, this is very user unfriendly IMO.

Possibly allow for creation of groups, especially for newgrfs. There are currently 11 ECS, 10 Dutch, 8 Czech and 9 Japanese newgrfs for example. If there was an easy way to group this then the UI could suggest related newgrfs based on what you have currently selected. Sure the tag system could also be used for this but it might also give false positives. The group could be displayed much in the same way as the advanced settings instead of every individual newgrf when not filtering on sub-types.

Show an image that represents whatever you have selected. I think this would be a hard to implement correctly because you've got so many variations in image format and size but maybe it can be standardised. For newgrfs it is also possible to embed it in the newgrf itself although that would mean that the newgrf spec would've to be altered slightly to allow for this.

On one hand I like rating systems, but I'd also feel bad for authors whose newgrfs only got one or two star ratings. IMO some other metric for determining popularity would be in order, like download count/time that it has been up. Although that might favor newer newgrfs over older, which could be a good thing because you are more likely to have the old newgrfs already.

These are just some simple ideas so feel free to pick them apart

[Lord Aro]

Downloading older content is a strong no-go. It is against our ToS, and many won't approve .

Sure? What about (an example such as FIRS comes to mind) when a newer version cannot be used by older versions, meaning that no download is available for the older versions of that particular file?

[TrueBrain]

Downloading older content is a strong no-go. It is against our ToS, and many won't approve .

Sure? What about (an example such as FIRS comes to mind) when a newer version cannot be used by older versions, meaning that no download is available for the older versions of that particular file?

You lost context here: from our Frontend (the webpage, the http:// URL). That is what we talk about here, not ingame stuff /me points to the topic

[Eddi]

if we want to establish development versions on bananas, we need a "pull from <url> on <time> every {day|week|month}", to keep manual action as low as possible

[wallyweb]

I have a suggestion that might answer a lot of those front end questions.
1. Leave it more or less as is.
2. Adapt GRFCrawler. This is not a repository but it is a directory. It offers:
- Categories
- Graphical interface
- Information
- Website Link
- Forum Link
- Download Link

All it needs is one more link ... to BaNaNaS.
Assuming that the GRF author has uploaded to BaNaNaS, when he/she sets up in GRFCrawler with the usual information, he/she has one more option ... check an "Activate BaNaNaS Link" button. Assuming that the author has provided GRFCrawler with the proper file name, a player clicking on the "BaNaNaS Download" button will initiate a search for that file on BaNaNaS and then start the download.
The author still has the original "Download Link" for those players who prefer to avoid BaNaNaS.
The Website and/or the forum links will provide the player with access to a location where the latest and greatest Alpha or Beta releases are available.

The question is can GRFCrawler be modified?

EDIT revised references to GRFWizard to read GRFCrawler

[lawton27]

On one hand I like rating systems, but I'd also feel bad for authors whose newgrfs only got one or two star ratings. IMO some other metric for determining popularity would be in order, like download count/time that it has been up. Although that might favor newer newgrfs over older, which could be a good thing because you are more likely to have the old newgrfs already.

Average downloads per day (or week) perhaps? With new GRFs (ie younger than the week / day) receiving a viewing priority to get them noticed, perhaps a "new this week" section?

[SAC]

As for ratings itself, doesn't the number of downloads reflects that in a similar way? But perhaps it's more difficult - if not impossible - to have that visualized when using the ingame content downloader system?

The question is can GRFCrawler be modified?

For me personally the most important thing is to find a sufficient solution where we can find ALL, (although at least most), up to date available files in one centralized location. This will once and for all eliminate the need to scroll through endless of topics/posts, or various sitse out there, something which I've brought up on several occassions during the years I've been a member of this community. However, having a centralized system for downloadable files doesn't necessarily mean that all other locations needs to be closed down or reduced in any way. It's just as easy to upload to a specific sites own downloads section as it is to also upload a copy to a centralized place. And it makes it soo much easier also to newcomers to find what they are looking for...

Along with this I'd also encourage the OTTD-team to have the OpenTTD.org front end to reflect the "family" behind, that is sites within the TTDLX-community - especially as all the actual work is being done in those places. And by having also the OpenTTD.org front end reflect that one way or another, shows a more united community towards people visiting it - and again especially to newcomers! And at the end of the day, if we're determined to put an end to all the hostilities, (as much as it possibly can be done at least), and try to get along for better and for worse for the sake of an even more exciting TTDLX-community, every tiny little aspect is important here...

And a side note though, but still important; I have suggested that we find a similar description of what's expected as far as copyright concerns;

As for copyright issues and abuse contact information; First of all it needs to be stated that our community is a fan-based one. It's not an organisation, nor a company or an authority. And as such I believe we need to find a way to decide on a mutual description of what's expected as far as these things concerns, to be posted and announced on all our sites, incl. the BaNaNaS. This to avoid confusion about what is valid and to avoid discussions or comments about different rules for different sites - impossible to keep track of them all! What is vaild for TT-forums is valid for Simuscape. And what is valid for Simuscape is valid for OpenTTD.org - and the other way around of course! The same message everywhere within our community! And while on the subject, why not even have a mutual abuse contact information so that we all can be aware of a problem arising and take care of it on all sides?

I know for a fact that TrueBrain is eager to have things changed, hence these spin-off topics , but it would be nice to also get some point of views from some of the other OTTD devs around here, incl. Owen of course as the admin of TT-forums... So, Rubidium, Planetmaker, Yexo...

[FooBar]

As for ratings itself, doesn't the number of downloads reflects that in a similar way?

Not really, as something that is updated very often may have more users but less downloads per version. While something that remains the same version for years has many downloads but maybe less users.
Or at least the current download count isn't usable for that. If the number of downloads in the last week or last month were to be given, then it may be a better indicator to see what's popular or not, but still no clue if it's any good.

While I'm not a huge fan of a rating system myself (even though I first suggested it), I think it's the only way to separate good from bad.
Maybe a simple like/don't like will do, with a stat showing for each entry, along the lines of "63% like this content" (with a lower margin of at least 20 votes or something).

For me personally the most important thing is to find a sufficient solution where we can find ALL, (although at least most), up to date available files in one centralized location.

Yes, that would be the ultimate goal I suppose. GRFCrawler, at least in the past, was supposed to be that place for NewGRFs. While it is great at what it does, it still doesn't list everything. Why? Because it depends on author input and not all authors have their NewGRFs listed there. Again why? I don't know. Maybe they don't know about it, maybe the unlisted content isn't any good so not worth listing. Maybe because they don't want a TT-Forums account.
I don't know the solution, but these are some thoughts.

And SAC, let me compliment you for coming back here to take part in this discussion, even though you have your own place (as in Simuscape) now. Also very courageous to stick around after the fierce remarks against you in "the other topic" earlier! I'm not sure if I would have been so strong if I were to stand in your shoes, I'd probably slam the door shut!

[wallyweb]

BaNaNaS Menu Structure
======================
This document is a proposal for a simple and intuitive structuring of a menu for BaNaNaS.
This proposal assumes that BaNaNaS can support a Windows Explorer style expandable menu tree.
If any of this proposal's suggestions have been mentioned elsewhere, please regard this document as a reinforcement of those prior suggestions.

The proposed structure is loosely based on the features list from NewGRF Specs.
Where appropriate the [feature number in HEX] has been included should it prove useful in coding this suggestion. [**] is used where a feature number is unavailable.
Amended 13/06/2012 per suggestions from Zuu and from planetmaker

Code: Select all

STRUCTURE
---------
|- 0 - Tree Trunk
|  |- 1 - Pimary Branch 0 [OpenTTD Base]
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch 0 [**] Base Graphics
|        |- 3 - OpenGFX [License][OTTD][Details][Download: BaNaNaS; Website;]
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch 0 [**] Base Music
|        |- 3 - OpenMSX [License][OTTD][Details][Download: BaNaNaS; Website;]
|        |- 3 - Scott Joplin Anthology [License][OTTD][Details][Download: BaNaNaS; Website;]
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch 0 [**] Base Sound
|        |- 3 - OpenSFX [License][OTTD][Details][Download: BaNaNaS; Website;]
|  |- 1 - Pimary Branch 1 [NewGRF]
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch 0 [00] Trains [Sort options: Name; Date=Earliest/Latest; Popularity;]
|        |- 3 - File Name 1 [License][OTTD/TTDP/UNIV][Details][Download: BaNaNaS; Website;]
|        |- 3 - ...
|        |- 3 - File Name n
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch 1 [01] Road Vehicles 
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch 2 [02] Ships 
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch 3 [03] Aircraft 
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch 4 [04] Stations
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch 5 [07] Houses
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch 6 [0A] Industries
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch 7 [0F] Objects
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch 8 [**] Infrastructure {Canals; Bridges; Railtypes; Airports; }
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch 9 [**] OpenGFX +
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch n [**] [Have I missed anything?]
|  |- 1 - Pimary Branch 2 [AI]
|        |- 3 - File Name 1 [License][OTTD/TTDP/UNIV][Details][Download: BaNaNaS; Website;]
|        |- 3 - ...
|        |- 3 - File Name n
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch n [**] [Have I missed anything?]
|  |- 1 - Pimary Branch 3 [AI Library]
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch n [**] [Have I missed anything?]
|        |- 3 - File Name 1 [License][OTTD/TTDP/UNIV][Details][Download: BaNaNaS; Website;]
|        |- 3 - ...
|        |- 3 - File Name n
|  |- 1 - Pimary Branch 4 [Game Script]
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch n [**] [Have I missed anything?]
|        |- 3 - File Name 1 [License][OTTD/TTDP/UNIV][Details][Download: BaNaNaS; Website;]
|        |- 3 - ...
|        |- 3 - File Name n
|  |- 1 - Pimary Branch 5 [GS Library]
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch n [**] [Have I missed anything?]
|        |- 3 - File Name 1 [License][OTTD/TTDP/UNIV][Details][Download: BaNaNaS; Website;]
|        |- 3 - ...
|        |- 3 - File Name n
|  |- 1 - Pimary Branch 6 [Scenario]
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch n [**] [Have I missed anything?]
|        |- 3 - File Name 1 [License][OTTD/TTDP/UNIV][Details][Download: BaNaNaS; Website;]
|        |- 3 - ...
|        |- 3 - File Name n
|  |- 1 - Pimary Branch 7 [Heightmap]
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch n [**] [Have I missed anything?]
|        |- 3 - File Name 1 [License][OTTD/TTDP/UNIV][Details][Download: BaNaNaS; Website;]
|        |- 3 - ...
|        |- 3 - File Name n
|  |- 1 - Pimary Branch n [Have I missed anything?]
|     |- 2 - Secondary Branch n [**] [Have I missed anything?]
|        |- 3 - File Name 1 [License][OTTD/TTDP/UNIV][Details][Download: BaNaNaS; Website;]
|        |- 3 - ...
|        |- 3 - File Name n

[oberhümer]

Base sets are missing except OpenGFX, which is miscategorized.

[wallyweb]

Base sets are missing except OpenGFX, which is miscategorized.

Do you mean
| |- 2 - Secondary Branch 9 [**] Miscelaneous {Base Sets; Music files; Sound Files;}? Is it also miscategorized?
Where do you suggest placing OpenGFX? (By the way, that is a category for the OpenGFX group of files.)