Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 37583
Location: Seattle, WA
Posted: 06/14/11 16:27
The idea of eliminating the control panel has been brought up before, and while on the surface it may seem like a good idea, it brings up a few problems that need to be addressed before it could be done:
The complexity of the skin will increase drastically - seeing that the customization of the skin is already a complex endeavor, I'm not big on making it even harder.
Jamroom has A LOT more data points in it than Facebook - you really can't compare - and Facebook still has a completely separate section to handle all of the permissions, modification of your profile, etc. - any system of any complexity is going to have some data that is collected but is NOT shown on the profile page - how do you handle that? I see no way of completely eliminating some sort of settings section for the user. If all Jamroom did was photos, a "wall" and friends (i.e. you want to try and clone facebook), then you can likely already eliminate most of the sections and link directly into the CP sections.
How do you reduce complexity when your users are asking for more control? We could easily eliminate most fields from the control panel, and remove config options, but are you OK telling your users that you can't help them if they ask for something the system doesn't support?
It's harder than it seems - all of the functionality in Jamroom is there because someone wanted it enough to ask for it - in the long run, "simplifying" a system really means removing choice and only supporting a subset of what Jamroom supports at this time, or at the minimum, doing something to "hide" any extra features beyond the bare minimum.
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 1559
Location: Rochester Pa
Posted: 06/14/11 18:42
I think one thing to do to simplify is to have more control over the profile from the admin side of things. Being able to have the admin arrange the fields as they need especially with custom fields which just get thrown in where and only added in order of creation...... could make for a very messy look but arranging them could make the profile area easier to navigate if we could do in a way to accomodate each site indivually and instead of being one long form it could be broken upinto sections. This could be done with modules but doing it in the form in the profile would make more sense for some and would be much more simplerr.
_________________ One day the court system will learn that a childs mother is not the only option...... Question is will it be too late by that time...
Joined: 20 Aug 2003
Posts: 5341
Location: Nottingham, UK
Posted: 06/15/11 02:34
I tried to eliminate the control panel on http://gigmemories.com by having relevent cusomised bits of CP show in frames on the homepages. At the time I couldn't make it work using ajax divs so ended up using iframes so its all a bit 'clunky'. One day soon I'll revisit the site and have another go.
Login with demo/demo and have a look around. When uploading gig comments/photos/videos the iframes open (this is a live site so if you do upload anything, make it real )
Also have a look at the 'Your Control Panel' link top right.
Cheers
Pa
Joined: 10 Jan 2008
Posts: 265
Location: Phoenix, AZ
Posted: 06/15/11 10:16
I rented a Ning.com site for a while. Running this site gave me a real perspective on users habits on a social type site. Ning has links that appear in each section from posting pictures to making a fast blog. People used them a lot. Since switching to Jamroom we have never experienced user activity like that since.
My members also tend to be intimidated by having to learn yet "another" control panel. Jamroom is easy but still it's a fact that it's differently laid out from any other type of site or cms I've used or seen. That ranges from phpFox to Dolphin and a few other no name experimental scripts.
I'm pretty sure that if control panel links were inserted through out the front of the site, user friendly traffic would increase a great deal. I've done some experiments in the past with having a direct link to message mail seen everywhere you surfed the site. People appreciated it, because they didn't have to go back and check the control panel all the time for replies.
I plan to continue that with the new theme I'm working on and placing those type links and mimic Ning. Post a picture now, post a blog now, create an event etc.
Joined: 05 Jun 2006
Posts: 1559
Location: Rochester Pa
Posted: 06/15/11 13:20
I think a better artist/member page when logged would help unless its able to d othis already member logsin or clicks on control panel on the control paneel you have a wall similar to FB not saying i want to be a FB type site but I click on like artist(should be added) then anytime the artist updates thier profile adds photos/songs videos or posts then i would reeive this on my member front page this would I believe a lot with user interaction being able to see and receive emails alerting members of new songs or videos from which they have already selected that they liked
_________________ One day the court system will learn that a childs mother is not the only option...... Question is will it be too late by that time...
In my honest opinion JR just needs some changes to the way it handles users - profiles - quotas -members etc, thus enabling it to be more user friendly and less complicated.
You need to know code to run a JR..But you also have have users who are willing to do the work as well as the system and its complications make it very unfriendly for daily use of a user.
If you look you will see the vast majority of jamrooms have no problem obtaining Artists, but they battle to maintain users and have proper user interaction.
I have a list of things i believe could make it better for the user, as its pretty decent for the artist at present. Those would be my ideas and not necessarily what the JR community or the developers want..So it is what it is and you have to use it for that..
I been running my system forever now and i still see them same issues, i honestly think they are what hold us back as true competitor to the big CMS system..yes i know it is a MCMS
I agree with you on this. Over the years Jamroom has basically grown "organically" - i.e. new features and items have been added in mostly as they have been requested, and in my opinion there is just too much going on inside at this time. I'm already working towards simplifying and streamlining quite a bit of the Jamroom back end - there are quite a number of features that simply need to be moved out to a module, or done away with all together.
For many years the focus in Jamroom has been on providing features as users have requested them, but it ultimately has simply created a more complex program - you need to be fairly technical to have a good understanding of how Jamroom runs/works. If you do have that type of technical ability, you can really do anything with Jamroom - in fact we sell A LOT of Jamroom systems to sites that are migrating off of other systems because they need the flexibility that Jamroom provides. So the trick is to find a better "balance" of options that are going to be useful for the site owner, yet that the same time those options can't make it too complicated for the user.
Now I know that doesn't help the situation RIGHT NOW, but I would love to have your feedback on what you think could be improved to help the USER (i.e. your artist's fans).
Thanks!
- Brian
Holdon Brain,
I know what you are trying to say and in some aspects you are right.
However as a dj & producer and label owner i have seen JR grow up from a crappy script with alot of errors and bugs into a fully featured platform that is capable of doing virtually everything that other scripts just cannot do (at least not in the way how jamroom has bundled all these little options).
And yes JR has advanced to a level where the average Internet user is going to have problems why?
Simple because they do not read, they do not test and they have never heard of a manual, also they forgot that JR has probably one of the best support forums on the net.
Because i know for a fact as i have been there myself when i started with JR is that if you are willing to read, test and ask then JR can offer you something no other script can.
This might sound weird but i cannot accept the fact that you are saying that JR has grown to difficult and that features need to be stripped out to simplify it again.
Keep in mind we all asked these features and you guys did turn JR into a piece of art.
And yes there are some bugs and minor coding bugs but hey the script is alive you guys bring more updates out to perfect things then microsoft and your average anti-virus combined lmao.
Thats called dedication and support based on the love for ur own work, that shows something about JR and what makes it great.
So with all do respect but if people fail to use the full potential of the script that does not mean its to complex, as it is really not.
The only few things you have to do is: Read, Test and Ask.
However i understand what you are saying and i understand that things need to change, but why changing the whole script and basically ruin your master piece? If you can change the packages?
People use crappy hosting providers, or they have no knowledge about coding - editing and when they finally got it to work they forget to maintain the site itself and they are to lazy to ask for help or read some tutorial's thats the number ONE reason why JR seem so complex.
The moment they see the features of JR they are thinking: gimme gimme gimme and the moment they got it they turn grey as they do not know how to handle it.
Thats not the fault of JR and its not the fault of the people behind JR and its community.
So why not make the packages (Bonus, Power, Payment and so on) a little more module based? meaning that you literally switch on or switch off what you need or do not need?
Thats the only real thing that JR might be able to do to make it for the average user easier to handle as imo the general JR user will not like the fact if you are going to strip it down.
Another thing that might be worth mentioning is that editing JR has gone difficult in some cases that might be a thing to change as the online editor aint that good and does not allow serious editing.
Still i believe that if someone is willing to make a JR based webpage work that it is one of the easiest scripts around as i tried most of them.
And honestly there is not a script out there that comes close to JR regardless what others say.
I rented a Ning.com site for a while. Running this site gave me a real perspective on users habits on a social type site. Ning has links that appear in each section from posting pictures to making a fast blog. People used them a lot. Since switching to Jamroom we have never experienced user activity like that since.
My members also tend to be intimidated by having to learn yet "another" control panel. Jamroom is easy but still it's a fact that it's differently laid out from any other type of site or cms I've used or seen. That ranges from phpFox to Dolphin and a few other no name experimental scripts.
I'm pretty sure that if control panel links were inserted through out the front of the site, user friendly traffic would increase a great deal. I've done some experiments in the past with having a direct link to message mail seen everywhere you surfed the site. People appreciated it, because they didn't have to go back and check the control panel all the time for replies.
I plan to continue that with the new theme I'm working on and placing those type links and mimic Ning. Post a picture now, post a blog now, create an event etc.
I'll let you know how my users respond after...
Hmmmm as i understand from your reply is the fact that users struggle to navigate trough the many options on your site (JR) however if you would change the profile templates them selfs you can enable or disable options you do not want.
I mean if you look at the cobalt 3 theme its pretty advanced and it offers both end user and back end alot of options this same applies for the Nova skin.
But if you take the Jukebox skin for example there is nothing much that can go wrong as it has limited options.
So would it not a better idea to create a " low tech" template for the noob user?
As i personally believe that if you would strip down options that it will eventually backfire as we have seen in the past with other scripts that did try to achieve the same thing as JR.
See my point? Today with all those CMS like Social plat forms having options and the ability to adapt to any given scenario is a must have.
Joined: 09 Jul 2003
Posts: 37583
Location: Seattle, WA
Posted: 06/18/11 08:04
Just to be clear - I'm not planning and removing support from Jamroom - everything Jamroom does now will likely be supported, it just may move to a module that is not part of the core by "default" - that way we can better assess the number of users that are actually using some of the more obscure Jamroom features.
Joined: 01 May 2009
Posts: 619
Location: NastiNati
Posted: 06/20/11 22:37
'my opinion' Jamroom is great the way it is ....Everything to simplify it can pretty much be done by customizing your skin... I did not care for the layout of the CP either so i integrated it into my skin so you do not even know your in it... n8dogg has done this as well with all his newer skins... Options can always be manually removed... I like having the option of them being there!
Selling a big'ish Jamroom site (excludes hosting and domains)
Site Stats
¤ Profiles
Artists: 8,251
Fans: 6,516
Record Labels: 95
¤ Content
Gallery Images: 4,839
User Blogs: 2,591
Artist Reviews: 2,305
Events: 1,461
¤ Music
Total Plays: 4,815,153
Total Streams: 2,554,371
Total Downloads: 2,260,782
¤ Video
Total Plays: 12,715
Total Streams: 12,625
Total Downloads: 90
¤ Site Stats
Newsletter: 6,041
Page Views: 2,399,718
Unlimited licenses, with Media Pro + N8flash media pro modules, Facebook module, Mobile Module, Cluster Server (conversions) and a bunch of other things...
+/- 10 000 visits per month via Google..
will entertain OFFERS via PM only and will make a final decision on sale by month end if a suitable offer is made...
Site has been running since 2004 and has many major artists across all genres listed..
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