DJTT Midimap Website Beta

[John Dru]

Hi All,

About 2 months ago I had an idea about creating a website dedicated to sharing midimaps. I turns out that DJTT were also planning to build the same thing. So, we joined forces and I'm pleased to announce the first beta release of our midimaps site: midimaps.djtechtools.com. We are giving you guys on the forum the link first, before we go fully public, so you can kick the tires and put it through it's paces.

The new site has been populated with all the official DJTT mappings and I would love it if you guys could start uploading your mapping's too.

The database is searchable by software and controller, so you can quickly find the mapping files that work with your setup. The system has built in version control. Every time you upload a new mapping file the version number will be automatically incremented (of course you can manually override it). You can subscribe to mapping updates to received emails when a new version of a mapping is available.

Another cool feature is that you can create an "edit" of someone else's mapping. For example, if you downloaded a mapping file for your controller but you did some edits to add a new feature or fix a bug, then you can just go back to the page where you downloaded the original mapping and hit the "Upload an edit of the mapping" button. A copy of the original mapping will be created and you will be asked to upload the new mapping file(s).

You can sign up for the beta using your forum credentials or by starting a new account.

We have a list of ideas for the next version, but we wanted to open it up to the DJTT community to see what popular requests may be.

If you have any feedback, suggestions or bugs to report then visit the support forum: http://forum.djtechtools.com/forumdisplay.php?f=41

This is a beta, there will be bugs but I will responsive as possible to get everything working perfectly.

Enjoy.

John.

[zestoi]

nice idea i think - tho isn't this basically what traktorbible.com is used for?

tried to login using my forum login but didn't work. i hope/presume you're linking to the vbulletin login info for this as would be slightly insane to require a different login. i wrote some code to do that for one client a few years ago - don't suppose it's much different now.

i would like to see some forum integration re: comments or something. makes more sense (i think) to create a forum thread for a mapping so it can be discussed and people get to see updates etc - but it could always link back to a page on your new site to actually down etc. the vb thread could even be embedded within your site instead of the whole separate comments system.

being able to tag mappings and then browse by controller/tag etc would be nice. not sure how useful the main homepage will be once it has a decent set of mappings and browsing would be nicer than having to select a pulldown for software and/or controller imho.

it's a nice central hub for djtt's own mappings rather than a few odd pages on the blog - but not convinced it's better than a combination of traktorbible.com and forum threads for other users mappings atm.

edit: u def need to use vbulletin logins (unless u are and mine just isn't working) as u can't do anything atm, download/comment/etc without being logged in. forcing people to login just to download a mapping is maybe one step too far as well.

edit2:

The system has built in version control. Every time you upload a new mapping file the version number will be automatically incremented

this is a nice feature so long as it's the default behavour and not *forced* behavour. for example any midimasher mapping that i might upload will have it's own version number and other people may well not upload every version so they'd need to be able to specify that etc.

Another cool feature is that you can create an "edit" of someone else's mapping.

the original uploader should be given the option to disable this - assuming that the new upload shows up under his original mapping and not a new one. else v1.2.2 may be uploaded by someone else while the original author has since made edits to his orig that should be the real 1.2.2 etc. unless the other uploaders version would get named like v1.2.1.1 if it was based on the original uploaders v1.2.1. i have no idea what versioning formats u are using. personally i only ever use dates as version strings these days for most of my software - except for stuff i sell that clients like to see an actual version number for.

edit: there's also no reason why u couldnt auto login users using their forum login if u redirect via the forum.djtechtools.com using some code there that passes an auth token back to your site

[John Dru]

nice idea i think - tho isn't this basically what traktorbible.com is used for?

Yes, it is. But, we are trying to organize the mappings in a way that makes it easy to find what you are looking for and see which mappings are highly rated by other users.

tried to login using my forum login but didn't work. i hope/presume you're linking to the vbulletin login info for this as would be slightly insane to require a different login. i wrote some code to do that for one client a few years ago - don't suppose it's much different now.

Please let me know what the problem was. You should be able sign up with your forum username and password. We have a plan to merge all DJTT system onto a sign in system. So, you will have one user profile for the forums, maps, and blog comments. If you have some information about how you achieved this then please send me a PM. Any help is appreciated.

i would like to see some forum integration re: comments or something. makes more sense (i think) to create a forum thread for a mapping to it can be discussed and people get to see updates etc - but it could always link back to a page on your new site to actually down etc. the vb thread could even be embedded within your site instead of the whole separate comments system.

The idea is that the new site will replace the controllers section of the forum.

being able to tag mappings and then browse by controller/tag etc would be nice. not sure how useful the main homepage will be once it has a decent set of mappings and browsing would be nicer than having to select a pulldown for software and/or controller imho.

Yes, you may be correct. These are the types of things we can change as the site develops.

it's a nice central hub for djtt's own mappings rather than a few odd pages on the blog - but not convinced it's better than a combination of traktorbible.com and forum threads for other users mappings atm.

At the moment you are correct. But, we are hoping that with feedback from the DJTT community we can expand it. What would make it better than traktorbible.com and forum threads?

edit: u def need to use vbulletin logins (unless u are and mine just isn't working) as u can't do anything atm, download/comment/etc without being logged in. forcing people to login just to download a mapping is maybe one step too far as well.

It should work, let me know what you did and I'll try and reproduce the problem. We questioned if people should be forced to login to download or not. We decided to see what would happen. As you can imagine, it wouldn't very good if we tried out downloads for all first then switched to downloads for signed in users second.

edit2:



this is a nice feature so long as it's the default behavour and not *forced* behavour. for example any midimasher mapping that i might upload will have it's own version number and other people may well not upload every version so they'd need to be able to specify that etc.

Absolutely, it's not forced! It's there for convenience. Although you must use x.y.z format version numbers so they can be sorted easily.

Thanks for the feedback, keep it coming!

[zestoi]

Please let me know what the problem was. You should be able sign up with your forum username and password. We have a plan to merge all DJTT system onto a sign in system. So, you will have one user profile for the forums, maps, and blog comments. If you have some information about how you achieved this then please send me a PM. Any help is appreciated.

tried with email and got "Invalid email or password." it wouldnt allow me to just use my form username. good tho that it's *meant* to be the forum one - so apols for my rant

The idea is that the new site will replace the controllers section of the forum.

not sure i'm keen on this idea... i think the "controller mappings" section on the forum was originally meant for just posting mappings, but it has turned into much more than that. i think it makes sense to keep the controller/midi mapping discussion separate from the more general "controller discussion" stuff that goes on in the "Controllers, Mods and Gear Reviews" one.

At the moment you are correct. But, we are hoping that with feedback from the DJTT community we can expand it. What would make it better than traktorbible.com and forum threads?

personally i'd like to see forum threads. it's perfect for discussing mappings so no reason to change it. i also would personally have rather seen some kind of integration with the mappings section on traktorbible.com as that's where people seem to post their mappings. i tend to prefer integrating different websites together than trying to replace functionality that already works. i would say just integrate with vb, it's quite easy to work with.

if however u could get the traktorbible owners to migrate all the mappings that they have into your new site then it's all good. what we really don't need is two 'central' places for people to be posting mappings to.

people *will* want to discuss mappings *somewhere* on the forum. i really don't think it makes any sense to come up with something that is completely separate. i check various sections on the forum several times a day, and it's easy when it's all part of the same system.

It should work, let me know what you did and I'll try and reproduce the problem. We questioned if people should be forced to login to download or not. We decided to see what would happen. As you can imagine, it wouldn't very good if we tried out downloads for all first then switched to downloads for signed in users second.

if you're going to implement an auto login like i mentioned then forcing signin is probably best. u always (?) need to login to vb to download any files anyway. only issue is the cookie domain which u can get round by redirecting to the forum subdomain as i mentioned to check their login status.

Absolutely, it's not forced! It's there for convenience. Although you must use x.y.z format version numbers so they can be sorted easily.

ok cool. an x.y.z format works for most people anyway. must admit i am looking to see if there's any place i could cross post midimasher stuff to - and having a version number wouldn't mean very much, but could still work. i presume there's no limit on file size/types etc? my mappings are/will be fairly tied to the actual midimasher version - tho at the same time i'm only likely to update my own (basic ) website with new downloads of code.

[zestoi]

if u look thru threads on this (sub)forum you'll see it's much more than just mappings. i'm still convinced that discussion *of* the mappings should stay here - but even if not just merging this forum with the "Controllers, Mods and Gear Reviews" one wouldn't make a heap of sense. i also think you'd get less people joining in discussion of the mappings if it was in a separate system.

if it was me i would even integrate the wordpress comments with vbulletin. there's been some great blog articles and also not bad discussions in the blog comments section but normally i just don't bother as i'd rather discuss any decent blog articles with people here on the forum.

imho "unifying" rather than "diversifying" is the way to go...

[John Dru]

You can sign up with your forum username first, then you will be able to sign in.

The new site will replace mapping uploads and discussion about those specific mappings but it will not replace general discussion about mappings. Or maybe it should, we can discuss this further. For now the forum is remaining as is and we are running the mapping site in parallel until we get enough feedback to make a good decision about where to go.

You can upload any type of mapping file format and zip/tgz files. There is a filesize limit or the server will time-out when uploading, but this will be huge. For the types of files we are uploading it won't be a problem.

[John Dru]

if it was me i would even integrate the wordpress comments with vbulletin. there's been some great blog articles and also not bad discussions in the blog comments section but normally i just don't bother as i'd rather discuss any decent blog articles with people here on the forum.

This is a great idea. I didn't think of that. Really a comment on the blog is just a simplified forum post. In fact a blog article is just the same as a forum thread, it just looks better.

imho "unifying" rather than "diversifying" is the way to go...

Absolutely, this is what we are trying to achieve in the long run.

[zestoi]

You can sign up with your forum username first, then you will be able to sign in.

really needs to be integrated. the whole web is about shared logins these days - i don't see any point in making users signup again - when it doesnt take much code to auth via vbulletin anyway.

The new site will replace mapping uploads and discussion about those specific mappings but it will not replace general discussion about mappings. Or maybe it should, we can discuss this further.

not sure i like it replacing discussion about mappings - and u can't force that to happen ofc. it will only happen if people prefer the new system to the forum. personally i'll be posting a mega midimasher mapping when traktor 2.5 comes out and i want to be able to create a new thread in the forum to discuss it. the new site should act more as a repository for mappings with all your version control etc (which is good ofc) but it shouldnt *force* users to discuss there. it definitely should not replace general discussion about mappings.

For now the forum is remaining as is and we are running the mapping site in parallel until we get enough feedback to make a good decision about where to go.

cool - sounds good.

You can upload any type of mapping file format and zip/tgz files. There is a filesize limit or the server will time-out when uploading, but this will be huge. For the types of files we are uploading it won't be a problem.

even a midimasher config that contains apps for windows/linux/mac will only be about 3.5mb. and i'm sure a few images will take any normal mapping to at least that size anyway. can't see anyone needing to upload mega size archives.

[zestoi]

This is a great idea. I didn't think of that. Really a comment on the blog is just a simplified forum post. In fact a blog article is just the same as a forum thread, it just looks better.

yep, agreed. the same logic should apply to all comments on the site, whether blog, or your controller site. i'd love to see them all result in threads in the actual forum.

Absolutely, this is what we are trying to achieve in the long run.

then using shared logins and the forum as the central system for all threads/comments has to be the way to go...

[John Dru]

really needs to be integrated. the whole web is about shared logins these days - i don't see any point in making users signup again - when it doesnt take much code to auth via vbulletin anyway.

This is definitely the plan. We just haven't got there yet.