New thesession.org website gone live

I must have missed the announcement about the beta website and upcoming changes so here’s a starter for the new website now gone production. I’ll check it out in the weeks to come and, unless there is an alternate place to comment, use this discussion as the place.

Thanks for the efforts, definitely a labor of love. It’s a great resource.

Gary in Fairbanks, Alaska

Have been working thro the Popular Tunes list adding tunes to my tunebook, noticed that sometimes pressing the Back button loses the stylesheet altogether - it happens frequently although i can’t reproduce reliably. Could send a screen shot when it happens if that’s any use?

Mike said “Have been working thro the Popular Tunes list adding tunes to my tunebook, noticed that sometimes pressing the Back button loses the stylesheet altogether - it happens frequently although i can’t reproduce reliably.”

Yeah, this a really annoying issue with the Ajax pagination I’ve implemented: the pagination itself works fine but then when you use the back button to return to a paginated page, you get the fragment instead of the whole page.

Rest assured I’m aware of the issue and working to figure out a way to resolve out …even if it means removing the Ajax functionality altogether (which would be a shame).

I like the new website layout - how it gives you the ABC and sheet music on the same page, for example. However I can’t get the “Listen” button to work. When I click it, it just disappears. I don’t know if this a problem with my computer or the website. I am using Windows 7, 64-bit, IE 9. My default midi player is Windows Media Player. Thanks for all your hard work!
Vicki

Ditto what Birdfiddler said about the listen button. I tried several times with different tunes with the same result. I have an iMac OS 10.7 and use Safari.

Thanks.

Yes, I’m afraid the midi playback won’t work in some browsers. Sorry about that. But then, I don’t think the midi files are core to the site (I was thinking of getting rid of them entirely).

Hi Jeremy, you did a really nice job with the new website !
However, would it be possible to add Marches to the list of tunes ? For example, the Pikeman is actually a polka even if the comments say that it’s a march.
Thanks.

Cheers, Jeremy. It looks great on my iPhone.

Dia dhaoibh! Greetings all!

Jeremy, may I thank you for your efforts.

I did have a look at the beta page, but not knowing too much about computers felt that I had not too much to offer. The new site looks attractive in that it retains the ‘mustard flavour’ and, for someone like me, I find I can navigate it easily enough.

All the best

Brian x

:D

Jeremy, I’m getting used to the new layout. A couple of comments, if this is an OK place to post them:

I was already logged in, but when I first went to add a comment to this discussion, it requested I login, clicking the login link took me to my profile page, with no way to return to the discussion. Popped back in here through the main page to add these comments.

Perhaps the title “Newest Discussions” is not really appropriate, as it shows as that same title on any Discussion page I go to (ie: 203 of 2,845).

Regarding older discussions, do you plan to have a link to get to older pages, or only one at a time via the -> arrow for previous page? I copied the navigation URL at the top of my browser and changed the numbers to navigate to page 203 ( thesession.org/discussions/new?page=203 ).

Are there going to be any dates attributed to postings? For instance, looking at new discussions, it seems to me that they read left column down, then right column down to indicate posting order (BTW is this based on last post or thread creation?). When looking at old discussions, such as page 203, all posts on that page are listed as “one year ago”. Not necessarily useful info when wondering about chronology of events both here and in the outside world. Clicking on a specific post give no further detail as to when it was made. This would be helpful, particularly if I wanted to print a message for reference.

While I’m at it, would it be possible/desirable to add the posting member’s name to the summary of newest Comments? For instance, on the home page,

Discussion:

New thesession.org website gone live (10 replies)
Posted by alaskafolk 2 hours ago

vs. Comment:

Re: Test drive the changes coming to The Session

Amazing work! :D more…
11 minutes ago

[Couldn’t the poster’s name be listed where it currently says “11 minutes ago”, as it does when you go to the thread? ie: “# Posted by PJ Mediterranean 13 minutes ago. “ (it took me 2 minutes to cut-and-paste it)

Although I’ve seen a reference to extracting midi files from the new site I can’t find how to do it. This is a major problem for me as I learn tunes by ear and cannot slow down the new Quicktime player function.
How can I get midi files from the new site on to my computer so I can control the speed (and key) ?
Thanks
Ken

For folks who are missing the midi playback, there are some alternatives. For example, if you download EasyABC and paste the abc file there, you can listen. It’s an extra step, but it is quick.

Wow, lookit this shiney new web format. Hey, I wanted to search for sessions on Tuesday night within a couple hour radius, and I can’t find the old session search feature that let me plug in day and location. Am I just missing something? Has that been done away with (that would be a real shame)?
TMG

I like it. The colours happen to be my favourites and they’re done nice and subtly and not too full-on. I like the fact that it’s not like a normal forum with stupid avatars showing the date when you joined and quoting earlier material a million times. I’m glad to see that Jeremy has stuck to the simple aesthetic while modernising the site for use with new technology. Most of all I’m glad that he doesn’t just copy the format that every other forum uses and stuff it full of jazzy features just because “that’s the way it’s done”. There’s a lot of thought gone into paring it down to what’s necessary and functional. I got used to the new look after just a few hours. I never thought I would actually like it because usually I hate change like this and I imagine I’d become one of those “it was better the way it was before” kind of people!

Nice job - I like the new ajaxy-ness, although I have to say that your php code on the old site was really tidy and I always admired the fast pageloads

Thanks for all your great work!

@ the mad greek “Am I just missing something? “

Yes! In his thread which anounced the forthcoming changes to the session, Jeremy did mention that those additional search parameters would be lost.

I agree, its a shame.

I just tried searching for sessions in Bristol (England). The results returned the sessions in Bristol (England) - but also the sessions in Bristol (USA) as well …

what you could do is copy the ABC into ABCexplorer (free software) and use that to slow them down to any speed you like…

I’ll see what I can do about reinstating session searches day. I might just make it part of the regular input i.e. any search ending in “on mondays” or “on friday”, etc. triggering the search by day.

@Jeremy - the loss of the location search parameters is an even bigger disadvantage.

OK - supposing you have just moved to “anytown” in the county of “anyshire”. On the old site, if you searched for a session in “anytown” and found none, you could have searched for sessions in “anyshire” and then maybe picked the nearest session from the results returned.

But how would you go about finding your nearest session using the session search on the new site?

And for someone living in a country of the world where there were very few sessions, it would be even more difficult for them to find their nearest session.

Mix O’Lydian wrote: “But how would you go about finding your nearest session using the session search on the new site?”

If you add your location to your member profile, you will be sessions near you in the sessions section.

But if you don’t want to add your location, just search for “anytown, anyshire” or if that brings up no results, just “anyshire”.

“The Session near you”, That’s a pretty good feature, as a work around, if you’re travelling all you need to do is temporarily make your location your destination and click on the sessions tab.

Now if when we can filter with the day of the week that would help to eliminate sifting through too many dead sessions.

Also if we had a last modified date(or last comment date) that might help indicate if the session has a higher probability of being active.

No doubt I’ll grow to love the new layout. However, at the moment, I find it far less compact and it seems a little unwieldy.

Also, the text doesn’t seem to be as prominent but this may be the plan.

Hi Jeremy.
Thanks for the brilliant resource you created and are now upgrading.
I do miss the fact that with the Midi playback (Listen) not working the site is no longer a one stop shop for me. Also Traditional music has survived for hundreds of years by musicians learning by ear. It is still the preferred way to learn a tune and the way we encourage all our young players.

When I hear a tune in a session and people are unsure of the name it is grest to search and listen to the midi playback to see if I have the correct one. Previously I would only go to ther sites when I failed to find the tune on The session. It is easier to go to these sites now than to start cutting and pasting into ABC programmes.
I do hope you can find some way to solve the problem as I really enjoy the session.

Thanks again for the great work you are doing.

I use the site to find tunes. The search function is fine, but the results are spread over several pages with a lot of empty space.

I also sometimes visit the discussions, and the new layout is spread out and confusing.

The old site was a bit clunky but I’m not finding this any easier to use. I’m prepared to give it time and see if I get used to it but my first reaction is that I’ll be visiting the site less often.

Murcu, Jeremy says that the issue with the Listen function not playing is to do with your browser - it’ll only work in more recent browsers - Chrome, Firefox, Modzilla etc. or whatever it’s called. Problem with this is there would be a large number of people still using the bog standard Internet Explorer. I’m sure more knowledgable people here can estimate the balance of users between these browsers but I’d be guessing that way more than 50% of users would be on IE?

The largest majority of people viewing on a PC would be using IE, that is true. It will be more balanced than it would have been a few years ago though with more folk accessing the internet via phones and pads and an increased use of browsers like Chrome and Firefox. It is free to switch browsers however although I understand that some may not want to do this. Jeremy probably has the stats on the spread of browser use assuming that he uses Google Analytics or similar.

I do check out the midis from time to time as it is a nice and easy way of identifying the tune. I am rather alarmed though that there are folk on here who would choose to learn traditional tunes by downloading and slowing down a midi file. That is horrendous.

I realise that isn’t what murcu is doing.

“I am rather alarmed though that there are folk on here who would choose to learn traditional tunes by downloading and slowing down a midi file.”

That’s surely a cause for alarm, then. 😉

@NCFA, Why is that alarming ? the info offered by the dots is exactly the same as offered to you by the midi, both generated from the ABC, just in a different fashion.
The function of a compendium of tunes in whatever format is to offer the tunes in an accessible manner. They are all merely tools of communication, just as the written word does not convey all the information of a recording of a voice and the recording dos not convey all the info from a face to face discussion. So to use one written medium to criticise another written medium, both with their defects, seems somewhat amusing to me.
Would the session.org be better if we had a robot [midi] voice to read out the comments? No, but it would suit a blind or illiterate player with interest, rather more than just the ‘squiggles’ we use at present. So criticising midi as a medium of communication is like criticising screen reading software… it has its function and uses even if they dont seem of value to you….
They are all merely representative systems designed to communicate as much information as we can, or wish to ,include, but not everything. Just as you cant tell if Im grumpy or light hearted , serious or joking in my posts, the dots, the squiggles and the midi dont offer all the info we think is important, but its the best we have so far. And if I add this; 😎 , what information does it convey to you?do you think its what I mean to convey or that there is just some vague mutual understanding or that actually i mean something totally different to that which you think im trying to convey?

All methods of communication have their drawbacks and potential for misunderstanding .What ever works seems fine to me even though its not perfect….

Will Evans, we’ll agree to differ there.

I think midi files are a terrible way to try to learn tunes. I’m not saying that sheet music or ABC is great, but they’re definitely a step up from midi files.

But, like I said, let’s agree to differ and leave it at that (which is my way of subtly asking you not to derail this discussion, thanks).

I like the idea of the Popular Tunes feature, but what I’m really wanting to do is to be able to skip through to some less popular ones, by entering a page number, or at least by skipping 10 pages at a time or something – to get to some not-so-popular ones without having to page by page by page through the “Chestnuts” – is there a way to do this that I’m missing?

Like others, I’m also missing the clear-cut searching for sessions by days & locations.

LOVE the preview feature, & the edit feature.

Agree on the much-commented too much “white space” & scrolling, but overall, the look of this whole thing is fantastic. Thank you much for all your efforts!

I like the new format much better for mobile devices. Great job. The popular tunes feature is nice as well. As long as the advanced search function still works, I’m gonna like this. Thank you, sir.

The ‘problem’ with the Popular Tunes slot is that it takes up space on the screen but will be subject to very little change over time - could well look the same in a years time. Ditto to less extent for Active Discussions depending on criteria used to select. So, in that sense, they’re dead space.

Re:Mulcreevy
Maybe not the best option to flip through pages but it’s simple and fast. And someone already suggested this in this discussion. Just change the last part of the url/page address to whatever page you want to see. That is, just change the number - ‘page=2’ to ‘page=44’, etc.

Is it possible to use another midi-plugin than QuickTime, I don’t fancy these Mac programmes?

Well done Jeremy. The new site looks good. A bit stingy on the mustard, maybe, but I’ll get used to it.

Good job with the new design. So far everything seems to be working fine for me. My only suggestion would be to have a search box in the tunes section. Specifically on the page of the tune you’re currently viewing. At the moment, if you search for a tune and click on it to view it you have to go back one page to search for another tune. Would be convenient to be able to just search for a new tune directly from that page.

I also agree with the format being spread out with the discussions but I think that’s just a matter of getting used to it and knowing what’s being shown where.

Not trying to start a debate but in regards to browsers - IE only makes up about 26% of users, ahead of Firefox but not by much. Chrome is actually number 1 with some 35% of users according to the latest stats.

Emily - Good point. That hadn’t even occurred to me.

Will Evans - On Jeremy’s wishes I am not going to dwell on this other than to say I agree with him but, then again, you already knew that. My preferred way of learning a tune would be from an actual recording of the tune or live from a player. I may use the sheet music as an accompaniment to that or I may learn a tune direct from the sheet music, on occasion but I don’t really see the point in doing that. You surely learn tunes that you have heard and like. You can only do that by listening to a real recording of the tune, not via a midi.

Congratulations on the new-look site Jeremy. It looks great. I like the colour scheme and the spacious page layout. Plus the ability to edit posts!

If u know tunes but forget them easily, midi can be a great resource for reremembering without having a library of recordings. We r not learning, we r remembering. Thanks for your hard work. Everything looks groovy and smoothy.

Midi can be a valuable resource, especially if your sight reading skills aren’t quite up to par.
I agree with Will. Out of the 10,000+ tunes in Celtic music only a very small fraction of those tunes have been recorded so you really limit yourself if you just rely on listening to other people around you or the recordings you have. When I was starting out and going through odd tunes (especially tunes from Brittany) it helped to be able to listen to the midi version to be able to figure out patterns and odd segments.

Sorry Jeremy.

malik: “someone already suggested this in this discussion”
Sorry, I’d missed that! It’s smart thinking, & it satisfies my request.

I said “Have been working thro the Popular Tunes list adding tunes to my tunebook, noticed that sometimes pressing the Back button loses the stylesheet altogether “

I’d also add, the task would have been twice as fast if the layout (including but not limited to font size) allowed a display of 10 tunes per page without scrolling.

I am getting used to the new layout, but as I am in denial about the need to wear spectacles for screen work, I’m not sure that’s a good thing 🙂

Yay! Mobile version! :D

I loved seeing my whole tunebook as sheetmusic at once. Is still a way to do that? Thanks.

How did you do that previously? You can still download an ABC file of your tunebook and open it in an ABC programme such as ABC Navigator.

The site is very very nice. I love the midi, I hope those are a keeper, and I really like the new style of the sheet music. Great job, Jeremy, it is very elegant and fresh.

Edit: I also love the edit selection!!!!

In the old system, the tunebook contents page had two buttons at the bottom- one for ABC and one for sheetmusic, which rendered the whole tunebook into one long scroll. Now it seems ABC and spots are available for each song, but not the list as a whole. ?. Thanks

It will evolve for sure! I like the colors. Like a nice piece of roast beef with a dot of mustard on the side.
I’m still poking around … so I’ll have more feedback as I do.
I’m learn tunes mostly by ear, but like a notation reference; just ‘cause.
The midi works on my Windoze PC, but not on my Mac with Lion. I like the Midi so I can make sure I’m honing in on the right tune.

iPhone app? Is that right … that would be lovely.

Thank you, Jeremy!

Can anyone help me with navigation in the new format?

What is the definition of an active discussion? ie. how long has to elapse before the discussion is deemed inactive!

How do I find discussions that fall beyond that event horizon?

I don’t think there was anything sacred about the old format, I’m giving this one a good go, but I can’t find anywhere to get an overview of the recent discussions. Instead of telling us recent comments I would be more happy with a list of discussions that indicated which discussions contained new comments.

It is possible a link does not display in the browser I use, its an iPad…

It seems discussions are listed on the left-hand column, and comments on the right. If you scroll down to ‘recent activity’ on the right, it lists the all the discussions (about 2,800 of them).

The discussions page shows the latest five new discussions, and the latest five new comments. Under the latest five lists there are links to the rest. One is “new discussions”, the other is “more comments”. Follow these links and all discussions are displayed, one in order of latest new discussions, the other in order of most recent comments.

…my last post should have said 2,800 pages, not discussions. Sorry!

A suggestion:

If you’re using a PC with firefox, make you browser about half its normal width eg portrait instead of landscape and only concentrate on what’s on the first page.

Also push your chair back about 4ft and get extension for your arms so you can type.

and as the story goes, you will get used to it.

“ Like a nice piece of roast beef with a dot of mustard on the side.“

Wow. How do you cook your beef? (It’s got to be pink, if not red, for me)

it reminds me of hampton court maze

“I would be more happy with a list of discussions* that indicated which discussions contained *new comments.”
Posted by cag

https://thesession.org/discussions
scroll to
>> new discussions…
*https://thesession.org/discussions/new
click right arrow at bottom of page > >
https://thesession.org/discussions/new?page=2
etc. > >

… return browser to previous page > more comments…
*https://thesession.org/discussions/comments
click right arrow at bottom of page > >
https://thesession.org/discussions/comments?page=2
etc. > >

new discussions which have been moved may be found by searching comments of whoever submitted the discussion > >
https://thesession.org/members/23274/comments

Apropos lost… I haven’t followed the test drive thread, so maybe it has been mentioned before, but as there is no differentiation between new tunes and new settings of existing tunes (and only the 5 latest are shown), I’m a bit afraid that entirely new tunes might get lost unseen in the depths of the database too soon - just five new settings, and nobody will take notice of the new tune anymore.

It’s cool that older tunes are getting new attention this way, but I myself find new tunes much more interesting than some new settings, and I check for new ones regularly. But as there are necessarily at least as many (~ many, many more) settings than there are tunes, isn’t there a high probability of settings “suppressing” new tunes?

Maybe it’s just that at the moment folks are enjoying the new setting-feature (which is really great!). But my concern about new tunes to disappear too quickly remains. What do you think? Or has this been discussed before?

Ben,

thanks for the directions, I can follow them. By bookmarking that page I can go straight to it and see any new topics while keeping an eye on the old.

I do find that page suffers from two things, one is “arty white space”, a phenomenon often found when a new art director takes over a magazine. The next art director decides to get rid of the wasted space. The second is confusion created by defeating ones ability to create order in what one is seeing. Is the second discussion the one to the right or the one below the first one? Seeing I can’t tell, perhaps the top left one is not the first one? On pages with discussions that have one or two with longer titles, scanning left to right, a very natural thing, doesn’t work as they become staggered.

A simple list is a very fine thing…

Nice new site but I can’t get the tunes to play. Is anyone else having this problem?

Don’t work on my computer either.

you need quick time installed for it to work, I believe.

I love the new site, and so long as Jeremy tones down the brightness (which is really uncomfortable on a PC) then I’m happy.

Some good has come of the change though - I’m seeing far more interaction from members whose names I don’t recognise! Now of course some of them may just be because the site is new and it will die down, and some of course is from people who always used the site but their activity never showed up, but already the discussion and tunes section seems to have extended far beyond the couple of dozen “regulars” 😀

The site is great, Jeremy you’ve done a great job, and while there will be teething troubles, a lot of the people who don’t like the changes will in time not care and continue to use the site. As for those who have said “I don’t like the site and will therefore use it less” - so what? I doubt that will be the case, I reckon they’ll use it just as often, they just want to make a point. It’s like everyone complaining when the local supermarket “changes the shelves around” but they don’t stop buying food from the shop as it’s convenient - thesession.org remains an amazing, convenient resource and they’ll still come back (even for the MIDIs!)

Cheers once again Jeremy,

Smash,,,,

I don’t understand this brightness business. It’s not as quite as bright as, say, the default page background in MS Word, or the background in many mainly text-based websites (e.g. BBC news which I happen to have open). Are you folks working in darkened rooms or something ?

I find the new version of the site is a lot quicker to use. This is because it its a lot easier to see the sheet music. One annoying feature of the way that thesession.org has developed is that the first version of a tune is often poor. That’s the one that is shown as “dots”. So I have had to copy and paste the abc text of the potentially better versions into the converter on the concertina.net site. Now all that its required is a click on the sheet music button. Suddenly, this site is a lot more useful. I’m going to makes a donation.

One thing isn’t clear to me. How come there are already so many “settings” of some tunes which already have a sheet music button? In one instance I have added a new setting by copying in the abc text from a version suggested by a contributor a few years ago. I have added the name of the original contributor to the abc text. Is this the way to do it? For some tunes there are excellent versions in abc format sitting below a defective first version. The new site gives us a way of dealing with this.

There are too many posts now in the two threads on the new website to read through them all (again), so my apologies if this has been suggested already.

I was just trying to catch up and go to the newest comment in the other thread with hundreds of posts and was scrolling and scrolling and scrolling… And gave up.

Could we have also a little arrow at the top that would teleport us to the newest comment at the bottom of a thread?

Uh, I logged on to report that I was getting a 404 for the then 9 minutes old discussion 31038 (something about the new site). But its gone now 😏

Philip W asked “One thing isn’t clear to me. How come there are already so many “settings” of some tunes which already have a sheet music button?”

They’ve been extracted from the comments on the tune.

“In one instance I have added a new setting by copying in the abc text from a version suggested by a contributor a few years ago.”

Well, it should have already been listed as a separate setting. It might be worth double-checking that it wasn’t already listed as a setting.

“I have added the name of the original contributor to the abc text. Is this the way to do it?”

If you download the ABC file for the tune, each contributor is listed with each setting.

So basically, it’s best to submit your own settings of tunes. If someone else has provided a setting in the past within a comment, it should already be down as a separate setting, attributed to the person who posted the comment.

Ah, OK, I understand about 31038 🙂

Looking at the Discussions index page, I got two questions:
1. what are “active” discussions, and why are they listed that way?
2. why is there a section headed “Recent activity”? It seems to be exactly the same as “Newest comments”, except it lists the contributors, and not the first two lines of text of the comments, whereas “Newest comments” does not list the contributors of these comments. Would it not be more useful to have the contributor name appear in the “Newest comments” listing, say behind the time (for instance: 12 min ago by David50), and scrap the “Recent activity” list? And perhaps list 10 newest comments, rather than five, having scrapped one list?

Thanks for the site revamp, Jeremy! I like the new functionality in the tunes section!

I had the same question as Hans and was just trying to figure out how to word it. It seems somewhat redundant. Also, if you click on the “recent activity” list, you’re taken to the top of the thread rather than the comment in question. I too would find it more straightforward if the “recent activity” section were not cluttering up the screen and there were a “newest comments” listing that included the contributor’s name and which took you straight to the comment you clicked on. Was there a web design reason for it? Because I can’t figure out why it’s set up that way.

~ on whatever browser you’re using…

It’s not much better in another category. In the tune section the *newest comments* typically do not have a title so you don’t know which tune is being commented on. Scroll down to the *recent activity* & you have the name of the tune, but there’s also who added the tune to their tune book (which might be useful until it’s 10 pages back) & while you can see someone edited a tune or setting there’s no way to tell which bit was edited. Helpful?
“… a lot of the people who don’t like the changes will in time not care.”
I’m reading about quite specific issues. Most people are responding about which changes help them & which do not making using the site better.

It’s only midi, anyway. You can confidently ignore that button.

You do need the Quicktime plugin to listen to the midis.
There is (more or less) another way to listen to tunes in the comments. An abcjs user script can be used either as a plugin with Firefox http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/127434
or in Chrome
http://code.google.com/p/abcjs/downloads/detail?name=abcjs_plugin_1.4.user.js&can=2&q=

I have the Greasemonkey plugin (it can be switched on or off). If I go to settings in the comments which have a reference number [x:1] & can be parsed those have a [download midi] button directly after the abcs. The download can be played on media players other than quicktime. This doesn’t work with tune settings listed at the top of the page. For those one line of javascript* in the markup language interferes with the plugin.
I don’t have Google Chrome but I’m guessing it’s similar.

* is in the page source html between the R: & M: fields, effectively disrupting the Greasemonkey abcjs plugin.

* is in the page source html between the R: & M: fields, effectively disrupting the Greasemonkey abcjs plugin.

😏
< divclass=“notes” >

OK, I know I’m violating the last bulleted point in the discussion guidelines which says, “•Please keep discussions relevant to Irish music. Meta-discussions (discussion about the site) are particularly discouraged,” but I feel strongly enough about this that I think it’s worthwhile to get likeminded people to ring in on it (or for the lack of that response to identify me as a whacko - we’ll find out…).

I need the search feature restored to the sessions tab. I didn’t use it all that often, but when I did use it, nothing else could take it’s place. Here’s how I use the search feature. When I don’t have to wake up at 6:00 in the frickin’ morning, and I want to go to a session that’s not a regular local one for me (say I’m looking for one on a Tuesday night), I search for sessions just on that night of the week in states near me (I’m in Massachussets in the US, so MA, VT, NH, NY and CT are all within a 1 - 2 hour drive). By limiting the search by night of the week, I don’t have to sift through an unmanageable amount of listings from the other six nights of the week. I did the same thing when I went to Ireland for a week in April last year and was looking for good session near Ennis on a Friday night. I searched by county just on that night (I ended up at the Monk’s Well in Quinn - it was lovely!). Now with that feature gone, I get a deluge of listings ordered by distance from my location. But since I’m willing to drive a an hour or more for a good session, I’ve got way too many listings to sort through. Worse, I have to open up each listing to see if it’s on the night that I’m free, so I have vastly many more listings to go through. It’s too laborious a process to go through now; I didn’t even go out and play last night, despite the 9 am doctor’s appointment that would have let me sleep in. I just went to morris practice as usual (now THAT’S a tragedy). Am I the only one who was making regular use of the Search by Day and Search by State feature? Do any others of you miss and want that restored. O Jeremy, is restoring that feature even possible now? (despite my silly tone, I’m really serious about this - I’m not aware of any other good session listing database that was searchable).
TMG

i used the search by day all the time. although i like the new interface, i wish i could just type in “illinois on monday” and get the results as you described. or even a simple check box below the search bar to limit the day of the week.

This site is banana-cakes, I’m still all confusticated trying to find my way around. But I like what I see so far.

Thanks Jeremy, for your reply

To be specific, I found that the version of the “Trip to Birmingham” notated by Bulmer and Sharpley and transcribed here by Ceolachan, is the closest that I can find to the original recording by Josie McDermott. See the LP Darby’s Farewell.

Their transcription goes under the title of the “ Pile of Bricks“ .

Now the eighth version on this page;
https://thesession.org/tunes/1787

None of the settings with a Sheet music button beside them are this version, which i find the best for my purposes - playing with a friend who learnt it from the LP. I copied from comments and made it a new setting. I think this is the best solution, apart from the fact that the original contributor is not mentioned, except in the amendment I made to the abc text. Or am I missing something here.

The new site has made it so much easier to compare settings to find the one you want to learn, or adapt.

Philip W wrote: “I copied from comments and made it a new setting. I think this is the best solution”

That’s good but please don’t add extra headings into the ABC. If you know the tune by another name, add that name as alternate title by editing the *tune* details (the name applies to the tune, not the setting).

For everyone asking about searching sessions by day, that has now been enabled.

But the midi playback, I’m afraid, is a much tougher nut to crack. That one might not be resolvable. We’ll see.

The new site works AMAZINGLY on my android phone! Really convenient, thanks!

jjw said “The new site works AMAZINGLY on my android phone! Really convenient, thanks!”

You’re welcome!

Making the site work well across a range of devices was a high priority for me. I definitely want it to be useful on mobile devices so that when you’re out and about, you can find nearby sessions fairly easily. Or if you’re at a session, look stuff up quickly.

“Or if you’re at a session, look stuff up quickly.”
Please do elaborate, Mr. Keith

I’m still puzzled about how the searching works.

For example, I want to search for a tune called “Going to the Well for Water”.

I type-in the word “Going” and execute a search.

I would expect the above search to return all tunes that have the word “Going” somewhere in the title - but no results are returned at all. Why is this? 🙁

The search is looking for the term *going* anywhere on the page, though apparently not in the title.

For example: https://thesession.org/recordings/search?q=KAN

The album “Sleeper” by “KAN” appears on its own on the 2nd page, as instead the search looks for the case-insensitive “kan” anywhere in any recording title or artist.

Mix, I just performed a search for tunes with “Going” in the title same way I always have when I need useful results ~ Google.
In a general search
“Going to the Well for Water” is the second result
Using Google’s advance search filtered to include only results from thesession.org the tune comes up 1st. 4th in the list is the tune, “Going for Water”
https://thesession.org/tunes/11735

The 2nd listing is “Johnny Going To Ceilidh”
https://thesession.org/tunes/2504

It’s searching the aka names though, “Goin” pulls up Going to the Well for Water. I hope this is just a glitch that can be fixed. There is still the feature that if you put two words in the search box you get all tunes with either, not just those with both. Also, Id the word you searched for is in an alternative title you never get to see it in the search results.

So looking for “My love is but a lassie yet” putting in “love” and “lassie” does not cut down the list of lassies but adds all the loves. And you never find the tune unless you know it is “Tripping up the Mountain”. The previous search showed the alternative name that matched. Then, since many of the alternative names are mistakes…

@Ben - yes I too use Google, as the session.org search algorithm seems flawed.

@David50 - try searching for a member on session.org - that doesn’t seem to work properly, either.

@anyone - if you click your profile, you will see that you have an option to “hide password”. Well I tried this and logged out - but I still had to click the “hide password” option on the logon screen when I next logged on. So that feature doesn’t seem to work at all.

We’ve also lost the emoticons feature.

😏

🙂 😉

Those look all right.

Apparently they only look all right on the Mac.

I hate to be one of those naysayers, especially when so much work has been put into created an ostensibly updated site, but I liked the old site much, much better.

With the old site, it was so easy to navigate, search tunes, find tunes and their alternate names, look up members, sessions, etc. I LOVED the MUCH more compact layout of the old site, and how almost everything was “above the fold,” so to speak (using journalism lingo). I also really loved how the old site had tabs to help sort and organize things in one’s own profile page – it was almost like having a virtual notebook with tabbed sections.

Now, when I go to view tunes, I have to scroll and scroll and scroll to read about the tune, the comments, view the sheet music – and then if people have posted alternate ABC versions of a tune, yet more scrolling and scrolling and scrolling if you’ve clicked the “Sheet Music” button for each alternate tune. And while it IS really nice that the alternate ABC versions now have sheet music, I don’t see why comments couldn’t have been left on a separate tab. When it comes to Web design, it’s not desirable to force users to have to scroll; ideally, you want most content to be within the viewing window.

Perhaps this is a bug, but with this new site, once you click “View Sheetmusic,” there’s no way (that I’ve yet found) to hide the sheet music again …. So it becomes just that much more cumbersome and unwieldy, as someone else above commented.

Sometimes there’s just no reason to change a good thing. Sure, there were a few things that could have been improved in the old site – such as when viewing my personal tunebook, if I clicked on a tune in the “T’s” and then hit my back button, I would be taken to the very top and would have to scroll back down to the “T’s” again if that’s where I wanted to be. But ultimately, those kinks were very minor. It was a great layout, and no need to cave to pressures to reinvent the wheel when it was awesome as it was.

With this new layout, it’s so much more frustrating to navigate, and so much less easy to switch between comments, basic details, see the sheet music all on *one page* (rather than part of it being cut off because the sheet music insert is so much larger now).

I hate to be an even bigger bugaboo, but I don’t care for this new serif font at all … the old font was so much more readable. And this new font has much less bold contrast, so different elements don’t jump out as easily anymore.

I will still visit here regularly, because the content and collective knowledge are so invaluable a resource, with nothing quite like it out there. But I will enjoy the process much less.

To end on a positive note, however, I am glad the color scheme was retained. It’s a wonderful color scheme. Sorry to be such a downer about the new site… I’ve tried using it a few times sine the new site was unveiled, but my dislike of the new layout won’t change with more use, I’m afraid.

Thanks for considering my comments… sounds like most commenters like the new site, so I hate to be a naysayer, and the effort put into creating it is certainly appreciated.

I’m sure when the old site first came up that it took a while to iron out all the wrinkles. The old site was, well, old and very limited. It was very 1990’s. The font (in my opinion) was too small. The sheet music was hard to read unless you zoomed in and even then it wasnt great. I found that a good portion of the tunes we’re in an awful/wrong setting or just a bad version. Now at least you can easily see all the different variations/settings for each tune.

And on and on and on.

Thesession needed an overall and I think it’s good. Give it a few weeks maybe for it to get going properly.

I’m finding the Discussion search function frustrating. It only seems to search thread titles, not thread content.

On the other hand I find it interesting that some people think the new font is hard to read. It’s generally believed that serif type is easier to read than sans serif.

😉 Emoticons look good on my computer, which is not a Mac!

Yes, I see them on a PC too. It has just occurred to me that searching of an exact match of a tune name must be feasible because the link between tracks on a recording and the tune works that way. The link is made as soon as typos in track listings are corrected.

Serif fonts are easier on paper and sans serif on computers. That’s what I always have heard.

That’s what I had heard too, and that font design is about both aesthetics and technology. Pressing lead type onto paper, flicking an arm against a ribbon and lighting some of a matrix of cells place different constraints on what works well.

AlBrown: “Emoticons look good on my computer, which is not a Mac!”

What OS and browser are you using, Al ?

(I’m using IE8 under Win XP Pro, and emoticons are only displayed as text).

Ah, same here Mix now I have switched to IE8, Firefox shows them OK. I am on Win XP Pro. I wonder if they are being presented differently now and need some different browser setting.

Better if you could stay on your tunebook without having to click back on every time you play a tune from it..

Hmm. I went into Tools and changed to ‘Compatability View’. It then displayed the emoticon underneath the text equivalent. I then change back to (to ‘Not Compatibility View’ I suppose. But it carried on displaying them like that even after I closed the browser and re-opened it. I did that because ‘Post’ doesn’t work in Compatibility View.

Sorry, I see how to do it now..

@David55

Thanks for your feedback reference emoticons. And there is another (more important) issue if you are running on IE8 under Win XP Pro:

The new session.org website doesn’t display the sheet music - instead, clicking “sheet music” auto-redirects you to concertina.net, and you get it from there. I assume this kind of “hotlinking” must have some kind of performance impact on concertina.net. Has Jeremy obtained permission from concertina.net to do this, I wonder?

Ok, maybe I’m something of a dinosaur running on this platform, but millions of others are using it to.

… and I can’t upgradeto IE9, as this is not supported under Win XP/XP Pro.

But why? Navigation onsite has been made unnecessarily more difficult. Is it to put people of using the no-longer-mustard-board? ( 🙂 )If so, I’m afraid it’s succeeding only too well with me, at least.
Merry Christamas anyway!
Chris.

it is not good at all, and there are still no ways of editing previous posts. i mean posts from the old mustard board or am i wrong on that one

It’s amazing - the ‘listen’ feature is absolutely fantastic.

“there are still no ways of editing previous posts. i mean posts from the old mustard board or am i wrong on that one”

Something you regret Dick?

Every time I think I’m out they pull me back in.

I have already said I like the new design but it has also led me to using the site more and not less. I had been becoming quite inactive over the last few months. The fresh, new look is good though and also provides the opportunity to develop the site further whilst the old site was pretty static and inflexible.

I think I’m probably correct in observing that the new layout is resulting in less replies to ‘New Discussions’. Looking down the current crop, the average seems to be about 2 or 3 replies. Possibly because they are less visible now? You just see the top five but a whole lot more info about previous discussions, comments, activity etc.
So whereas people before probably read through some of the new discussion topics, now they’re distracted by the other content?? Just an observation, not necessarily a bad thing, but maybe an unintended consequence?

Conversely I suspect that when something gains a high enough ‘score’ to appear in ‘Active discussions’ it is staying active longer than it would have done before.

Quite a few people have said they don’t like the home page for the site. I don’t, there is not enough to be very useful of too many different things. But we have to remember that its equivalent in the old site was not much more than a menu. It didn’t have any sign of what was going on at all.

I preferred it when you could just see all the discussions at a glance and browse them chronologically. Sorry but for me, the way the discussions are now is NOT an improvement.

I agree with that. Not being clever in an IT way, I find it difficult to use & will probably fade quietly into the background now. Live long & prosper!

Not sure why you would want to edit posts that are months old, Dick. lol As it is now, you have a limited amount of time to edit newly posted replies. Is it 15 minutes or 30 minutes? I’m not sure what the time frame is but it’s not much. It’s enough to be able to go back and add something or make correction though I take it that not too many people know about it or the time limit.

I’d have to agree with the home page. If I was knew to the site that home page would not thrill me too much. I think the ‘recent activity’ there needs some tweaking or just be removed altogether. It’s generally “X member has edited their profile details” or something along those lines. Information that isn’t so relevant in my opinion.

I am glad one part of my questions got answered, by Jeremy adding “posted by “ to the “New comments” listing. That’s great, and it makes the “Recent activity” list on “Discussions” even more irrelevant.

There were a number of thoughtful comments about the choice of serif fonts and the excessive white space. I tried, as Jeremy suggested, to live with it, and see if I could get used to it. Well, I can’t. Serif fonts are too difficult to read for me on screen, unless I make them really big. But doing that reduces the useful information per screen even further. I have not got this problem with sans-serif fonts. They come out much cleaner on a LCD screen.

So rather than walking away from this, I created a Greasemonkey script to address the stylistic problems I perceived, as good as I could. At least I can read this site with less frustration! The script works in Firefox with Greasemonkey installed, and in Chrome. It changes fonts to sans-serif fonts, changes margins and paddings to reduce white space and bring more information per screen, and addresses a few other layout questions, plus adding a “to the top” button fixed in the lower right corner. Also the pinkish white background is changed to a more yellowish hue, a bit like the old site, but slightly lighter.

On this page you can see screenshots “before” and “after”, and the source code and a download link. You would need to install this script manually, if interested:
http://softflow.co.uk/design/Scripts/TheSessionTransformer

Odd, I see the background as pale yellow. Firefox displays it as 255R 255G 236B - pale yellow. Is it my setup or maybe you are in a room with green walls Hans ?

It may well be pale yellow, and my brain thinks “pinkish white”. Perhaps because of all the red tones of the text and headings? Or my monitor is playing tricks?

Thanks for the update, Jeremy.

I like the new format of the site. Easier to read, and less crowded.

I ran through every option, and here’s what I found :

Profile - yes you can change your username if you want. Personally, I’m sticking with my own. I don’t see the point in serial name changing. On that point, I did notice that in some threads there are ‘anonymous’ posts - ie no name after them. I’m wondering if one could change their username to 4 blanks? Not interested in trying, btw … maybe there’s another, perfectly reasonable explanation for the ‘authorless’ posts.

The ‘add location’ function is good too.

Tunes : this is where I think there is the best improvement. Tune abcs load up in a readable format, all settings displayed on the same page. The ‘listen’ button didn’t work for me, but I wouldn’t use it anyway. Looking at the sheet music is fine. And a plus for, me anyway, is being able to print out the notation in a good quality format! Thanks!

Recordings, Sessions, Events - all good, and the layout is much improved.

Discussions : I think there’s a lot that could be improved here. Maybe it’s not easy to do, or maybe it’s in the design plan, but it seems there is a lot of repetition, wasted space and excess pages.

Surely ‘comments’ and ‘recent activity’ are part of discussions? In which case, can’t the whole discussion be ‘bumped up-top’ when a new post is made? At present, if there is a popular thread, you could be scrolling down and down, finding numerous different comments for the same thread. Also, items of ‘comments’ and ‘recent activity’ often don’t have any relevance unless you click on the header, which of course opens up the discussion - which is really what you needed in the first place. I’d like to see them gone, anyway, and use the saved space for lists of discussions.

If a discussions got ‘bumped up’ to the top of the list when a post was made, anyone following the board can see right away what discussions have been updated. This seems to be the general rule on most other forums. As I said, maybe it’s not an easy thing to change, or it’s simply the intent of the design.

I see the background as a very pale yellow, it looks more yellow at work than at home. Also, at home I get emoticons while at work I don’t. I think that has to do with browsers, or some other computery thing that I am too old to understand.
It does seem to be harder to find recent discussions, and the new sorting feature tends to highlight the same few discussions for days, at the expense of others that are still being actively posted to. Whatever algorithm controls that might need tweaking.
Regarding editing posts, I just had a post that somehow posted twice (probably because I got impatient and mashed the button repeatedly). But when I tried to use the new editing feature to delete the second post, it didn’t seem to work.
But in general, even this old dog that doesn’t learn new tricks well is finding the site pretty easy to use, and I love the sheet music being available for all variants of the tunes.

Really enjoy the new format. Much easier to navigate and read.
I also found that the “listen” button didn’t work for me (Windows Explorer 9), but as has been pointed out….that’s not a biggie.
I had hoped that the new format would allow us to upload tunes using notation not just ABC….alas that doesn’t seem to be the case… :o( ……maybe that’s something that could happen in the future.

I’m finding it really hard to follow discussions and figure out which ones are most active. Is anyone else finding this challenging?

Wow, things LOOK nice. The color on my machine is great. However,
1. the midis don’t work and are really critical to me as I don’t read music but learn by ear. Yes, I know you’re supposed to learn from the playing of the tune in your session or a CD and I of course do that. But the midi’s do help with figuring out individual notes for some tunes when the playing on my session-mates recordings are too muddy or fast. It’s also a quick reminder so I don’t have to sort through my CDs or recordings.
2. I can’t scroll fast through the tunes in my tunebook any more, but have to click page by page. I have over 400 tunes and wanted to find the Watchmaker. It takes forever. Maybe I’m missing something?
3. The tune keys and type of tunes have disappeared from my tunebook. Is this usual, or something with my settings? I often use these to search for tunes to put in sets by key. Guess I can search, but it was so much nicer having them listed next to each tune in the tunebook.
Thanks for listening. Know that these things will be worked out eventually or I just need to find the proper work-arounds.

Addie, the midis don’t work on all browsers. Or as Jeremy says, “I don’t think the midi files are core to the site (I was thinking of getting rid of them entirely)”

Think I’m going to get slagged for desperately wanting the midi function back. But as someone above pointed out, what’s the difference between referring to a midi or referring to sheet music if you’re NOT learning the tune from either one?? I can’t read sheet music but learn by ear. The midi’s help me remember a tune or sort out difficult passages note by note. Too hard searching through all of my numerous CDs etc to find the tune.
The previous version of The Session was great, as you downloaded the midi with one button click. Now apparently I have to find another browser or even download some other software to convert it. This is just not an improvement in my opinion.
Nevertheless, I don’t want to be overly negative and want to compliment Jeremy for trying to improve the site and for hosting the site in the first place. It’s a wonderful resource and free! I like the new look, font and the lighter color. I actually didn’t like the super-mustard color as it stood out too much at work when I was sneaking a peek!

Ben, I saw Jeremy’s note about wanting to get rid of midi’s entirely. I wanted to beg him not do do that. Do you read sheet music? If so, this is not an issue for you. Thanks, Addie.

Hey, Jeremy has changed the start page. I think I might like that.

Addie, don’t get me wrong. I’m supporting your request. Jeremy is the one sitting on the fence with this design glitch. I never opposed people using midis. I am highly critical of *how* many people overuse them, but not once did I say midis are useless in all situations.

In other words … see if you can call up midis on a different browser.
;)

Addie, if you want a quick and comfortable solution for getting midis: Fellow member Reverend has written an awesome bookmarklet which allows you to submit ABCs to concertina.net with two clicks.

https://thesession.org/discussions/26527/

Hm, the direct links to specific comments don’t work anymore… this is the relevant one:

[quote=“Reverend”]
(…) Here’s the script: Copy/Paste it into the URL field of a bookmark in your browser, and then you can select ABC, and click the bookmark, to convert it into sheet music (and Midi, on that page, if you want.

javascript:var s;if (window.getSelection) {if (String(window.getSelection()).indexOf(’\n’) > 0) {s =window.getSelection();} else {s=window.getSelection().getRangeAt(0); }} else if (document.selection){s =document.selection.createRange();}if (!s || s==“) s = prompt(‘Enter ABC’,“);open(‘http://www.concertina.net’ + (s ? ‘/tunes_detail.html?action=convert&creator=&body=’+ escape(s) : “)).focus();
[/quote]

Reverend Pete is grand! Chris Walshaw also has MIDIs available with his tune search facility ~ http://abcnotation.com/search

Re: Tunes don’t play (aka ~ Need the “search” feature in the Sessions tab… aka New thesession.org website gone live)
https://thesession.org/discussions/31016#comment666137

@Addie: I too was dismayed to hear that the midi files would no longer be available as I don´t read music and rely quite a bit on midi to get the outline of a tune.
However, I have found that if you click on “sheet music” of the tune you want, a concertina.net page appears with a midi file option. Click on that and you can hear the midi file of the tune in question.

murfbox, are you on Internet Explorer?

Where else should simple javascripts not work?

Re: Test drive the changes coming to The Session
“Mix mentioned the use of concertina.net for generating sheet music. Actually, that’s just the fallback. Most people (I’m hoping) won’t ever get that: instead the sheetmusic is generated for them in situ. (For the geeks amongst you, it’s using SVG which means nice crisp sheet music)

If you are arriving at concertina.net when you click on a “sheet music” button, I’d be interested in hearing what browser you’re using.“
https://thesession.org/discussions/30972#comment664701

megapop, on any browser which does not have scripts enabled.

This makes sense indeed. 🙂

Ben, yes I am on Internet Explorer.

Cheers, murfbox. Apparently you have IE set up in a way which has the *Sheet Music* buttons (in the tune settings) redirecting to concertina.net with all it’s facilities. ~ i.e. the fallback. Could just as well have been another abc converter; http://mandolintab.net/abcconverter.php

Why a site built on having numerous abc files has no abc editor/converter I’ll never understand.
😏

@DrSilverSpear
Yes, I find it pretty much unusable now. I’ll probably cease to bother trying soon.

For me the biggest upside of the new site is that it is discouraging me from wasting so much time here.

Thanks Ben and Murfbox for your suggestions. Will try them tomorrow! Addie

I’ve been seeing some improvement in the appearance of the site, beginning to take in some of our comments.

Here’s another: On the main discussion page ( https://thesession.org/discussions ), I don’t really see any use for the Recent activity section, as it currently reflects the same 5 users that have posted the most recent 5 comments - seems like an unnecessary duplication. Follows for every page thereafter, as well. Telling me that “ richard59 left a comment on the discussion Keeping time vs …. 15 minutes ago “ isn’t very useful info, compared to the Newest comment “Re: Keeping time vs …

Ha ha. I was going to say ‘nice try’, Ben but actually it isn’t – it’s hopeless. I didn’t skim through anything, I read every word, as I generally do when a subject is of interest. Well, it started out of interest, at least. I commented on a specific top… more…
Posted by richard59 16 minutes ago “

Now, somewhat different result on the Session page ( https://thesession.org/sessions ), where the Newest comment and Recent activity sections may have differing info (that is, the Recent activity section will indicate edits to sessions, as well as comments). Similarly for the Events page ( https://thesession.org/events ), where we see added events, edits, & comments. I must say that the calendar aspect of Upcoming events (ascending order from current date) vs. the Newest events (descending order from the latest future date), while confusing when first viewed, is ultimately useful. Although I wonder if it could have been implemented more easily by a toggle of the view (ascending/descending) or just separate pages ( https://thesession.org/events/upcoming OR https://thesession.org/events/new ).

On the Recordings page ( https://thesession.org/recordings ) - perhaps it would be helpful if all comments had either the title of the recording or at least one provided by the commenter to lend context to the content. For instance, “Enduring young charms? more…
Posted by Prof. Prlwytzkofski 12 hours ago “ tells us little, unless we select “more…”, where we learn that it is for a Tommie Potts recording. Either force the recording title on the comment, or require a comment title of the poster Same for the comments in the Tunes page ( https://thesession.org/tunes ). If I can see what the topic is, I can determine more easily if it’s worth clicking on “more…”. Particularly if it’s clear that it’s about a Recording or Tune in which I am interested.

Ben wrote: “Why a site built on having numerous abc files has no abc editor/converter I’ll never understand.”

But this site has got it now, working as javascript, converting fast and displaying clean dots, and having a live preview when editing. It is the best change to the site, ever! Maybe some notice would be helpful, saying that you should enable javascript for the site, if you have not go that.

I think that the ‘Recent Activity’ section comes into its own when seen on its own page, as we currently get when clicking the mustard box at the top left. I would find a more compact list easier but the current format may be best on a mobile phone.

It also where we get to see who is changing the Recordings and Tunes without leaving comments.

Dr Spear. As suggested by someone above (Ben I think) this page https://thesession.org/discussions/comments seems to be a good way of keeping track of discussion activity. It has more records than most on the new site.

(As I said yesterday, but it looks like ‘c’ may have received another email 😉)

Oh, by the way. Checking the ‘Keep me logged in’ box and then logging out when finished seems to fix the ‘lost posts through being logged off’ problem. So far anyway.

a lot of minuses and very few plus, the only improvements, are the abilty to edit and the way that music is now printed, it was rubbish before, i had to get abc and take it to concertina net and convert it.

Re: New thesession.org website gone live

I’m finding it really hard to follow discussions and figure out which ones are most active. Is anyone else finding this challenging?
# Posted by DrSilverSpear 14 hours ago.
yes, its a minefield, it reminds me of hampton court maze

In which case is it safer not to notice and comment? ~ for fear it could result in being on the receiving end of “Off with his/her head!” Quick! Duck! (Quack, quack, quack! 😉 )

Ouch! I wasn’t quick enough ~ as my head goes rolling away… Oh the power of omnipotence, even if only virtual…

“I’m finding it really hard to follow discussions and figure out which ones are most active. Is anyone else finding this challenging?”

It doesn’t work, but it wasn’t there before, so just ignore the existence of the tab “Active discussions”
You should also ignore the fact that you get half the amount of information one page than what you used to get
and remember, you can always provide feedback to No. 1, even if your feedback is wrong.

And as the one legged man used to say, give it some time and you will get used to it.

Hmmm…. I think this would work really well if the “active discussions” and “recent activity” sections weren’t there. I think the “newest discussions” bit and the “newest comments” bit are good and it is definitely an improvement to have them together on the home page. However, “active discussions” and “recent activity” just clutter it up and make it confusing. Plus, if they were to disappear, you could then fit more new discussions and new comments on the page.

Going the way of Trad Connect and filling the page with redundant stuff showing recent activity is most definitely not the way to go. When you go to a website and have to mentally block out all the irrelevant noise in order to find the info you want, it’s not such a user-friendly experience.

Err, Spear, they are not on the ‘home page’ any more, that’s just ‘Recent Activity’ now (🙂). But yes, I agree, they clutter up the Discussion page. What would be good would be if the ‘newest’ pages were a submenu from the Discussion link, like on the old tabs, but maybe the new multi-platform compatibility does not allow that.

I mean on the front page of the discussions section. If you scroll down, you have recent activity and active discussions, which I think are redundant clutter. I suppose the answer for now is just to not scroll down that far.

That all said, I think the actual home page is a lot better (thanks, Jeremy). I usually go straight to the /discussion page when I come to the site, hence it being the first thing I notice.

Yes, sorry, maybe I was being picky there, I knew what you meant Dr Spear.

I still can’t get the infamous midi files to play. On one PC running IE, I can see the sheet music OK but clicking on it does not lead to the concertina.net site, as suggested above I think. On another PC running Google Chrome, no luck either, installed Quicktime and still nothing. Sound card etc. is fine as works with other software.

I think this maybe an issue for many - it’s not that one would learn a tune from the midi but for those of us more inclined to learn by ear and who can’t hear a tune by looking at sheet music or ABC files etc., it’s a handy way to get a quick handle on a tune. I’d use it to identify a tune roughly and then check to see where its recorded to see if it’s in my collection etc.

The font size is massive, you could squeeze in more info with a smaller font size. Also I’d rather not read comments unless I’m already reading about a specific tune.

I use Chrome and I was unable to download the MIDI files, unless I get the Pro version of Quicktime. Are the MIDI files generated from a database instead of being saved on a server? I looked at the HTML and I didn’t see a MIDI filename anywhere.

I use the MIDI files to listen, and generate sheet music. I open them in Cubase, the version I have generates Illustrator files and I can make my own PDFs.

In a perfect world, I’d already have learned these tunes traditionally from my elderly musician neighbor, as well as living in the Gaeltacht speaking beautiful Irish going about my daily business. However that is not my reality.

My fiddle teacher prefers I learn from sheet music, so that I play it the same way every time while learning. She is not a classical teacher, so she helps me make sheet music sound like Irish music, so don’t worry, I’m not learning literally from the sheet music 🙂 She has us learn tunes by ear as well anyhow.

It’s just that MIDI files are a great resource, for quick reference, for those who don’t read sheet music, and for tunes for which recordings don’t exist (or they’re crappy Youtube versions) I mean we ARE using computers to share music.

“Active Discussions” is surely a useful feature. On the old site, such discussions - once no longer new - would have been “off the radar” and only reached by paging down.

But “recent activity” on the other hand, is mostly useless clutter, IMHO. Who is interested (for example) that “Fred Bloggs” updated profile or “Joe Soap” joined the Session?

And if session.org performance is an issue, why is Jeremy including these trivial events?

But what constitutes an “active discussion”? When is a discussion no longer active? Is there a time limit?

The midi files will play for me in Firefox, but not Safari, but it seems to me I use to have that issue on the old site.

Agreed Mix. Someone joining and then filling up their tunebook with dozens of tunes makes the ‘Recent Activity’ useless for pages. I wonder if some people feel uneasy about all these records of people (including me !) updating Tunes and Recordings without leaving a Comment about what they did. Good though if it’s people going through their CDs and vinyl sorting out typos on the track lists.

Hans Bracker: “But what constitutes an “active discussion”? When is a discussion no longer active? Is there a time limit?”

My interpetation is that for a discussion to be flagged as “active” it would need a recent comment.

So, for example, a discussion might be (say) six months old, but you could presumably “activate” it by posting a comment on it today.

I would guess that “active” discussions are simply ranked by activity - with the discussions with the most recent comments appearing at the top of the list.

in my opinion, it is a big mistake.

The Wounded Hussar, did you install Quicktime as a plugin or as a media player?

Not sure Ben, I think a plugin - I just followed the suggestion made by the session.org. i.e. I clicked on listen and up popped a box advising to install Quicktime and follow this link etc.

I can cut & paste the ABC if I really want to another application/ site, but it’s just tedious.

A bit of a disclaimer. First off I think if a site is going to offer midis these should be easy to use. The old system was easy. The new system is better for some users & not for others.
The Wounded Hussar, if you installed Quicktime with Chrome & restarted Chrome & have javascript enabled & are not receiving the prompt saying you need to install it you should be able to click the *Listen* button & listen. For Chrome I looked up how to check that the plugin is enabled;
The QuickTime plug-in is enabled by default after you’ve restarted Chrome. You can enable or disable the plug-in at chrome:plugins.

1 Type chrome:plugins in the address bar.
2 Find QuickTime:
Click Disable to stop the plug-in from running.
Click Enable to re-enable the plug-in.

Thanks Ben, I’ll try that again - mind you, I agree with your first sentiment and I’d guess a good proportion of people here are using a browser where they won’t work.

That’s what I was getting at with recommending an onsite abceditor/convertor. For those who don’t need this the new system is working better. For those members who are currently unable to listen midis on the site an editor w/midi output would be helpful. I doubt this will happen. Currently I am able to listen to midis on the site w/ease, but cannot directly download a midi without going to another site or external application..

Actually I am able to download midis for all of the settings in the comments. I described the process earlier using abcjs user script in Greasemonkey
https://thesession.org/discussions/31016#comment666137

Jeremy, IMHO the inclusion of abcjs onsite is brilliant. I realize there’s some fine tuning yet to happen. Two things I’d like to recommend. The first, if you haven’t already, would be to contact the abcjs developers (Paul Rosen & Gregory Dyke). Each of them is very busy, but if one or the other has some time to test any bugs I’m almost certain they also have an interest in getting abcjs fully functional on thesession.org
The other suggestion is about the *HELP*
At your convenience could you possible add some information regarding use of the *Tunes* section, specifically that abcjs does not work with Internet Explorer. i.e. ~
Re: Test drive the changes coming to The Session
Posted by Jeremy
“I’m afraid the midi playback won’t work in some browsers (and by “some browsers”, I mean Internet Explorer). Sorry about that. It’s all down to the JavaScript I’m using to generate the sheet music and midi files. It’s very powerful but it does require a modern browser: http://code.google.com/p/abcjs/”
https://thesession.org/discussions/30972#comment665620

http://code.google.com/p/abcjs/

Thanks, Ben. I did get in touch with Gregory Dyke (who is a member of The Session) mostly just to think him for making such a fantastic piece of JavaScript.

I’m sure we’ll get the midi playback sorted out eventually: I just hope it won’t take too long.

What would be really good is if there were a third-party service that accepted ABC and outputted midi: this *sort of* happens on concertina.net, but it generates a temporary file each time so I can’t automatically make a link straight to the midi file.

If any of the smart geeks reading these fancy making a hosted RESTful interface on to abc2midi, I would forever be in there debt. (hint, hint)

I’ve posted this on Yahoo’s abcusers http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/abcusers/ & already Paul Rosen has replied. I’m logging off for now, but I think the wheels are beginning to turn.
until then…

I too love the ability to edit the information–I went and fixed the links for some of my favorite albums–and the fact that each setting of a tune can be viewed as sheet music.

My biggest suggestion would be to the tune search function.

Suppose you go to tune search and type in “Toss the Feathers”. The first five hits I get are “Toss The Feathers (reel)”. It’s helpful to know that they’re all reels, but in order to tell which Toss the Feathers each one is, I also need to know the key. Is it the Toss the Feathers in E dorian or the one in D mixolydian? Even more helpful than just the key would be the first two measures of the first setting in ABC.

So,

Toss The Feathers (reel) (Edor) EBBB dBBB | EBBA FEFA |
Toss The Feathers (reel) (Dmix) D2FD ADFD | ABcA GEE2 |

Then I wouldn’t have to click on each tune until I found the one I’m looking for.

Thanks, Jeremy, for patiently listening to all our feedback. We really appreciate this site!

The definition of ‘Active Discussions’ is a bit baffling, as this seems to have dropped right off the list despite having a lot of recent input?

Yes, Hussar, it would appear that my earlier supposition as to what would constitute an “active” discussion was incorrect.

- but maybe this comment (and maybe a few more) might “activate” it?

… or is it so old now, that no amount of new comments will “active” it?

Answers on a postcard ….

It could be some function of the age of the first post, the number of posts and the number of recent posts. So that long-running discussions with lots of posts need more recent activity to keep them near the top of the list.

When the new website went live, I wasn’t seeing emoticons - just the emoticon source text.

But something’s changed - I am now seeing the emoticons - not *instead* of the source text, but *as well as* the source text (one superimosed over the other).

(My operating environment remains unchanged -IE8 under Win XP Pro).

Ahh, yes. Similarly, when the site went live I wasn’t seeing the emoticons either. I hadn’t noticed until someone pointed it out and it didn’t bother me either way. I note however that the emoticons are now working again. I, however, am not also seeing the source code. I am using Google Chrome and Windows 7.

Mix, the change for me happened ‘3 days ago’ about 15 minutes after you said you were not getting them. I changed to IE8, found I was not getting them, tinkered with some settings and got the overlaid on the text. I untinkered the settings but they stayed displayed. So either there was an almost immediate change in response to your post or it is something to do with IE8. The work fine on Firefox on Windows XP Pro. Firefox seems a fairly harmless browser and it easy to install.

Hmm, we only get one edit. I must use the Preview more !

That’s interesting, David50. But I’ve made no change to IE8 (or for that matter, anything else in my operating environment) since way before the new session.org went live.

As you quite rightly say, I could easily switch to Firefox (or some other browser).

But I shouldn’t need to. A web application should be tested in all common operating environments before going live - and it would seem that this one wasn’t.

OK, maybe I’m a bit of a dinosaur still using IE8 under Win XP Pro, but millions of others are still using this platform.

More thoughts:

I gather that this site uses PHP scripting, which is good, as it runs server-side and there is no client dependency.

But I also understand that this site employs javascript - if so, not so good as many users (especially corporate ones) disable javascript on client computers as it is perceived as being a security risk.

There are exactly twenty entries in the list of “active discusions”.
This discussion is not listed any more amongst them.
This is more than baffling, as it surely is a very active discussion,
much more active than others on that list.
So why is it not listed any longer amongst “active”?

@Hans Bracker - I think you need to ask Mr. JK for the answer to that one!

I tend to agree Mix, and the dinosaurs are still around, preening their feathers and (mostly) doing very well thank you. On the display side of things I was happy with the old site, long in the tooth though it was . I can’t speak, I am still maintaining and updating a web site using HTML 3.2 😛(I have moved on from Notepad though). But the old site was probably near the edge of what was practicable when it started so I it seems sensible to be near the edge again now. Maybe once the teething troubles are sorted we will enjoy stability for a few years.

(crossing - maybe this tolerated meta-discussion is a special case !)

On other forums, there are multiple boards for different topics of discussion. Here, there is one board which covers everything, and it’s called ‘Discussions’ !

I cannot see why (from the viewpoint of logical ease of use) the discussions are not simply listed by their discussion name, in the order of ‘most recently updated’ at the top, and do away with the ‘comments’ and ‘recent activity’ altogether.

Well, maybe from a design viewpoint it’s not that easy to do, even if you wanted to …

Mix O’Lydian wrote: “@Hans Bracker - I think you need to ask Mr. JK for the answer to that one!”
I am sure he reads this topic, as he has answered some other questions raised. So I hope he may answer mine, and enlighten us all. Sure he is the one who knows all the technical intricacies of listing comments and topics.

“I cannot see why (from the viewpoint of logical ease of use) the discussions are not simply listed by their discussion name, in the order of ‘most recently updated’ at the top…” –> – >
https://thesession.org/discussions/comments

David50: “… the dinosaurs are still around, preening their feathers and (mostly) doing very well thank you…”

Q. Which dinosaurs had feathers? … 😉

PS: this discussion has now more than 200 replies. The top of the “active discussions” listed has 27, and all “active discussions” listed are listed in descending order of number of replies. I can only guess that this is either taken off the list manually, or by some software glitch.

The active list has the 20 most recently submitted discussions which have received replies

“The active list has the 20 most recently submitted discussions which have received replies” - excluding those that are the top of the ‘newest discussions’. Maybe.

Yes & no, David. The active list currently does not show the most recent discussion submitted (one reply so far) because it falls off the list of the most recently submitted discussions, which have received replies, in descending order.

“The active list has the 20 most recently submitted discussions which have received replies” - so it lists the 20 newest discussions which have received replies in descending order of replies. So it is not really a list of active discussions, as of discussions which are receiving replies recently.
Thanks for the clarification! I conclude it is not much useful functioning in this way, as some really active discussions will not be listed, merely because they have been started some time ago.

The “active discussions” list shows the most active discussions from the last seven days. Originally it was fourteen days but I tweaked it shortly after launching the new site.

So it’s a bit like coming back after a few days away and scanning down the discussions list on the old site to see where all the ‘action’ has been ?

I appreciate the clarification Jeremy and maybe there’s an argument for letting threads die a natural death - but it kinda defies logic that ‘Active Discussions’ do not include the likes of this thread whilst several others are listed that have received no replies today!! There’s something amiss?

No, the wounded hussar, that’s by design. The whole idea is that discussions like this, which are getting pretty long in the tooth, shouldn’t appear.

I think what some are wondering is why the category *active discussions*? Are most members going there immediately when reading discussions & comments or tending to ignore the feature?

So it’s “active discussions but not the most active.”

I am ignoring that feature, as it appears to have little to do with the discussions I’m following (i.e. this one).

Depends on what you mean by active. Does it merely have a pulse or is it engaging?

“The whole idea is that discussions like this, which are getting pretty long in the tooth, shouldn’t appear.” - an interesting view on things. Often the discussions with lots of replies are the most interesting. Of course a large number of replies does not guarantee quality. But it shows where members are engaged in, and that constitutes discussion activity IMO. If you exclude such active long going discussions from “active discussions”, it makes that type of list meaningless.

For the Discussions section I think only two types of lists are useful: new discussions (new topics) and new comments (topics listed by latest comments). The latter would be even more useful if the name of the discussion would be mentioned as well. The “active discussions” in its current form and the “recent activity” lists in the “Discussion” front page could be scrapped.

The name of the discussion *is* mentioned in “new comments” - but I am having trouble remembering what each page is called. “Recent discussions” would be more use if it did not include profile and tunebook changes, or anything else unlikely to cause some action from members reading it.

No, newest comments list entries contain as heading the subject of the comment, which often is the same as the discussion name, but can be changed when you add a comment.

I don’t see a list of “Recent discussions”, only “Newest comments”, which do not contain Profile and Tunebook changes. Not sure where a “Recent discussions” list is. The list on the site homepage lists all and any member postings and changes. And that list is again pretty useless, and why would it be of interest to newcomers to the site, the ones who most likely get to the site’s home page first, to find out about this site?

Hans, if you don’t like the “active discussions” or “recent activity” lists, you don’t have to look at them. That’s the reason why they’re further down the page than “newest discussions” and “newest comments”. The hierarchy reflects the priority.

Yes, sure, I know. And I think I made my point and will not go on about it any more.

About MIDI:

“Thanks, Ben. I did get in touch with Gregory Dyke (who is a member of The Session) mostly just to think him for making such a fantastic piece of JavaScript.

I’m sure we’ll get the midi playback sorted out eventually: I just hope it won’t take too long.“

Jeremy, I’ve been playing with the Mac and various browsers to see what I can see about the MIDI. I notice that if I download a MIDI (at least in some of the browsers) the file comes over without the expected .mid extension. I theorize that at least a part of the issue might be insuring that the file created with the “listen” button gets a .mid extension before it is passed to whatever the browser is using to play MIDI files. I know that some of the players of MIDI files on the Mac (notably Quicktime Player 7 I believe) refuse to play files without the .mid extension. Since those same programs are often used within the browsers… Well, you understand.

I hope this thought is useful. I certainly admire all your efforts. As a long time software developer I certainly understand the effort and the myriad of decisions. Thank you so much for all of the hard work, and for listening to us gripe!

Chuck Boody

Cheers, cboody. I’m getting mixed results when grabbing midis from The Session Collection.
When I choose to *open* a file it’s assigned the .mid extension. But it looks something like this;
< Tune.mid.part.mid >
When I *save* the file it’s missing the requisite .mid at the end. i.e. ~
< Tune.mid.part >
So, in order to play it I have to rename it.

- This is in Firefox on a PC -

“No, the wounded hussar, that’s by design. The whole idea is that discussions like this, which are getting pretty long in the tooth, shouldn’t appear.”

That’s fair enough and everything runs it’s useful course. But maybe the term Active Discussions is a bit misleading then? Maybe it should be Recent Active Discussions 🙂

The Session forum has always been a bit quirky. Why not just make it work like every other forum that everyone is used to using? A new post sending the thread to the primary focus point (top left or centre) is pretty much standard everywhere you go, and from a usability standpoint is a basic necessity. I have experience in UI design (and forum coding, for that matter) and really can’t see the benefits of the current layout. When a user clicks on the discussions link, he/she isn’t expecting to be presented with four different points of entry. Most forums are the same for good reason - people are familiar with the usual format and process.
All you need is a list of all discussions with every new one going to the top, and any discussions being actively commented on also going to the top with each new comment, and a timestamp on each thread. Then everything new is all in one place and everyone knows how to drive it.

Just a note to say that on Firefox on a PC (1600 by 1200 pixel display) the pale text on dark background for the top menu is breaking up (and looking crummy) at the modest zoom setting where the ‘dark on light’ for rest of the text starts to look nice. The smaller text on ‘HELP CONTACT DONATE’ at the bottom (and the buttons) is fine because the anti-aliasing starts later.

IE8 on the same screen makes an all-round better job of rendering the text so it all looks fine. Different layout though so not comparing lie with like.

Maybe instead of “Active Discussions” it should be “Not Quite So Active Discussions That Might Still Be Worth A Look.” 😉

Discussions of the Week

Just a quick response on the font question, to @fidkid and others. I’m not a typographer by profession (though I do document design as part of my job), but I took a track in Document Design in college, and font selection / analysis was a part. In one specific course, “Planning and Testing Documents,” the professor emphasized that sans serifs were generally more readable than serifs. Perhaps that was her bias, or … I was an undergrad a decade ago, so perhaps there’s new research out.

I’m not sure if there really is a definitive answer… Consider this analysis: http://alexpoole.info/blog/which-are-more-legible-serif-or-sans-serif-typefaces/. Has good analysis, great references and great comments … Seems most people commenting there prefer sans serif, especially for electronic format. Either way, it’s more about overall page design – the font itself doesn’t make or break a document or a layout – and perhaps more importantly, personal preference. In most cases, I prefer sans serif fonts (or very light stylized serifs), which I consider more attractive and nicer to look at.

Really, a minor point as it relates to the overall Web design update. I think if there was less vacant space in this new design, a font were chosen with better bold contrast and other such tweaks, the font choice would matter less… The font is actually one of the points I consider quite quibbling in the big picture.

When searching for a tune, for instance, only 10 are listed on a page, though there might be eight or 10 pages of tunes turned up in that search and lots of empty space underneath. The key of the tunes is also no longer listed next to the tunes in the search view… All of this makes it much more cumbersome to find and explore tunes, research tunes to add to a set, etc. Amid an issue like this (and others), font really is a minor point!

However, I will say that midi files work just fine on my PC computer! (It’s an 18-month-old machine, and I listen in Firefox).

yes, Less vacant space

@Ben (Howdy!)

Interesting. I can’t choose to open a file with success, but I get the same result you do with saving a file.

Diddly Banjo: “… and everyone knows how to drive it.”

Couldn’t agree more - you summed it up perfectly. Why re-invent the wheel? Sure, if someone could really come up with with an improved shape for a wheel, I would be all in favour of it. But in the meantime, I think we would be better off sticking with tried-and-tested circular wheels …

Anyone remember the Austin Allegro car with its “square” steering wheel?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Allegro

Ah yes, the Allegro steering wheel. Totally crazy 🙂

FYI

I thought these were listed with the one at the top being that which had the most recent posted comment posted to it. I asked about it and Jeremy replied

“It’s the discussions from within the past week with the most comments posted.”

So…?

and what he should have said was “It’s the NEW discussions from within the past week with the most comments posted.”

Hello All.
I am still getting used to the new layout and format of the Session, and I think overall the changes have all been positive. However, I am having trouble listening to the midi files attached to each tune. I like the format of the abc with the option of sheet music, but when I click on Listen button…nothing happens. Am I missing something? Thanks

unlike the old interface, you have to press the ‘play’ (arrow-shaped) button on the midi player.

You have to have the Quicktime plug-in installed. Also, midi doesn’t work on my computer in IE. It only works in FF and Chrome.

Thanks for the replies. John, I can’t get to the player to hit the ‘play’ button. I press the listen tab, and nothing happens. I also have Quick Time plug in installed as well. I am at a loss.

and older discussions are automatically not listed as active, even if they are active.
They are supposed to have died. A bit like old people should retire and stop having an active working life 🙂

Whereas a ‘Popular Tune’ could go on forever. Come on Silver Spear, you can do it, only another 70 tunebooks to go.

So, taking account of old people still having an active working life would be
“It’s the discussions with the most comments posted within the past week.” 😉

This has been discussed a bit more in length here:
https://thesession.org/discussions/31016

LoWhistle, what’s your browser & operating system?

Tune editing questions …

On the old site, if you made an error in your abc transcription and corrected it AFTER Jeremy posted the sheet music, the sheet music was not updated to reflect the change. I gather that the new site dynamically corrects the sheet music, and if so, that’s great!

Q1. Can anyone confirm that my assumption is correct? (I cannot test this myself as I am running on IE8 under Win XP pro which redirects the sheet music output to Concertina.net’s Tune-o-Tron converter).

In the new session.org FAQs Jeremy states:

“Every member of The Session can edit the details of sessions, events, recordings and tunes, regardless of who first submitted it.”

That statement doesn’t appear to be entirely true, as the ability to edit a tune posted by someone other than oneself would appear to be limited (not that I think that it shouldn’t be).

On the old site, you could post a comment and/or add an alternative tune title.

But on the new site, it would appear that you can also edit the TITLE of someone else’s tune posting . That might be useful: e.g. it would enable you enter the acual title of a tune initially posted as “Gan Ainm” (although this editing feature is perhaps open to abuse).

Also, It would appear that you cannot edit the abc code but can that you edit the TUNE TYPE.

Q2. Why is this allowed? And if (for example) you changed tune type from “jig” to “slip jig”, would it alter the metre (time signature) and barlines in the associated abc code?

Mixolydian the sheet music onsite is rendered as a svg using abcjs basic. When using a supported browser javascript parses any complete abc & the sheet music is generated when the button is pushed. Editing the abc will result in an updated score the next time the sheet music button is used (whether it goes through abcjs or concertina.net)
Here is a demo of abcjs with an editable textbox & score below. The demo should work on IE, except for the MIDI download.
http://drawthedots.com/abcjs

Tune details refers to the title & tune type. When someone submits a tune (not additional settings, but the primary setting) you’re given only two info fields in the abc header to complete:
1. T:title which gives you a text box
2. R:rhythm i.e. *tune type* which gives you a list & establishes the metre ( M: )
Hence ~ The details.
Altering the tune type may alter the time signature, though by itself does not change barlines.

Anyone else noticed the changes to the recordings section? https://thesession.org/recordings/1646

@Ben - thanks for the explanations - but I note that you say:

“Altering the tune type may alter the time signature, though by itself does not change barlines.”

If that’s the case, allowing a non-originator to change the tune-type is surely an issue.

Isn’t it? Or am I missing something?

abcjs does not produce midi on Internet Explorer. How are other browsers working for .mid files on the new site? Safari, Opera, Chrome … On Firefox I can *open* the midis in any media player. Also I am able to right click and *save link as* a .mid file
Which browsers/operating systems work for saving &/or opening .mid files on the session.org?
What exactly happens on browsers (other than IE) where you are not able to listen to or save a .mid file without a workaround?

Wow! I thought this would never happen! Big work done! I just love the new fresh look and the new features, especially all the different tune versions in sheetmusic and not just ABC. Brilliant idea. Thank you! xx

P.S. I know I’m a bit late with such a comment, but I haven’t visited this website for a while. But I can assure you I’ll be here very often now 🙂

Thanks, baruskaob. Glad you like it.