To Do

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Peding stuff.

Has to be done

  • Browsers and platforms: make sure everything is behaving properly
Did not test yet in these OS: Android, Windows Mobile/Windows Phone
Internet Explorer: already encountered several problems:
Inline videos are not starting
Videos in fancybox are not working (too slow to load and then, once closed, it seems they play again or something like that (we hear the sound of a replay))
Opacity of overlay buttons is not working (hover buttons appear all the time)
(The easiest to solve this may be not to show them at all if IE)
Fancybox with videos is not behaving correctly
iPad/iPhone and possibly other touch screen devices:
[Not that bad, but] The play button over the video thumbnails does not make sense and requires an extra (meaningless) touch.
The code shoud probe the platform and not show the button in these cases
iPhone [OK now; I'm not using, but] Fancybox with big (how big?) images fail to load them...
  • Videos:
Add captions to all video examples [highest priority]
In each pattern's page, order videos according to representativeness of the matter in discussion
Still missing some recordings
  • Check Spelling
Perform a comprehensive check
British/American English. By now, I'm using British English but I "realise" that I could say "realize" and it would still be British (right?). Yet the speller is suggesting me the former
(Should double check this and possibly try another one British English speller).
  • New Features: User feedback:
Ranking mechanisms, particularly in the case of cards' pages
Commenting: perhaps something better than the Talk pages
Suggesting other game examples: perhaps something better than the Talk pages
  • Book creator for some reason is not rendering the templates beforehand -- so, it is pointless now. Need to fix this.

Wish List (and stuff that needs a second thought)

  • Printable output of the all site contents
  • Games:
Might be interesting to link names of Games to some page with some more information about the game
(Preferably, it would be done automatically, by parsing the names of the games in the source pages)
individual pages, or a common page with a section for each game
what information would be given regarding each game?
it is important to keep in mind that this is not a site about the games... So the included information should not tend towards a game description
but it could give some pointers for readers to be able to take contact with a game should they not know it
perhaps: the official site, its wikipedia page (other alternative?), the game's own wiki, should it exist
Might be interesting to list the examples extracted from a particular game that we included in this site
Hmmm... What would be the point?
Might be a way for someone knowing that game to recognize the identified patterns
The problem is that the examples were *not* extracted considering that usage -- misses would be evident
It might have as well other examples from the game, which we have but did not included in the card's pages (other instances of a same example, unselected examples, ...)
  • Showing videos and/or images:
Using a overlaid controller when playing embed videos, similarly to what happens in the iPad. This would allow a perfect fit of the videos in the thumbnail space (as it happens with their posterframes), and it would no longer depend on the installed plug-in
Setting the height of Fancybox according to the aspect ratio of each video, so that there is no need for the vertical bars
More than on example for the same game in a pattern, if distinctive explorations:
Some games have more than one distinctive explorations of a same pattern (e.g., MGS4 has two very different (and most interesting) kinds of Sound Decoys). Instead of selecting one two to show, it would be interesting to be able to scroll among them in the same viewport.
Captions would have to change too... A consequently the size of the box...
[Update:] In such cases we will present the several examples, separately because they are really different cases. The fact that they come from the same game is "a coincidence".
More than on example for the same game in a pattern, if same exploration:
Even when the exploration is the same, sometimes having more than on video for the *same* example might be interesting if they could fit in the same box
E.g., This would also be pertinent in those games we are presenting more exhaustively
  • iPhone specificities:
To date Fancyboxes with videos open/launch in a position that does takes in account the current scroll/zoom of the page, which implies that it may appear in a place out of sight (a demand scrolling to be found). It would be nice to fix this.
Maybe I should deactivate the overlayed movie feature (Fancybox) in the iPhone
Detect iPhone and, when playing (supposedly) embedded movies, ensure that it is being served a version bigger then the 250px (480px or even 640px); otherwise we will se a 250px resized to 480px (if flipped) or 320px (if not flipped)
Although that will make them slower to load...
And, if we serve the 640x when opening the embed, then it will be equal to the overlayed (which is 640px and cannot be bigger). So 480px is the best option.
  • Text formatting:
Should links to Cards be distinctive from those to other things (namely in the cards' descriptions)?
That would give some more freedom to use alternate forms of the names of the cards (e.g., just 'captions' instead of 'Subtitles and Captions' if that is proper in a particular sentence)
On the other hand, we should stick to the 'original' card name, in order to augment memorability and to avoid ambiguities
  • More info:
In the cards'/patterns' pages: insert frequency and or confidence indicators (possibly from the same source as Most Frequently Used)
Maybe supporting in-place user input too
  • User Input
Ranking and commenting mechanisms: Accountable or anonymous?
Wish list too
  • Video format and hosting:
I'm opting by quicktime pluging with H.264 videos. This option as advantages but it is show problematic in some respects. Youtube is an alternative but it also as some drawbacks in this particular context. This is something I will need to evaluate a eventually change, site wide.
What about a third alternative? Google videos?
  • Ensure the color managment in the PDF file with the printable deck produces the proper colors in "all" printers.
  • Page with links to related resources: It would be interesting to have links to other pages sensitive to sound design in games. Yet it has to be well designed, not to miss the point.