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Raistlin
Registered: Mar 2007
Posts: 657 |
C64GFXDb
I'd like to announce C64GFXDb (name is subject to change).
In the simplest terms, I plan for this to be something similar to HVSC but for graphics. Primarily, a ZIP file download of as much C64 scene and non-scene graphics as can be collected - but also backed up by a website presentation.
v0.05 download is here:
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/rk8lhbt5lsaolfc836ql6/C64GFXDb-v..
And a WIP website is here: https://c64graphicsdb.netlify.app/
There's a lot to do to get it all into nice shape .. my todo list is quite long already.. for example:-
Collection (ZIP etc)
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- sort something out for sceners who used multiple handles .. these aren't handled well right now .. plus I seem to have a bug in my database code that pushes older names into "unsorted"...
- ensure that duplicates are removed
- favour a single palette for all, and a better compressed image format (eg. GIF) .. it's then easy to convert these to different palettes later
- ensure all images are a consistent size (multi-screeners can be different in size in the direction of scroll of course)
The Website
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- I don't have a main page as yet, just a nasty horrible, massive list of artist names ... this will of course improve at some point...
- for scrolling images I want to actually scroll them within their grid entry... so they'd be almost like animated GIFs (except animated GIFs are a bad idea, I've found, since they don't cleverly compress scroll animation (and so end up HUGE)
Questions
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For image dimensions I've been aiming for the same as CSDb - 384x272. This means we could lose pixels, though, as of course C64 screen can go up to 408px wide... any preferences here? I want most pictures to match so that I can setup the grid nicely without images being scaled oddly.
For such as interlace images my eventual plan was to use animated GIFs and to simply flip frames at 50fps (however many frames there are). Check out Leon's folder for a single example. Do you think this is better - or should interlace pics be given in a different form? Many of the screenshots on CSDb seem misleading to me...
Some images are animated .. where it makes sense I've added these as animated GIFs. Check out my own folder (the Turn Disk image) and Talent's folder for examples... do you think this is a good way to go?
Please, please let me know your thoughts, whether you like or hate it .. what can be done to make it better, more useful, etc etc.
Cheers! |
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Raistlin
Registered: Mar 2007
Posts: 657 |
Ok, a quick bit of research tells me that I can just use “replaceState” instead of “pushState” when I open/close the modal - so I can do that part without filling up the URL history :-) … I’ll look at this in the morning. |
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Raistlin
Registered: Mar 2007
Posts: 657 |
Quote: As the site becomes more establlished and people start linking and sharing, it will start to work its way higher in the rankings.
To help with this, it would be good to make it easier for people to share an image. You could add a querystring to the url when a modal is opened and if the page is loaded with a querystring, make the site automatically show the modal. I think you're using vanilla js, so history.pushState() will be helpful for this. It would be useful if you could update the og tags to show the selected title, image etc
I'm not an SEO person, but have worked with them in the past, so I've picked up a little bit. It could be worth adding the word "graphics" in a couple of places as I think that could feature in a lot of searches you'd be targetting. I'd maybe change the html title to "Commodore 64 Pixel Art and Demoscene Graphics Gallery". I'd also change the "newest releases" header to "newest C64 graphics". I noticed you also have c64demo.com in the meta description.
I've managed to get all that working :-) .. Netlify is serverless, as I mentioned, but it has things like "Edge Funcitons" for setting up the og: tags.. so I'm using that now. Works quite well I think :-)
I don't have "share" buttons on the pages right now - but might add those sometime..
I've updated some of the text and titles now too so that it hopefully helps Google indexing. I'm still waiting for their search-test stuff to finish checking the site .. it's said "Processing data, please check again in a day or so" for 2.5 days now .. I guess "or so" is their get-out clause.... |
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rexbeng
Registered: Aug 2012
Posts: 33 |
Hey! Very nice site, and a much needed one. :)
One question. Is it supposed to gather just the graphic releases (ie single pics labeled as 'graphics' in CSDB), or does the Db expand to pictures extracted from various types of releases (demos, games etc)? |
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Raistlin
Registered: Mar 2007
Posts: 657 |
It extends beyond just the CSDb single releases for sure - but of course that’s a much bigger job. Check Scrap’s page for example, I added a whole load of his art that never made single release .. and there’re various others. Joe, Razorback, Mermaid, etc etc. |
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chatGPZ
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 11346 |
You know that you can use VICE to automatically produce screenshots? You can probably automate a lot with some script magic wrapped around it. (-exitscreenshot and -limitcycles are your friends) |
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Raistlin
Registered: Mar 2007
Posts: 657 |
Quote: You know that you can use VICE to automatically produce screenshots? You can probably automate a lot with some script magic wrapped around it. (-exitscreenshot and -limitcycles are your friends)
Ohhhh, that could save me a lot of time perhaps..! Hmm.. I should give that a go next week! |
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Deev
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 206 |
Quote: I've managed to get all that working :-) .. Netlify is serverless, as I mentioned, but it has things like "Edge Funcitons" for setting up the og: tags.. so I'm using that now. Works quite well I think :-)
I don't have "share" buttons on the pages right now - but might add those sometime..
I've updated some of the text and titles now too so that it hopefully helps Google indexing. I'm still waiting for their search-test stuff to finish checking the site .. it's said "Processing data, please check again in a day or so" for 2.5 days now .. I guess "or so" is their get-out clause....
You may not find share buttons get a huge amount of use amongst the likely demographic anyway, but I think it's a good step allowing people to link to an image.
If you make the site the best way for someone to link to a graphic, that will mean more links to the site which will in turn help with Google rankings. There are some things you can do on-page to help, but a lot of it is convincing the algorithm that your site is the best one to present to the user for a related search.
Just on pushState vs replaceState, the way it's generally done is that clicking the back button will close a modal, so you would use pushState, but when the user closes the modal by clicking a link on the page, you do history.back(), so if they then click the back button it doesn't re-open it. Usage does vary a little though! |
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Jetboy
Registered: Jul 2006
Posts: 286 |
Great job with the database.
I'm logged into c64gfx.com why do i need to sign up again to post comments?
Another, more important question, what is the best way to inform you of authorship of multiple images? |
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Raistlin
Registered: Mar 2007
Posts: 657 |
Yeah, sorry about the login stuff… I’m trying to figure that stuff out - but other stuff keeps distracting me…
For updates, best way is to contact me - email, Facebook, a PM here, etc.
Thanks, glad you like it :-) |
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Matt
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 598 |
Yeah, keep up the good work Raistlin!
I hope you keep updating on a regular base! |
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