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Raistlin
Registered: Mar 2007
Posts: 680 |
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)
====================
- 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: 680 |
Quote: Small quality of life improvement if I might suggest: Artist Name could be a link to the artist page.
Great catch! I had that at some point .. but lost it when I refactored all the page code.
It's working again on the site now if you do a refresh :-) |
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Oswald
Registered: Apr 2002
Posts: 5094 |
its very nice to see the new releases, I'd have missed a LOT of them without, on csdb I just check the latest comments for new releases, if no comment I dont see it :) |
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4gentE
Registered: Mar 2021
Posts: 285 |
Maybe do some SEO (or whatever it's called). Google search places the c64gfx.com website too low. |
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Raistlin
Registered: Mar 2007
Posts: 680 |
4gente: thanks for the suggestion. I’ve added some stuff now and registered with Google’s SEO/indexing data. Great suggestion! I’ll keep an eye on things. |
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MagerValp
Registered: Dec 2001
Posts: 1078 |
Google's algorithm has been broken for many years now, I wouldn't worry too much about it. |
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Deev
Registered: Feb 2002
Posts: 206 |
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. |
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Raistlin
Registered: Mar 2007
Posts: 680 |
@Deev: thanks for the ideas :)
My host is Netlify, a serverless host with very fast page delivery .. so I need to check about the OG stuff. Also, re: changing the URL, I had that feature quite a while - stacking the URLs makes it hard to use the browser’s back button (but maybe I try again: I’m wondering whether it’s allowed to -pop- the url before pushing the new one…….).
I’ll try more keywords as you suggest :-)
Cheers :-) |
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Raistlin
Registered: Mar 2007
Posts: 680 |
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: 680 |
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: 37 |
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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