The idea here is to allow users to get more information about individual musicians without having to search for it. One way to encode detailed artist information would be the Continuous Media Markup Language, an XML-based markup language which allows textual information and hyperlinks to be associated with specific sections of audio and video files.
I was primarily thinking of small groups (sextet at the most) when I was working on this. It would not be practical to display the name of every member of a symphony orchestra or big band. For these ensemble types, I think it would be best to display only the name of the leader/conductor and those of any featured soloists.
- Like the latest builds of Mail.appetizer, the widget would change its transparency level when moused over.
- A musician’s name would be highlighted while they were soloing. Users would still be able to access other performers’ info menus.
- Double-clicking (copyright © 2004, Microsoft Corp.) on a musician would begin playing the track at their (first) solo. If a musician were featured in several separate sections, a drop-down menu would allow users to choose which one they want to play.
Chris Laprun kindly pointed out the broken PDF link, which has been fixed.
June 20, 2004 at 9:11 AM
The link to the PDF is brokwn… Nice redesign, btw! :)
June 20, 2004 at 12:57 PM
That’s what I get for messing with mod_rewrite! :-) I’ve changed the link to an absolute path, so it ought to work correctly now. Thanks for the heads-up.
June 21, 2004 at 6:07 AM
You’re welcome. I figured that it might have had something to do with your redesign.