Templates, tech specs and so on

FAQ, comments and suggestions
neckertb
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Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by neckertb »

I thought it would be a good idea to make a list of what we need in the templates here, so we end up having similar templates in different languages.

I don't see any big changes needed from the LV template, except make it clear who's checking the tech specs and how.

Feel free to post your thoughts here.
Nadine
Leni
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by Leni »

I think we ought to make it clearer... the templates in LV are obviously confusing for anyone without some knowledge of code, for example. People keep on forgetting to fill in things, copying wrong... you know how it is. I think we should come up with something simpler for people to fill in.

I thought at one point we should have something more like a list, and with that information the MC would fill the template in, defining filename, intro, outro, everything.Something like:

Title of book:
Author:
Dates of birth and death of author:
Translator:
Dates of birth and death of translator:
Number of sections the project will have:
Does the project have a preface that will be recorded as a separate section?
Genre of book:
Summary:
Key-words:

And from those the MC would fill in the rest. I know it's more work for us, but I see people filling templates in for newbies all the time, anyway. Having them fill it in wrong, and then wrong again, and explaining again, it seems so frustrating for everybody... :|
Hokuspokus
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by Hokuspokus »

I agree that it's much easier to make them fill in a list and the MC does the file name and ID3tags. It's much less work to do it yourself than explaining and explaining and explaining ...

I would like to have good bibliographic record. We should ask for the date of first publication, too, even though it is not important for the pd question.

Do we really need the preface being section 0? I never understood, why we do that at LV. It only makes sense, when we always have 1 section per chapter. But in reality we have 2-3 chapters in one section or 2-3 sections for one chapter. I suggest we always start with 1.

re: genre
Genres are very inflexible. There never is the right one.
They are important for the way the catalog search works over at LV, but are not very informative for listeners.
If we work with keywords or tags, we would be much more flexible. It all depends on how our catalog will be.
I think there are blogs that automatically generates a tag cloud from the tags you put with each entry. And you can search for the tags, of course.
Tags could be: Language, author, title, time where it takes place, country where it takes place, historical persons who appear, ...
Of course fitting classical genres should be part of that.

This could be done without a database, I think.

re: file name
Someone suggested to start the file name with the section number. That's no good idea. Many players and software sort by file name. There are even mp3 players that don't support folders. When you have several books in on folder, it would play all sections 1 first, then sections 2 and so on.

So my list would be:

Title of book:
Date of first publication:
Author:
Dates of birth and death of author:
Translator:
Dates of birth and death of translator:
Number of sections the project will have: We only need that when we have a datbase and Magic Window, I don't see that for the near futur.
Does the project have a preface that will be recorded as a separate section? ???
Category: (Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama)
Tags that describe the book:
Summary:
Online source:
neckertb
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by neckertb »

I think it's a great idea to have them starting at 1 and to get the BC/reader to provide keywords (that's really a pain otherwise).

As for the sections starting with numbers if we remove the underscore:
01heidi_spyri
then they should sort by book. I just don't find the LV way very intuitive, but I won't argue about it. :)
Nadine
kattekliek
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by kattekliek »

neckertb wrote:I think it's a great idea to have them starting at 1 and to get the BC/reader to provide keywords (that's really a pain otherwise).

As for the sections starting with numbers if we remove the underscore:
01heidi_spyri
then they should sort by book. I just don't find the LV way very intuitive, but I won't argue about it. :)
Actually, my MP3-player (but perhaps it's a strange one :)) sorts by only the first 4 or 5 characters; which means that files starting with book title are sorted all wrong :roll: My husband wrote a linux script that puts '001', '002' etc. in front of all files in a folder, sorted on file name. My gutfeeling would be that all MP3-players would understand the type of name that Nadine suggests above; 02heidi_spyri is sorted above 01multatuli.
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Viktor
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by Viktor »

kattekliek wrote:Actually, my MP3-player (but perhaps it's a strange one :)) sorts by only the first 4 or 5 characters; which means that files starting with book title are sorted all wrong :roll: My husband wrote a linux script that puts '001', '002' etc. in front of all files in a folder, sorted on file name. My gutfeeling would be that all MP3-players would understand the type of name that Nadine suggests above; 02heidi_spyri is sorted above 01multatuli.
Your player most likely uses internally the old DOS file system, in which long names get shortened into "8.3" file names and then sorted. "Documents and Settings" becomes "DOCUME~1".

I second Hokuspokus here: Underscore or not, if you start with the section number, different books will get mixed up. First you'd get all the 01*, then all the 02* etc.

As far as my experience goes, there are three types of digital audio players out there: Those which work with files/directories and use 8.3 file names; those that understand longer names; and those that put everything into a mini-database, forget all the directory structure and only sort by the meta-data within the ID3 tags. This last sort is sometimes complicated for the user but of no worry to us.

The problem is that you can't really make the first and the second type of player happy at the same time. If you put the book name first, the 8.3 conversion will put the files into random order, even if you only put one book in a folder. That's because no HEIDI_~5 just might be any of the Heidi files, not necessarily heidi_spyri_05. So those players would want the section name first. But with such files, both the first and the second group of players get confused with multiple books in one directory.

I see two solutions to the whole mess: Either use the section first and recommend to everyone to put different books in different directories. Or we use the following format, to make everybody happy:

ZTWO01_heidi_spyri.mp3

where ZTWO is a random-looking 4-letter-prefix which should identify the book uniquely (with letters A-Z we'd get space for 26 power 4 = 456.976 books or collections), then the section number between 01 and 99, then the book and author name for players that understand longer names.

Surely quite a technical-looking solution (as you might by now expect from me ;) ), but it should work: 8.3 players should read ZTWO01~1.MP3, ZTWO02~1.MP3 and work as expected. And one can always put several files into the same directory.
kattekliek
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by kattekliek »

Viktor wrote:Surely quite a technical-looking solution (as you might by now expect from me ;) ), but it should work: 8.3 players should read ZTWO01~1.MP3, ZTWO02~1.MP3 and work as expected. And one can always put several files into the same directory.
Er ... yes! :mrgreen: (re. the bold); you must be at least as nerdy as my husband 8-)

I must have such a '8.3'-MP3-player then; the one that doesn't handle LV type names well. But before we'll decide to put such a random letter code in it: did LV get a lot of complaints about this? I don't recall ever having seen this on the forums. Do you (@ all)? My MP3-player is over 5 years old; most people are not using this kind of stone age equipment anymore ... :P Or is this system of sorting file names still used in MP3-players that are made nowadays?

Now, this brings me to another question: the LV convention to have 5 secs and for files longer than 30 min, 10 secs of silence at the end. Some players seem to need it, otherwise they cut off the (playback of the) file. But how common are such players, and are they still made this way nowadays (even mine does not do it :mrgreen: )
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Viktor
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by Viktor »

kattekliek wrote:But before we'll decide to put such a random letter code in it: did LV get a lot of complaints about this? I don't recall ever having seen this on the forums.
Very good question!
kattekliek wrote: My MP3-player is over 5 years old; most people are not using this kind of stone age equipment anymore ... :P Or is this system of sorting file names still used in MP3-players that are made nowadays?
I fear it's still used these days, particularly in the cheap audio players (no offense meant, I also had one of those ;) ) Chips and software using this 8.3 naming scheme are cheap and commodity, so some manufacturers just take them to have quickly something that works.
neckertb
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by neckertb »

I think the 5 s rule has been in use for a long time, and thus no error reports come about that, but I've had some PLers thinking they got a truncated file because the 5 s were missing. I'd keep that.
Nadine
kattekliek
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by kattekliek »

Viktor wrote:particularly in the cheap audio players (no offense meant, I also had one of those ;) )
No offence taken, I'm actually proud when I found something that is cheap and nevertheless works well :lol: (which is the case with this little apparatus - no major problems besides this name thingy and it uses penlites ... great to empty those loads of non-rechargable, half-full batteries that our photo cameras despise).
kattekliek
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by kattekliek »

neckertb wrote:I think the 5 s rule has been in use for a long time, and thus no error reports come about that, but I've had some PLers thinking they got a truncated file because the 5 s were missing. I'd keep that.
OK!
Hokuspokus
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by Hokuspokus »

The idea with the ZTWO0 sounds good, but I bet many readers won't get it right.
I have never read an error report because of the shortened file name problem. But many many because of Itunes (Ih-tunes :twisted: )

You can't make all people happy. Today errors in the tags are the bigger problem.
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Viktor
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by Viktor »

Hokuspokus wrote:The idea with the ZTWO0 sounds good, but I bet many readers won't get it right.
If the uploader works as I have in mind, it could be him who does the final naming.
But well, I should work one step after the other before imagining world peace...
Leni
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by Leni »

Putting together what me and Hokus think, we could come up with the following list, that would be the "template" for starting books:

Title of book:
Online source:
Date of first publication:
Author:
Dates of birth and death of author:
Translator:
Dates of birth and death of translator:
Number of sections the project will have:
Does the project have a preface that will be recorded as a separate section?
Category: (Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama)
Tags that describe the book:
Summary:

I kept the "number of sections the project will have" for the reason people get crazy with this. We have had people thinking they will start a project with 1300 sections, for example. Which MC will be dealing with uploading 1300 files? -.- The idea here is trying to see what the reader has in mind; also, when we have someone BCing a group project, and since we will be the ones doing the "template", we will need to have a place for the BC to write down requests, and I imagined something like:

=========================

Chapter 01 - Loomings available
Chapter 02 - The Carpet Bag available
Chapter 03 - The Spouter Inn claimed by John

=========================

And so forth.

Regarding the zero for prefaces: if I understand right, it's because it caused confusion having something like:

Section 01 - Preface
Section 02 - Chapter 01
Section 03 - Chapter 02
Section 04 - Chapter 03

People tended to mess up the section number being different from the chapter number, and adding the zero harmonizes that. Of course that's only an issue when there is one chapter per section. I kept the question in the list above because of that, but if everyone agrees that we should do away with the zero, fine by me.
Hokuspokus
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by Hokuspokus »

Leni wrote: I kept the "number of sections the project will have" for the reason people get crazy with this. We have had people thinking they will start a project with 1300 sections, for example.
Very good point. I didn't think about that.
Leni wrote:People tended to mess up the section number being different from the chapter number, and adding the zero harmonizes that. Of course that's only an issue when there is one chapter per section. I kept the question in the list above because of that, but if everyone agrees that we should do away with the zero, fine by me.
I don't mind section 0.
It's only that in most of my projects the chapter number isn't the section number anyway.
Viktor wants to build a tool that can suck metadata. Maybe sec 0 makes this more difficult?
neckertb
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by neckertb »

Hokuspokus wrote:Number of sections the project will have: We only need that when we have a datbase and Magic Window, I don't see that for the near futur.
We could make a MW system based on Google Docs. I don't think it is too difficult. And it does make it easier to keep track of things.
Editing the first post would work too, of course.

As for the list, I would add: language. I don't pretend to be able to recognise all languages, and some works have the same name in all (Les misérables comes to mind).
Nadine
Hokuspokus
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by Hokuspokus »

The language is so important that I would put it in the title of the project thread. Like:
[Language] Book Title by Author.

Google docs could be a good thing for more that one person working on a project, like BC and DPL. The downside it, that some people can't see or use them for some reason.
neckertb
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by neckertb »

For those people, we could just do the first post thing, then?
Google Docs might not be needed as long as there are not too many projects going on, but when there are, it makes it easier to have a standardised way of writing things down.

ETA: Are we using a disclaimer? I'm not sure what to think of that. eventually, as the stuff gets released into PD in the US, I had thought it would be a good idea to add the legamus works to theirs (storage facility and all that) but that's probably not feasible because of the disclaimer.
I think we should have one, but a bit shorter maybe than on LV?
Nadine
kattekliek
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by kattekliek »

Re. the Magic Window: perhaps Viktor could get in touch with the people at LV who developed that? But we don't need this kind of technology immediately; would be nice though in a later stage, when we are growing.
Hokuspokus
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Re: Templates, tech specs and so on

Post by Hokuspokus »

So I tried to do a first draft of a all purpose template:

Please copy from line to line.
=======================================================
Want to coordinate a project or read a book on your own?
Please fill in this list and post in the Lauch Pad. As title please put in:
Groupe/Solo [LANGUAGE] Book Title by Author

*** Beginning of list ***
Solo / Group project?:
Book Title:
Author:
Dates of birth and death of author:
Language:
Translator:
Dates of birth and death of translator:
Date of first publication:
Number of sections the project will have: (please note that the sections should be less than 70 minutes long)
Does the project have a preface that will be recorded as a separate section? y/n
Category (Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, drama):
Tags that describe the book (like: place, time, historical people/events, mystery, fairy tale, horror/ghost story, philosophy, ... :
Summary for the catalog (from Wikipedia or written by you):
Online text source:

*** End of list ***
The rest of this template will be filled in by your Meta Coordinator (MC)

[Book Title] by [Author (* - †)], translated by [Translator (* - †)]
Summary (Summary by XXX)
Text source: xxx (please only read from this text!)

How to claim a chapter?
Choose a chapter that has no reader assigned yet. Click on POSTREPLY at the bottom of this page to answer to this topic.

List of chapters
(Book Coordinator, please fill in all chapters of the book and keep track of claims and recordings here.)
## chapter title - - - reader (claimed) - - - link to recording - - - PL notes
01 Chapter 01 - - - John Doe (1. April 2011) - - - link.mp3 - - - PL OK
02 For Example - - - Frau Mustermann (30. Feb 2050) - - -
03 ...

About recording:
Set your recording software to:
Channels: 1 (Mono)
Bit Rate: 128 kbps
Sample Rate: 44.1 kHz

Please leave 5 seconds silence at the end of your recording, or 10 seconds for files longer than 30 minutes!

Save files as:
128 kbps MP3
titleinoneword_##_authorsurname.mp3 (all lower-case) where ## is your section number. (e.g. titleinoneword_01_authorsurname.mp3)

Add the following tags to your .mp3 file (how you do this depends on which software you use – if you are unsure about ID3 tags, please ask). Please mind upper and lower case!

Title: ## - [Section title]
Artist: Author name
Album: Book title
Genre: Speech
Track Number: Section Number (if sections are numbered from 1, section +1, if sections are numbered from 0)

How to upload your file:
Please read this tutorial: http://legamus.eu/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=148
When your file is uploaded, you will get a link. Please post the link here.

And now?
Please check for new posts in this thread until your section has been prooflistened.

Happy recording :)
=======================================================

Please feel free to correct all spelling or grammar mistakes.
This is only a first draft. I'm sure it needs some improving ...
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