First off, a big Thank You to Lars for his input over the past few days. This project probably wouldn't have got off the ground without his efforts!

I've been giving some thought to the eventual layout of the vinylography forum and came up with the template below for the album entries. It uses a new BBCode, on the "posting" page, {vtemplate] and it works like this:

{vtemplate]album title,country,record label,catalogue number,release date,sleeve type,sleeve finish,label colour,label text colour,inserts[/vtemplate]

Not the simplest BBCode ever, but it should make the vinylography easier to follow and understand.

A good or a bad idea? Can it be improved?

Title:	David Bowie - 1969
Territory:	United Kingdom	Record Label:
Catalogue #:	SBL 7912	Release Date:	4th November 1969
IdbD Ref #:	999999999
Sleeve Type:	Gatefold	Sleeve Finish:	Matt
Label Colour:	Black	Label Text:	Silver

Front sleeve: White lettering on blue/green background.

Gatefold inner: Cat. no. and lyrics in white lettering on blue background

Back sleeve: Artwork by George Underwood (no printed info).

Yes Alan I like it

i appreciate this is a guideline only but, when scans are included, i see no reason to include a description, especially as vague as "white lettering on blue/green background" which is misleading. if anything at all, it should be described as "full colour" or "b/w" or "single colour" etc.

also, i think gatefold sleeves should be shown in their entirety (this one, german ziggy, diamond dogs etc etc). we should try to resist posting links to other sites unless nobody on this forum has a copy to scan/photograph.

but yes, very tidy and should make the discog easy to navigate.

I agree Shooky if we have a foto in the thread then no need to describe it or post links it takes up too much room - and can we keep ALL comments in this thread and not in the actual thread for the album ( yes Shooky that means you - just read your essay in the philips album column) let's leave the album threads for albums and not comments otherwise it gets very untidy - no offence Shooky by the way

touché, but i think you meant to say that comments should be in the general "Vinyl Albums" thread rather than this one about the template.

if you read the comment after my "essay" you'll see that the plan is to erase all such messages once things are up and running smoothly and teething problems have been ironed out.

relevant comments should, in my opinion, be within the post itself. by which i mean descriptive comments that help aid in identification etc. people won't want to be flitting between threads to make sense of it all, but yes, any exchanges, clarifications and error spotting can be incorporated into the main entry once they have been made.

Alan, thank you for making a good template, it looks much better this way.

Matt, I prefer to keep the description of the colors etc in the frame, even if there is an accompanying picture. For one, it is sometimes difficult to distinguish colors (for example white and silver), secondly there might be entries with some pictures lacking (for one reason or another).

I think the idea of having a vinyl album discography is a great idea but I think it is being done wrong ....I think each title should be split into countries - listing them randomly is not the way to do it - it should be used as a reference guide - I dread to think how many copies of Ziggy stardust there are , it must have been released in every country on earth then re-released thenre- released again - it's not very good if you are looking for say a Japanese re-release and have to endlessly scroll down to try and find it - come on Ruud let's make it easy and much better

Thanks for your input Mike,

Not sure how it'll work out yet, but we are actively working on a plan to make the discography easier to navigate. Not that it will ever be perfect within the forum environment and it'll never be as flexible as a dedicated database. Just a little more user friendly.

Watch this space!

as far as i'm concerned these were the first steps, just to kick-start the project and get information up here. it's a time-consuming process, best done in bursts of photographing and uploading. i'm continuing while i have the time knowing that things can and will be updated over time, including the format and navigation. they've already been through a number of edits and tweaks, so let's give it more than a day before we weigh in with judgements please.

i have to say this is wonderful for me, i love the album cover variations.

personally i think this is the best advance that the IdbD has made.

one thing though, i'd like to scan some covers but they will have to be in two halves as i only have an a4 scanner. what is the preference, two halves or find some image stitching freeware and paste them together?

secondly, and this is one for Ruud probably, is it possible to have a 'next page' navigator at the top of the page?

once these topics start to get a few pages long, with all of the images loading it is hard to get to the bottom to click through as it jumps around.

thanks to everyone that is putting these covers up. i have quite a few that i'm certain are not super rare but are not up yet so i'll try and get to them soon.

little matter of turning 40 at the weekend to get out of the way though.

christian

christian, i'm taking digital photos of mine, it's a lot less hassle than scanning and of course removes the nightmare of retouching all the scanner dust and dirt. if you have a digital camera then that's the way to go. if you're not photoshop-literate then send me raw files and i'll do the tidying up.

there are thousands more variations to come, so don't blindly start scanning or photographing as you may be spending time on something that is going to be upped by another member in the meantime. if you want to run your suggestions by ruud, alan, maarten, lars or myself prior to undertaking anything then it might save you some headaches later. needless to say this applies to anyone preparing uploads or considering doing so in the future. of course if you have something you know to be unusual or unlikely to be owned by many then that's a safer bet than general stock issues.

the project will go through a number of configurations and it's clear that it will be an unwieldy beast for a while. i know ruud and alan are looking into ways of subdividing by country for each title so that viewers don't have to scroll through pages of ziggy variations as we get into 30 or 40 different issues. right now, it seems that the best thing to do (i'm speaking for myself here while i have the time and momentum to photograph my modest collection) is to keep uploading so that at least the thing can grow and maintain interest until such time as it can become a more structured resource.

excuse the essay, you know how i like to ramble.

We have decided to rearrange albums into dedicated subfora and split up topics by country. That should simplify navigation and reduce the load of a lot of images. I have made a start with TMWSTW and Ziggy and will continue later with the rest.

And congrats Christian!

This is a much better layout, its getting better all the time, superb I must say

good work everyone,im loving it

Some of you will have noticed that the "Navigation Trails" in the Vinyl albums discography aren't working correctly. We are aware of it and normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.