Playlist Update: Phase Two

[TomFulp]

We have embarked on a series of small incremental playlist updates that will be bringing a lot of cool things to the playlist space. Phase One updated the edit form to our current, mobile-friendly layout while introducing a rich text editor for commentary and a better thumbnail uploader with cropping tool.

Phase Two launched today, updating the Playlists page to our current layout and introducing ratings filters based on the content of individual playlists.

We’ve changed the formatting of how playlists are presented on pages, where they now include a thumbnail and short description. We also brought back number counts for individual content types on the desktop layout, in addition to showing the ratings range of the content in the list.

You can now create a rich content link to a playlist by pasting the playlist URL on its own line in our text editor, like you can with movies, games, art and audio!

Here are some examples of playlist URLs converting to rich content links:

Wednesday Update: On the playlist edit form, you can now specify a category from a list that includes Album, Collection, Playlist and Series. These categories will be utilized in future updates! If you're releasing a music album on NG, your album will essentially be a playlist categorized as Album. Update 2: Oops that's staff only at the moment, hold tight.

If you’ve never made a playlist on NG, you can start one by clicking this button on any animation, game, art or audio entry:

Clicking that button will open this box, where you can select from your existing playlists or create a new one:

Music and Game Thumbnail Discussion

In my previous post on Saturday, I asked musicians if they felt it was time to retire the CD iconography for music thumbnails, instead showing their full square thumbnail art. Response was mixed, however a lot of people liked the idea of treating the thumbnail like a sleeve with a CD or vinyl record poking out the side, to keep music unique while showing the full thumbnail. It also came up that games could look like game cartridges and movies could look like film strips. 

It’s fun to think about these things but it’s especially helpful when the ideas get visualized, which is what @JamesLee did with this game and music thumbnail mockup!

What do you think of that mockup? It’s a shift back towards a more skeuomorphic design, something that was frowned on this past decade but is maybe primed for a come-back. I enjoyed all the feedback I got on Saturday’s post because it’s a reminder you are out there and reading this, so please don’t hesitate to weigh in on this idea now!

Other News

Flash Forward Jam winners were announced last Saturday.

We’re hosting an Eddsworld Charity Art Contest. Entries will be posted on June 6th to celebrate Edd’s life and the 20 year anniversary of his first movie on NG.

Piconjo Day is June 9th.

The Art Inspired Music Contest deadline is June 19th.

June 23rd is the Too Many Games Meetup in PA.

Winners of the Treasure Hunt and Pico Day are coming up!

[Nebulate]

these playlist URLs looks cleeen. finaly playlist art can get the attention they so deserrves

[TwisterzX0]

I like the new update! Also Tom do you have plans on making custom thumbnails for art submissions kinda a kin to movies, games and audio, sounds kinda redundant but what about for like comics and stuff? Also can't wait for the new art portal update!!!!!

EDIT

I'm pretty sure ur going to fix this but idk it's a weird thing that has been bugging me

Sorry kawaisprite

[Dungeonation]

Love the playlist updates and the @JamesLee mockups! I feel like NG can get away with things like skeuomorphism a bit while modernizing.

Maybe for cartridges, Supporters could modify the look and color of them similar to WarioWare DIY!

[mr-johnson22]

Those forum links are clean! Really makes them feel like the next generation of the curated Collections/Series/Channels items. Nice work!

[greateday]

if you want to make the games look like a cartridge, then you need to make the swf games look like a .swf file

[Piggybank12]

At 5/22/23 10:20 AM, TomFulp wrote: It’s fun to think about these things but it’s especially helpful when the ideas get visualized, which is what @JamesLee did with this game and music thumbnail mockup!

What do you think of that mockup? It’s a shift back towards a more skeuomorphic design, something that was frowned on this past decade but is maybe primed for a come-back. I enjoyed all the feedback I got on Saturday’s post because it’s a reminder you are out there and reading this, so please don’t hesitate to weigh in on this idea now!

I really like this mockup! The thought of giving each game the look of a tangible cartridge feels on-brand, and while I've never shared music on NG I do think keeping the art on the sleeve while having the CD pop out from the side is a smart compromise.

There was another idea shared earlier in the thread as well about letting people choose between vinyls, CDs or cassette tapes which sounds like an idea that could utilize the code you've already got for selecting avatar frames, though I wouldn't know for certain if that would save on work.

As for a return to leaning on skeuomorphism, I think that could also be a smart idea. We've been seeing a flat vector design approach everywhere for over a decade now, and while it's only a gut feeling, I feel like people are growing tired of it and are looking for something new. Skeuomorphism is now synonymous with the mid-late 2000's (which is also NG's big heyday with the public too I think), and the nostalgia for that era is on the climb lately.

It also just occurred to me that I've even had a userstyle theme enabled on my end for a while now that restores the skeuomorphism for NG, which the mockup art fits into like a glove:

[Czyszy]

The @JamesLee thumbnail mockup is perfect. I would totally go with that idea!

[TwisterzX0]

As for a return to leaning on skeuomorphism, I think that could also be a smart idea. We've been seeing a flat vector design approach everywhere for over a decade now, and while it's only a gut feeling, I feel like people are growing tired of it and are looking for something new. Skeuomorphism is now synonymous with the mid-late 2000's (which is also NG's big heyday with the public too I think), and the nostalgia for that era is on the climb lately.

It also just occurred to me that I've even had a userstyle theme enabled on my end for a while now that restores the skeuomorphism for NG, which the mockup art fits into like a glove:

Oh my god you gave me a dumb idea to give to tom... what if custom themes existed for the user. Seems unrelated for ur idea but hmm just think about it

[Positron832]

I liek teh mockup :-D

[TomFulp]

At 5/22/23 11:20 AM, TheBrickishere wrote: Oh my god you gave me a dumb idea to give to tom... what if custom themes existed for the user. Seems unrelated for ur idea but hmm just think about it

I haven't been a fan of the idea to allow different thumbnail shapes for content but it is fun to imagine different cartridge types for games, or CD vs vinyl for music sleeves.

[TomFulp]

At 5/22/23 10:53 AM, mr-johnson22 wrote: Those forum links are clean! Really makes them feel like the next generation of the curated Collections/Series/Channels items. Nice work!

They'll ultimately be replacing the existing collection and series pages, plus a lot more!

[MasterHand4444]

In my previous post on Saturday, I asked musicians if they felt it was time to retire the CD iconography for music thumbnails, instead showing their full square thumbnail art. Response was mixed, however a lot of people liked the idea of treating the thumbnail like a sleeve with a CD or vinyl record poking out the side, to keep music unique while showing the full thumbnail. It also came up that games could look like game cartridges and movies could look like film strips. 

It’s fun to think about these things but it’s especially helpful when the ideas get visualized, which is what @JamesLee did with this game and music thumbnail mockup!

What do you think of that mockup? It’s a shift back towards a more skeuomorphic design, something that was frowned on this past decade but is maybe primed for a come-back. I enjoyed all the feedback I got on Saturday’s post because it’s a reminder you are out there and reading this, so please don’t hesitate to weigh in on this idea now!

I love those mockups!! I think many people are getting tired of flat minimalism, and NG's design language (at least to me) has always felt like a good mix between modern and "retro" web UI design, so I think with a little tweaking it would be really cool to see that skeuomorphic design start making its way onto the platform.

I think a lot of people my age (I'm a 20 yr. old zoomer) are really craving interaction with physical mediums in an era where digital mediums are trying to replace everything (hence the newfound popularity of CDs, vinyls, cassettes, etc.), so having that physicality be represented in a digital format would be cool to me personally. It sort of helps legitimize the content in my brain. For isntance, the physical representation of a game cartridge reinforces that "This isn't just some fun browser game; this is an experience someone worked to give me." I think there's a lot of value in that.

Could just be me though; I don't want to claim to speak for all young people LOL!

I also agree with the sentiment others seem to be sharing, that this could unlock a new supporter feature - custom submission thumbnails! Say the default for music is CD, the default for movies is film reel, the default for art is a canvas, and the default for games is a generic "retro" cartridge. With supporter, a person could be able to swap between a handful of outlines that they feel best represent their submission! I think similarly to custom pfp shapes, this would be a fun cosmetic incentive that doesn't take anything major away from those who can't / won't upgrade.

One final thing - I feel like if we give special thumbnails to one submission category, we'd have to give them to all submission categories. I'm sure some of y'all feel differently, but in my mind it wouldn't be fair if just music got a facelift while the other three categories are left behind.

[LiteraryWho]

In the mockup, I feel like the game cartridges were a bit too heavy handed/on the nose. The CD/vinyl sleeves were on point though.

[Nabella]

Maybe you can keep the thumbnails for games and movies borderless, much like how they are now, but give the Title/Author section the cartridge or film strip look.

[UnculturedMutt]

Definitely like JamesLee's music thumbnails, but not so much for the game thumbnails.

Maybe I'll change my mind if I see it in action. Perhaps on a skeumorphic April Fool's day, like with the new icon shapes?

[mawibblap]

At 5/22/23 10:20 AM, TomFulp wrote: We have embarked on a series of small incremental playlist updates that will be bringing a lot of cool things to the playlist space. Phase One updated the edit form to our current, mobile-friendly layout while introducing a rich text editor for commentary and a better thumbnail uploader with cropping tool.

Phase Two launched today, updating the Playlists page to our current layout and introducing ratings filters based on the content of individual playlists.

We’ve changed the formatting of how playlists are presented on pages, where they now include a thumbnail and short description. We also brought back number counts for individual content types on the desktop layout, in addition to showing the ratings range of the content in the list.

You can now create a rich content link to a playlist by pasting the playlist URL on its own line in our text editor, like you can with movies, games, art and audio!

that's pretty great and nice, while I'm not exactly a big fan of how the playlist links is presented on pages now, like it kinda keeps bothering me for some reason, maybe it's because it looks way too empty to the point that it feels kinda off?

but idk, I guess maybe I might probably get used to it soon like most people got used to ng's new layout back then lol. ^^;

despite that, I'm still really glad that now we have phase 2 of playlist update so yeyey

It’s fun to think about these things but it’s especially helpful when the ideas get visualized, which is what @JamesLee did with this game and music thumbnail mockup!

What do you think of that mockup? It’s a shift back towards a more skeuomorphic design, something that was frowned on this past decade but is maybe primed for a come-back. I enjoyed all the feedback I got on Saturday’s post because it’s a reminder you are out there and reading this, so please don’t hesitate to weigh in on this idea now!

holy blin that actually looks pretty cool, I love @/JamesLee's attempt at music format mockup, it looks pretty heckin' nice, although I personally think that mockup of game's format is kinda way too much??? like the idea is nice, but maybe try making it a bit, uh, small?? idk (still cool though ;w;),

speaking of skeuomorphic design, I would love more skeuomorphic aesthetic vibe here, not only it would look pretty cool, but it's pretty genius since it would also make the website itself kinda stand out (in the good way ofc)

since nowadays many websites is trying to use the samey modern look as much as possible and alot of people including me is pretty tired of that samey modern style that we keep seeing everywhere, so having an website that looks a bit different than other website would be a breath of fresh air =]

[TwisterzX0]

I haven't been a fan of the idea to allow different thumbnail shapes for content but it is fun to imagine different cartridge types for games, or CD vs vinyl for music sleeves.

I kinda ment custom themes for the website like changing colors and custom themes just for the user. Like how twitter *kinda* has custom themes for the user idk how to explain

It would be cool if you can make ur newgrounds look like the 2006 incarnation

[mawibblap]

At 5/22/23 01:55 PM, TheBrickishere wrote: I kinda ment custom themes for the website like changing colors and custom themes just for the user. Like how twitter *kinda* has custom themes for the user idk how to explain

like these discord's custom themes for example?

[TwisterzX0]

At 5/22/23 01:59 PM, mawibblap wrote:

At 5/22/23 01:55 PM, TheBrickishere wrote: I kinda ment custom themes for the website like changing colors and custom themes just for the user. Like how twitter *kinda* has custom themes for the user idk how to explain

like these discord's custom themes for example?

Yeah like that exactly

[BobbyBurt]

At 5/22/23 10:20 AM, TomFulp wrote: In my previous post on Saturday, I asked musicians if they felt it was time to retire the CD iconography for music thumbnails, instead showing their full square thumbnail art. Response was mixed, however a lot of people liked the idea of treating the thumbnail like a sleeve with a CD or vinyl record poking out the side, to keep music unique while showing the full thumbnail. It also came up that games could look like game cartridges and movies could look like film strips. 

It’s fun to think about these things but it’s especially helpful when the ideas get visualized, which is what @JamesLee did with this game and music thumbnail mockup!

What do you think of that mockup? It’s a shift back towards a more skeuomorphic design, something that was frowned on this past decade but is maybe primed for a come-back. I enjoyed all the feedback I got on Saturday’s post because it’s a reminder you are out there and reading this, so please don’t hesitate to weigh in on this idea now!

The CD iconography mockup is great! For awhile I've thought that it's something that makes too much sense not to do.

The discussion as it relates to games is an intersection of things I'm very interested in: Design and making the NG/web game experience better and more consistent. Specifically making it feel like a retro game collection is very appealing. Nitrome is a great example because those games all had a consistent pixel art style, the games were of a high quality standard and the logo animation often depicted a cartridge being inserted and a console starting up.

I had a similar idea to the cartridge thumbnail thing that @JamesLee mocked up, but I was thinking more in the vein of old game CDs, like Playstation and Dreamcast. Here's a little mockup:

Regular state

Hover state

The hover state has some info about the game, like supported features, akin to the back of a game case. The bottom icons indicate rating, if the game supports medals, scoreboards, cloud save data and gamepads. This mockup is in the style of the current website design, and more work could be done to give it some personality and make it really feel like a physical CD case.

Truthfully, I think the current thumbnail design is best. Mine and @JamesLee's mockup would create a lot of repetition that takes valuable screen space away from the author's unique thumbnail. Something that adds some kind of retro / physical media charm could be cool as a separate feature? Or if creators wanted to take it into their own hands, maybe make a game which acts as a launcher (links to) some games, really putting effort into the presentation to make it feel like a collection of physical games. Like what you can supposedly do with Launchbox.

[OviManic]

I adore the Game thumbnail mock-up! Gives a new kind of retro feel!

As for the Music thumbnails, I personally don’t mind the CD thumbnail format but I understand why some who want to give their songs a more complex look request some more real estate for their designs.

[Joe-Mega]

The game cartridges and cd covers are dripping with style and personality. I don't know what my opinion is worth, but I think something like that would really do a lot as far as celebrating how different NewGrounds is from anywhere else online, but without being Garish or distracting.

[TwisterzX0]

I love this one! Might have plans on making a mock up for the mobile state and the movie portal :3

[Arguswastaken]

I honestly didn't think I was gonna be happy about any kind of change, but I really like James Lee's mockup for audio. I think it's a great compromise

[Diamondmanpixel76]

(megamind meme) No nostalgia?

[Random-storykeeper]

The rich content links look great! Is it possible for them to also include the number of entries in them and not just on the user's page?

One feedback I have for music playlists is that when playing all audio, I feel like tracks should always start from the beginning of the track instead of where it was last stopped. At least, it should apply to songs/loops - to me, it doesn't make sense to play through a playlist and pick up at the very end just because that's where you played off when you played the track on the page a while ago. I think the remembering timestamp feature would work well for longer forms of audio like podcasts, but it doesn't make sense for a 3-6 minute song, especially not within a playlist playing all tracks in sequence.

[name]

At 5/22/23 11:01 AM, Piggybank12 wrote:

At 5/22/23 10:20 AM, TomFulp wrote: It’s fun to think about these things but it’s especially helpful when the ideas get visualized, which is what @JamesLee did with this game and music thumbnail mockup!

What do you think of that mockup? It’s a shift back towards a more skeuomorphic design, something that was frowned on this past decade but is maybe primed for a come-back. I enjoyed all the feedback I got on Saturday’s post because it’s a reminder you are out there and reading this, so please don’t hesitate to weigh in on this idea now!

I really like this mockup! The thought of giving each game the look of a tangible cartridge feels on-brand, and while I've never shared music on NG I do think keeping the art on the sleeve while having the CD pop out from the side is a smart compromise.
There was another idea shared earlier in the thread as well about letting people choose between vinyls, CDs or cassette tapes which sounds like an idea that could utilize the code you've already got for selecting avatar frames, though I wouldn't know for certain if that would save on work.

As for a return to leaning on skeuomorphism, I think that could also be a smart idea. We've been seeing a flat vector design approach everywhere for over a decade now, and while it's only a gut feeling, I feel like people are growing tired of it and are looking for something new. Skeuomorphism is now synonymous with the mid-late 2000's (which is also NG's big heyday with the public too I think), and the nostalgia for that era is on the climb lately.
It also just occurred to me that I've even had a userstyle theme enabled on my end for a while now that restores the skeuomorphism for NG, which the mockup art fits into like a glove:

Is it a filter?

[Wegra]

At 5/22/23 10:20 AM, TomFulp wrote:

In my previous post on Saturday, I asked musicians if they felt it was time to retire the CD iconography for music thumbnails, instead showing their full square thumbnail art. Response was mixed, however a lot of people liked the idea of treating the thumbnail like a sleeve with a CD or vinyl record poking out the side, to keep music unique while showing the full thumbnail. It also came up that games could look like game cartridges and movies could look like film strips. 

I still remember when I think we had like diamond records and platinum records based on views. I miss those. But yeah I think we Making them vinyl covers would be a great step forward

[CobaltRogueX]

Nice! I like being able to put an actual image in the icon, as well. Made one for a series of doodles I've been working on lately during downtime so this came at the perfect time.