Mu Project/Preset Cloud

[mehum]

I think it's important to think about what you actually want to get out of this.
In my view this is what you would want:

A: An area where users of Mux/Mulab will be able to browse and download content. They most likely want to be able to read descriptions, listen to , read comments, reviews and see ratings.

B: An area where "advanced" users may upload content to either be shared publicly (releases, see above) or privately with other users (collaborations, alpha/beta testing). Here you would like some kind of messaging system, version tracking etc.

There are third part options for all these things but you'll still need a server for content storage and a server for the web application(s).

1. Content storage
This will always, in some way, cost money. At least in the long run. Sure, there are Dropbox, Google Drive and a whole bunch of others, but the limitations of the free personal accounts for these services are very limiting. They may be helpful for a few people collaborating but not for public releases of patches.

So either Mutools could dedicate server space for this or a one could us a cloud server solution. As I mentioned above Azure S3 is one of those.

2. Web application
For this there are a lot of third party options. Both free hosted content management systems (Wordpress etc) and open source solutions that need to be installed and run somewhere. Here I mentioned AppHarbor since they actually have a free tier. Any half decent web hotel would also let you install applications that may run these things. Still need a lot of tweaking to get it the way you want...

If you focus on scenario A I believe a blogging platform would get you pretty far. I guess Wordpress and others have add-ons for rating systems and you get all the commenting etc that you expect from the user side of things. You also normally get a good tagging system for browsing. I also think it's possible to have a members area for up-loaders of patches. If using a free out of the box solution quite a lot of manual administration is probably needed though.
And remember, you still need somewhere to host the files.

Scenario B would more be in need of custom code. Michael L mentioned Github but I don't see it being a good fit for this. It's meant for code collaboration of open source software. It could work if the mux-files were in a humanly readable text format since then you at least could make use of the change tracking but they're not Also everyone who wants to collaborate would need git which I doubt anyone who's not a programmer are eager to learn
I believe for now that these forum are enough for simple collaborations although I could see a more dedicated solution make sense if the demand is high. There's always also the possibility for a few persons to share eg a Dropbox folder.

Hope I'm not coming across as blunt or dismissive, I just think you need to know what you actually want
Although I could see myself setting something like this up I surely don't have any free time to dedicate to it now...

[Michael L]

Mehum, I think that is quite an elegant solution of a blogging platform for content management, plus cloud storage! It could be something like the Reaktor User Library, plus a related blog.
I notice that AmazonS3, Azure and Google Drive have dropped prices with Google now 2.6 cents/GB/month. Not too costly.
If there is enough interest we can figure out some 'division of labour' to set it up.
Otherwise we can just upload our Final versions to the KVR Downloads.

[Reincke]

... Another consideration: What about grouping presets in sub-folders, eg Effects, Synths, ... is that possible using the Kvr preset database?

OK, forget about the kvr database. It's flat and not suitable for a large amount of patches.
The github approach seems to be promising. Just have sign up. There is a free account possible with unlimited collaborators and unlimited repositories:
https://github.com/reincke/mutools-patches
Well, after messing around with it I think it's a great for versioning and structuring files, but it's less intuitive. Not all of us are software developers ...
Any comments about it?
JR

[pljones]

With Git, the "right way" (of many) to create a new patch for sharing would be:
1) Make a Github clone of the existing central MuLab Git repo
2) Pull your clone to create a local Git repo
3) In your local Git repo, create your patch and commit it
(2 & 3 are optional but recommended - you could just upload to your Github repo)
4) Push your local Git repo changes to your Github repo and submit a pull request to the central MuLab Git repo
5) Admin on the central MuLab Git repo merges your pull request

I'm not sure how scriptable Github is -- it might be possible to hide all of that behind a web-based interface.

The alternative would be anyone having commit access to the central MuLab Git repo, which may not be a good idea.

[Michael L]

Further on mehum's suggestion, a more 'customer-oriented' approach is a WordPress template that combines: a blog (for collaboration); a portfolio (to display and describe patches); and a shop to organise and manage secure digital downloads. There are a few such templates and they are visually attractive. The back-end access to post images and patches for download would be restricted to a group of Admins, but the WordPress system is easy to learn.

[Reincke]

I haven't worked with wordpress. Is it possible to collaborate with several contributors at one blog?
JR

[Michael L]

There are "Project Management" wordpress themes that enable group discussion with attached files. Wordpress is a modular system, so it is possible to have a theme with a collaboration backend and a shopfront. It would take some research to find a suitable theme, but there are heaps. Github & wordpress are very different, so good to compare in order to clarify direction.

[MuTools]

Thanks all for your constructive input so far. Please note that i myself cannot add (much) extra workload to my todo list. So i hope we can find a simple, ready out of the box system that answers our need/wish to share user projects and presets etc.

I think we should not yet see this too big at this point. Lets start with a simple system that makes it possible to add/modify/delete/get projects, presets etc. The add/modify/delete functions should be restricted to selected contributors/moderators via a login or so, just to protect the content from unwanted changes. The get=download function can be public for everyone. If after a year or so it would turn out to be used a lot and there would arrise a need for a more powerful system, then we can copy the whole public user library to a better system.

That's how i see it, but that's just my 2c, i'm not experienced in this field. Maybe you guys will know better what's needed and possible. Eventhough i don't want to further overdrive my workload, i'll support such user-driven public mu-library as good as possible cause i'm convinced there is a need for a solution to share public mu stuff. (demo projects, templates, presets, LFO shapes, wavetables, ...) Simple, Easy, Fun.

[Braserox]

What about working together with http://electro-music.com/forum/ ?

Have used this forum for sharing Clavia nord G2 patch.

[MuTools]

Well, Amazon S3 has a free 12 month trial plan with 5GB storage and probably high enough data request limit.
That would cover the storage. For web code and database I would have tried App harbor, but that is only because I am personally a .NET dev...
Once the limitations of the free services starts to become exceded there would hopefully be a big enough user base that it may pay itself by donations and/or ads.
http://aws.amazon.com/s3/pricing/
https://appharbor.com/
I have not tried any of these services though, only read good things about them.
Finding a totally free cloud server for storing patches is probably not possible...

Mehum, thanks for your tips. I'll have a closer look at S3.

[MuTools]

Sorry if my posts in this topic are a bit vague/chaotic/unclear, it's really a new topic for me, searching for a way. @mehum thanks for your analysis about the 2 points: "storage" and "web application". Well we might have the storage already. Now isn't there a simple yet secure php script that cold be used for this goal? Just for uploading files with certain extensions into a pre-defined folder structure?

[Shabdahbriah]

Just getting into MUX, though I have been observing its development for quite some time, I have only had a bit of a play with it, but just love how it is laid out, and its potential. {more on that later}

As to preset {or "instrument/effects"} sharing, *Zen* has become more viable of late, and is gaining momentum, afaik.

Wouldn't hurt to check it out, as it integrates with the app itself.

http://www.bigtickaudio.com/zen/about-zen

all the best.

~S~

[janhardo]

Perhaps you can let build the site for you in the Ukraine with a high quilified developer..cheap.
They are doing all kind of software development and it seems to me not that extremely complicated a website for users of music community to share their musical things.
I did this too in the past for a commercial website.
You can explain your ideas and he comes with a advice and a price. ( make a price..)