New Generation MSX online

Generation MSX is an MSX site well known for its extensive software database and in lesser extend for its library section. Over the years the site didn't change much and kept the same look. Until yesterday, when Generation MSX v2 was released.

The entire site was rebuilt from scratch, uses a new CMS and has a clean new look to it. Most of the functionality from the previous site is still available, and a hardware database based on the MSX FAQ was added as well. Here's an overview of the new features:

The media tab of software contains youtube videos
When publications (magazines) have a review about software they will appear on the software info tab
Everybody can contribute images/videos without an account
New hardware database based on the MSX FAQ
When publications (magazines) have a review about hardware they will appear on the hardware info tab
New publication section that replaces the old library section

Relevant link: Generation MSX

Reacties (38)

Van enribar

Paragon (1206)

25-03-2013, 22:24

Sorry but... at this point, the only useable part is the forum...
But it still remain the most complete MSX software database!

Van mars2000you

Enlighted (6433)

25-03-2013, 22:45

What do you mean ? The search engine works very good.

I've only noticed a small error in the 'Latest MSX news' section : my site is 'MSX blue', not 'BlueMSX' ...
I know, it's confusing

Van hbarcellos

Hero (642)

25-03-2013, 23:36

Cool! Let me check my suggestions!

*PS* I would still add a "tab" called review! Let people submit them. Someone approve and publish or not.
Same process for "submit" a screenshot...

Van Sylvester

Hero (577)

26-03-2013, 00:03

@enribar: have fun on the forums
@mars200you: fixed it
@hbarcellos: I wrote it down on my todo list, but first i have some other features to build and fix entries in the database

Van enribar

Paragon (1206)

26-03-2013, 09:03

hehe, yes you're right, I have to do some practice since I'm still used to the old one :-)
But I think this site suffers a bit of the "information overload" problem... (http://www.w3.org/WAI/)
(Sure It's my opinion but) Site is "too white", it stresses my eyes, and often you have to do vertical-up scroll to display basic information. See for example: http://www.generation-msx.nl/software/namco/center-court/rel...
It goes at the bottom on the page automatically, showing first the release information... this is annoying.
Name of the entry is too big.
Entry informations are not clearly limited with borders, background color or other graphical effects, so you can easily look at advertising first...
Anyway, I love it :-)

Van Sylvester

Hero (577)

26-03-2013, 09:24

@enribar, when we released the black version people complained that it was too black, and now people complain it's too white But I first wanted a different design, so I opened PhotoShop did some drawings and came to the conclusion i'm not a designer so at that point I took the Twitter Bootstrap Framework and created a site with it But I already got a proposal to replace the (retro) header with a new one, so who knows, maybe the rest of the site will also get some minor changes in the future.

About the scrolling, this was a feature request for the old site, that if you clicked on a specific release of a software title you would go to that release information. But if i get more complains i can always revert that feature.

Van meits

Scribe (6534)

26-03-2013, 12:05

Congrats with the new site... I want to add that the white is indeed a bit too white... There must be something between the old black and the new white

Van enribar

Paragon (1206)

26-03-2013, 13:05

Yes I thought that the white choice is a clear response to all those criticts about black.
But I was in love with the old CMS, in my opinon some minor changes were sufficient to improve look and feel.
For example, only changing black backcolour to blue and adding more media feature. This is a good example of colour mix: http://www.bluemsx.com
Old Gen-MSX site is still in Google cache, so... It's not too late ;-)

Van Akiguchi

Hero (623)

26-03-2013, 17:27

Where I could find the "highest rated games tab"? It was the most interesting thing about the whole old site which I looked upon to see how people vote their favourite games. Maybe I'm blind that I can't find it.

Van OeiOeiVogeltje

Paragon (1427)

26-03-2013, 18:01

an option to switch it to black?
i believe some sites have such a thing

Van FiXato

Scribe (1742)

26-03-2013, 21:05

While I agree that it would be nice if there were multiple supported stylesheets, people can also just grab client-side solutions such as the Stylebot (http://stylebot.me/about) solution to restyle the page however they like: http://stylebot.me/styles/2258

Van Edwin

Paragon (1182)

27-03-2013, 00:18

I'm ok with the new appearance. Nothing spectacular, but the content is much more important than the looks. A couple of issues though:

1. Clicking the quick search results is not as useful as the previous site. Now it's click, click search, (mostly) see one result, click again. Three clicks to take you where one should do.
2. The scrolled start position is really unnatural. I'd skip that.
3. Clicking the 'tabs' is seems rather slow. This is mostly because it actually loads a new page and the response time for this CMS doesn't appear to be all that quick. It's nice for linking, but it'd be much better if it showed the content without reloading anything. This would remove the jump as it starts at the top again as well.

Van tcruise

Master (133)

27-03-2013, 05:25

It does look better than the old site, need to have a proper look later.
You still haven't added Electric Adventures as a company and there are a few other Australian/New Zealand publishers you are missing as well.

Van Poltergeist

Champion (280)

27-03-2013, 11:55

The random function is funny... It very often shows the 404 page...

Van enribar

Paragon (1206)

28-03-2013, 09:36

I love Gen-MSX as much as MSX.org.
I've been spending much time in finding, buying and preserving MSX software, and then updating Gen-MSX!
This activity is not easy and sometimes hard, but it's a passion and funny.
Much work still have to be done, for example as tcruise says, entire companies' entries last in the database...
My personal next goal is to reach 4000 unique entries, but now I can't see statistics anymore... Is there a way to reactivate them again?
Another think: I had an account in the old CMS backend, can I still have it in the new? (and how? please webmaster contact me).

Van Sylvester

Hero (577)

28-03-2013, 09:47

@edwin: about the autocomplete it's the default behavior of the twitter bootstrap script, but i will see if I can fix it. The scrolling will be removed this weekend and the tabs stay for now
@tcruise: it's on my todo list
@poltergeist: strange, it should only give existing software, this weekend I will improve the logging of the 404 pages so I can see what goes wrong.
@enribar: the statistics will return this weekend and check you email
@akiguchi: the "highest rated games" will return this weekend

Van ro

Scribe (4917)

31-03-2013, 12:18

Sandy, great work. GenMSX has a more modern look to it and the contents is still amazing. thumbs up!

Van anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

31-03-2013, 21:41

Contents? What contents? I can't find anything on this trainwreck.

http://img820.imageshack.us/img820/8264/fixthiscrap.png

Generation-MSX was so awesome. There was nothing wrong with it. Please fix it.

Van sd_snatcher

Prophet (3645)

01-04-2013, 01:04

Indeed, unfortunately the search function seems to be broken.
OTOH, I liked the new/cleaner design.

Van Manuel

Ascended (19308)

01-04-2013, 22:47

Try again, it seems to be better now. It seems Sandy is still ironing out some bugs...

Van Manuel

Ascended (19308)

03-04-2013, 15:33

Can you guys confirm it's OK now?

Van anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

04-04-2013, 14:03

It is. I only wonder where the advanced search went. But it works perfectly again.
Oh, and it still says "no results founds".

Van FiXato

Scribe (1742)

04-04-2013, 13:39

John: http://www.generation-msx.nl/software has a bit more advanced search, though I agree that the old version had much more finegrained search options.

Van FiXato

Scribe (1742)

04-04-2013, 13:40

Then again, the old version didn't have the filtering system that the current one does. Just have to get used to using the bar on the left.

Van JohnHassink

Ambassador (5665)

04-04-2013, 13:59

@ FiXato: Thanks.

By the way, what is causing this:

Could it be my browser? I'm using Firefox 20.0.

Van Sylvester

Hero (577)

04-04-2013, 14:06

@John: nope it's not your browser. It looks like the Twitter bootstrap doesn't handle long names correctly in a list when you have a smaller screen. Will have a look at it.

Van Sylvester

Hero (577)

04-04-2013, 14:15

@John, try a refresh and it should work now

Van JohnHassink

Ambassador (5665)

04-04-2013, 14:18

@ Sylvester: Yep, it does. Nice work.

One more little nitpick - it still says "No results founds".

Van Sylvester

Hero (577)

04-04-2013, 14:20

@John, i have the same problem if i search for: verylongtitlethatdoesnotexist
What did you search for?

Van anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

04-04-2013, 14:22

Sylvest, look closer at the bold formatting. ;-)
He means that the page says "founds" instead of "found".

Van anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

04-04-2013, 14:22

I searched for "patat", in order to get no results on purpose.
It's not the problem that patat is not in the database - I'm referring to the text "no results founds" instead of "no results found".

EDIT: FiXato was quicker.

Van Sylvester

Hero (577)

04-04-2013, 14:26

hmm, i need a new monitor here at work don't see any bold, but it's fixed

Van FiXato

Scribe (1742)

04-04-2013, 14:35

Hmm, on Chrome on my mac the font-weight difference is indeed very small.

Van DanySoft

Champion (452)

05-04-2013, 21:36

Please,
Changing the background in black!
I do not like the white background!

However, the black background style msx opened my eyes and I see many games perfectly
recognize the images of all the MSX!
I am passionate about research in the game, but the white background is not of my liking.

Bye Bye
DanySoft

Van anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

27-04-2013, 13:03

How can I upload images to the "Latest Changes" part???

I can´t find any options for do it

Van anonymous

incognito ergo sum (116)

30-04-2013, 05:59

Could be nice to have a language(s) field added to the software, making it easier to know if a game requires knowing Japanese or Dutch. ;p

Van MäSäXi

Paragon (1884)

30-04-2013, 08:12

It´s nice to see that my old wish has been fulfilled! Now I can search for games in every page! No need to press back-button or click software database link. Thank you!

I have one more wish, to make generation-msx more perfect!

Could there be games, which were meant to release for MSX too, but were not? Such games could have scanned magazine advertisements for evidence. I think it would be interesting thing to have. Maybe some searcher could know more about that game and tell more why it wasn´t released.

Van Manuel

Ascended (19308)

30-04-2013, 16:05

The site already supports unreleased games and language fields.

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