Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Beta testers needed / Play with my app! It's fun!

#463

It’s come to my attention that folks were adding Global Library songs to their My Songs category without editing them, which is the real purpose for My Songs. I did some math, and once JT gets going, that database duplication would end up costing me a LOT of money… like I’d need dozens of monthly subscribers just to pay for unnecessary database duplication.

We have a new feature I hope everyone will use. I’ve added a Favorite button to the View and Edit pages, plus a new Favorites category on the Song Library page.

image
image.png698×325 31.4 KB

image

You can also favorite multiple songs at once right on the Global Library listing using the stars on the song cards.

image
image.png696×429 40 KB

I had originally hoped that people would use Lists to store their favorite songs, but I guess that would very intuitive. Hopefully this will be moreso.

2 Likes
#464

Can you not block users from saving their favs to the Global Library @Mark_Rocka ?

#465

The functionality needs to be there in case people want to edit existing songs. I’ve now added a message if they try to save an unedited song to their own songs to ask them if they’d prefer to add it to their favorites.

1 Like
#466

Just deleted all of my “my songs category” and will use the favorites function from now on. Does this also apply to songs you save in a play list?

#467

I appreciate it!

The Lists feature just takes songs from their exiting locations (Global Songs or My Songs) and creates a very tiny list in the database. It’s nothing like having an exact duplicate of a song.

And to be clear, this isn’t something I’d expect users to even know. This is my fault for not fully understanding how users were using JT… but that’s exactly why we’re still in the beta testing phase. :wink:

#468

This has me thinking now….if I had two lists, one for mandolin and one for banjo practice. Both lists have the same songs, but in the mandolin list I saved the songs in Key of D or A let’s say, and in the banjo list I saved them in G, are the ones saved in a different key adding to the data storage? Just making sure I’m not causing you extra trouble.

1 Like
#469

If you change the key from that of the Global Library, that puts the song in the My Songs category, which does take up database space. I’m OK with that. I understand the convenience of having the song in 2 different lists and different keys.

I’m not trying to discourage anyone from making things their own, and I definitely don’t want to inconvenience anyone. I’m just trying to make sure the database doesn’t fill up with exact duplicates.

1 Like
#470

Wouldn’t it be possible to dedup entries? My gut reaction would be to store My Songs as a list that pairs a song ID with a flag that marks each song as global or custom. Then you can look up each song by ID from the correct data source based on that flag. That could help if people still abuse My Songs.

2 Likes
#471

Yes, I considered deduping, but I think it would be disorienting for folks since most of the current users don’t visit this board. So for now, I’m just rolling out the new Favorites option to try to prevent new duplicates. I’m considering a message to each user with a button that allows them to dedup on their own. That way there’s no surprises.

It’s really not a big deal right now. The extra DB storage is minimal, but if it were to continue like this, it would eventually cost me a lot of money.

2 Likes
#472

This DB cleanup turned out to be way more beneficial than I imagined. It turns out, there was a bug in the DB code that had affected 3 users. It copied hundreds of Public songs into the My Songs libraries. So not only did I clean things up, I also found and fixed a critical bug in the code.

I don’t think any of those 3 users are here on the board. If you are, your My Songs library should look much cleaner now. It only removed songs that were byte identical to songs in the Public Library, so if you made any edits at all, those weren’t touched.

1 Like
#473

Could I ask a favor? If any of you regularly post on banjohangout.org, would you be willing to go there and post something like “Been using jamtrainer.com lately…” and your experience with it and make sure there’s a hyperlink back to the site?

I may have an old account there, but it would look suspicious for me to just show up out of the blue to advertise my site.

Google really wants to see links back to a particular site. That’s a huge credibility boost in the site’s favor. Any other places you can do the same is also much appreciated.

Thanks!

#474

I haven’t been on Banjohangout in probably 10 years or I would post about it. But this post gave me an idea. You could write a short book on Jamtrainer. Call it something like, “The Complete Guide to Jam Trainer” and publish it on Amazon KDP. It really isn’t that difficult, especially if you already have the material available. I have published over a dozen books since 2020 and they do fairly well. In your description of the book you could hype up the app……”a guide to the best tool for learning to jam on your instrument” maybe use some positive reviews or quotes from users. Sell the book for a low price like a couple of bucks and list it in the music learning categories. Anyone browsing Amazon and Kindle could see the book listed and if they don’t know what the app is, it might spark their curiosity and get them to look it up. You could put a link to the app in the book as well. Just an idea, might help and if the app really takes off, it could generate a little extra revenue from people wanting to learn more about how to use it.

3 Likes
#475

Sorry, forgot to mention….you could also do the reverse and put something in the app that directs people to the book. Maybe…”for a complete guide to using Jamtrainer, check out the book…available on Amazon.” Amazon also has a system for advertising that isn’t too expensive. You only pay when people click on the book. This could kill two birds with one stone and advertise the book while also advertising the app.

2 Likes
#476

I have an active account on BHO . I will post it

1 Like
#477

Thanks Richard!

#478

That’s a really interesting idea, Chuck! Do you know if “jamtrainer.com” could be mentioned in the book’s description?

#479

All done

1 Like
#480

I’m not 100% sure on Amazons rules regarding links and listing other products, but i also enjoy drawing as a hobby and use an app called Clip Studio Paint. Attached is a book about using Clip Studio, and you can see the description that references the product….i have also seen books that have a link listed in the text of the book.

image
image.jpeg2060×1464 535 KB

2 Likes
#481

Thanks Richard!

Chuck, it’s definitely worth looking in to once I get out from under the weight of building the app. While you guys aren’t seeing much change on the front end, I’ve been working on the back end stuff trying to get it ready to go live once the lawyers get the verbiage ready for the terms and conditions plus the privacy page. I’ve already put in about 12 hours on the backend stuff today. Woke up at 2am and couldn’t get back to sleep, which seems to happen a lot since I started this project.

I sure hope all of this work pays off. I stopped counting at about 600 hours… but I’m positive I’ve surpassed 700 by now.

3 Likes
#482

Yeah, I’m sure you are in over your head with it. I was just throwing some ideas out there that might help you down the road.

1 Like