Idea: Badge Button Sharing Standard!

[Melooon]

Badge Button Sharing Standard (BBSS)

I am just out of a crisis meeting with.. err.. myself! Anyway, everyone is sending me 88x31 badges for Pixel Sea, but I cant do anything with them becouse I have no mechanism for collecting badges to add 

There are SO MANY good badge collections out there.. but they are all way too hard to access - so I suggest a simple standard everyone can use!

Short Version:
Imagine this: you create a folder on your site, add your badges, add text file with a list of badges; then anyone visiting your site can access that list simply, and external tools like Pixel Sea can also look for that folder and pick out badges!

Explained Version:
You create a folder in your site root called BBSS

Code

BBSS - Folder in the root of your site
    88x31/ - A folder containing all your badges
        list.txt - A text file listing all the badges you have
        bobs-badge.gif
        melonking-badge.gif
        ..etc
    sizes.txt - (Optional) a file listing additional size folders for things like blinkies
    friends.txt - (Optional) A text file listing other sites with collections you like
    index.html - (Optional) nice interface and intro to BBSS

• You can expand the system with multiple size folders for different badge standards, blinkies, cliques etc - but the main one is the 88x31 folder whitch is the standard badge size.
• In the size folder you have a list.txt file - this is just a  plain text file listing all the images in the folder, each on a new line. (I can provide a command to generate this automatically for sites); after that you can just put all the badges you wanna share in the folder.
• I would also recommend a naming convention of site urls first e.g. "melonking-net_01.gif" "melonking-net_blog-02.png" - this ensures that badge origin can be maintained. (although this is not a hard rule and you could name them whatever you like)
• You can use this for sharing your own site badges, or for sharing while collection you've gathered.
• The "firends" file is just  plaintext file where you can list other peoples collections you'd like to recommend. Tools can use this to crawl for more badges; essentially making a badge collection ring.
• I can also provide an index.html that will automatically list all the badges nad other images you have in your collection so it can be used as an easy

What does all this result in?
Well on a simple level, it means anyone visiting your site knows where to look to get your badges; we could even make a browser extension that would automatically alert you when you visit a site with a badge collection on offer!

For more advanced people, it means we could simply gather a list of site URLs that host collections and automatically download and share those collections - e.g. this allows you to host your own decentralised badge collection - so a collection site like Pixel Sea could access your collection and share its badges while maintaining a link to you and letting you manage your own collection.

This does not solve the issue of duplicates, bad naming etc - but it does make it waaaayy easier for people to start making badge collections and sharing them with others.

Let me know what you think, if you have ideas, improvements or a better name 

[Kallistero]

This is a little like how my current .txt-file-to-blog-page project is structured! I hit a snag when it came to reading what's inside the files on other sites, though. Even sites that don't have a problem being iframed by my site don't like me reading their files' contents. I can import their images, scripts, or other embeds using basic HTML tags, but beyond that, using the actual inner contents of files seems to be restricted.

Here's my basic experiment summary for trying to read from offsite files:

• Popular sites like Google & Facebook: the expected result, couldn't read from them
• Offsite pages I've visited through iframe, like Wikipedia and Bitview: couldn't read from 'em
• Offsite indie pages: could sometimes read from them
• Neocities default pages: couldn't read from them
• Other Neocities pages: could read from them ONLY if they belonged to supporter accounts

It looks like CORS is probably the thing that's in the way here. I've had this monkeys.txt file sitting on my site for a while; see if your site can read its contents!

There might be a hacky way to do it with HTML imports or something. You can definitely get around some restrictions with backend technologies, but I'm not sure that's what we're gonna want out of it.   

[Melooon]

No a lot of replies to this so far which is the biggest issue! (It needs people to be excited to use it to work) so if you have not replied to this thread, lemmy know why? Is it confusing? Just not interesting? Both?

It looks like CORS is probably the thing that's in the way here.

Yeah one of the neocities supporter perks is the ability to allow CORS linking to your site (Its actually a really cool perk that no one talks about)

For CORS; Id prob offer a free proxy service that bypasses CORS (This is easy to do and other groups like 32Cafe could offer alternative proxies too, people can even self host if they have a server)

I don't necessarily think CORS is an issue though, since it only applies if people are loading others collections in webpages - anyone could still import others collections locally using a script, app or site generator; and you can still display your own collection without any issue.

[shevek]

Is it confusing?

Yes. I have no idea what you're talking about like is it a crawler that will ""steal"" buttons from all Neocities sites? Without duplicates? I wasn't aware that so many people have whole button hoards on their sites that we need to merge, this is like a message of an alternative universe to me

[Melooon]

I have no idea what you're talking about

Ooph

So more plainly put - I am suggesting that everyone puts their badges in the same folder on every site. If everyone puts their badges in the same folder (and provides a list of what badges are in that folder) - then everyone else will know where to find their badges!

Thats all it really is!

The idea itself is not a crawler; but it does open the door for crawlers to be made. It does not solve the issue of duplicates at all (Thats something a potential crawler would have to figure out).

It means that if say; everyone on the forum did this - then a crawler could visit everyones site; hotlink their badges and include them in a single collection.

[shevek]

I am suggesting that everyone puts their badges in the same folder on every site

Aaah, now that makes sense. So it would be a standard for all badges and buttons or whatever to always be at www.exampleurl.com/agreeduponfoldername ?

[Melooon]

Yep! (Thats the BBSS folder in my first post) though maybe thats too obscure a name and a more inviting name could be used!

EDIT: Also this is the kinda way you're trained to think in CompSci degrees; Im aware its not how many people think; thats why I made the thread too figure out what clicked for people and what was going too far.

[shevek]

And the problem it solves, or the purpose it serves, is mainly being a centralized hub of the biggest badge collection while others still have their own, and preservation of all kinds of badges for archiving purposes, I assume?

This is still missing for me in the main post, because while I know you really enjoy gathering resources and making websites for them (like the Textures and MoMG) I think the objective and motivation can be hard to understand or hard to read between the lines for people who are not online gatherers and data hoarders (<- meant positively)

[Melooon]

the problem it solves

It solves two issues:
1. It makes it very easy for people to find your badge when they wanna add it to their cool sites list.
2. It decentralises badge collections - instead of having a few of HUGE badge collections that are maintained by individuals, it means that everyone can create their own little collection (like most people do) - yet those collections can be grouped, combined and remixed by others if needed!

[loren]

i already have my buttons organized almost how you've described it, so it would be pretty easy for me to add links.txt!

most of my buttons are in /88x31/, but i keep personal site buttons in a subfolder,  /88x31/site/. i don't know much about how crawlers work, but would they still be able to find things in the subfolder as long as i specify that's where they are? like writing 'site/badge1.gif' instead of 'badge1.gif' ?

I would also recommend a naming contention of site urls first e.g. "melonking-net_01.gif" "melonking-net_blog-02.png" - this ensures that badge origin can be maintained.

i like the idea of maintaining badge origin, but most people's collections are made up of badges they didn't make themselves... i don't think this is a bad thing by itself! i use borrowed buttons too. but i personally would feel really weird (bad) putting my url in the name of something i didn't make. i'll definitely keep this project in mind and add my url to badges i do make, though.

[Melooon]

crawlers work, but would they still be able to find things in the subfolder as long as i specify that's where they are?

This would depend on who ever's making the crawler, but since we are planning the standard; we can totaly suggest that it allows subfolders. Also 88x31 as a root folder name might be more appealing to people? (maybe the multi size ideas is unnecessary)

putting my url in the name of something i didn't make

Agreed with that; thats a very rough example - it would need more details figured out to be really useful; there would be all sorts of situations where it would not be possible - if you know who made it, maybe putting their url on it not yours for example!

[loren]

(maybe the multi size ideas is unnecessary)

maybe... the more complicated the idea, the harder it will be to get people on board i think. right now my other "standardized" images are in /img/stamp/ and /img/blinkie/ but i have very small collections so i'm not tooooo opposed to moving things around.

if you know who made it, maybe putting their url on it not yours for example!

as collections get bigger, it gets harder and harder to keep track of sources, so i would love for this to become standard practice!

---

edit: i read over my message again and i realize that most of it is focusing on how hard it will be... i don't want to be too negative; maybe things will be easier than i think! it's a cool idea and i hope it catches on! 

[asterhalloween]

This seems super cool!!! I only have two badges I've made so far (I technically have two others but they aren't 88x31 since I wasn't thinking of that when making them... oops!) but I really enjoy silly little badges and I think this is a super cool idea. I think naming it 88x31 will be easier to understand rather than BBSS since there are lots of people on the web who generally know what an 88x31 badge is :)

[Neguuy]

I'd be interested in trying to use this standard. I'm working on overhauling my site layout and part of that will mean organizing my badge collection (many 88x31s but also 150x20 blinkies, stamps and a couple outliers), both on the display side and the file management side. Currently my file structure is images/site-images/buttons/(badge format)/badgename.gif . I renamed all my badges before using them so they'd all have a short descriptive name, but I'm not using any file naming system that would really organize them.
Considering my collection will grow once it has its dedicated space, I think it'd be a good thing to do that work ahead of time and clean it all up before my new badges arrive at their new home :)

[DiffydaDude]

I think an easier way to make it would be to make a program which would visit a site and factor everything thats a button, then it would automatically add a link to the button into a file along with a tag number. That file would be read by a script recognizing every id number from 1 to 100000 or whatever, and if any links are attached to any tag number, then they will be shown in the Pixel Sea collection.
Honestly, I like being able to check out personal button collections. I feel like a bunch of different button collections is more fun than just having one big one