Hi there,

This site has a focus on music. Not being able to share audio clips makes no sense. Of course you can use a third party tool to share audio clips but I think the barrier is too big.

Here’s what I want to do: I want to create a micro application that allows people to upload audio or video clips to be able to embed them into their posts. The design goals are:

  • low barrier of entry
  • good viewing experience
  • useful on mobile

Now I can easily do the technical stuff (upload and store files, embedding, deployment) but I’ve always had a hard time with graphical design for small apps with very few features.

Would any of you have the skills and time to contribute a design?

  • macniel@feddit.deEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    So is it a website/webapp with a desktop first and mobile second approach or the other way around?

    • ChappIO@waveform.socialOPMEnglish
      1·
      1 year ago

      It is a website/webapp yes. I don’t think it is big enough to be mobile or desktop first. It should work well on either.

      Basically there will be 3 pages:

      1. Upload a new clip (to get a link)
      2. View the clip (visit the link)
      3. Embedded widget

      All three of these should work on mobile and desktop.

      I also started a poll to figure out which themes people use. If it has a mixed outcome I may want to facilitate automatic light/dark theme switching based on browser preferences.

      • macniel@feddit.deEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Oh okay, I was under the impression that you wanted to build a new (separate) website/webapp and not just augment this instance. Or not, as you were talking about embedding a widget?

        I have some know how regarding UI/UX-Design, though.

        • ChappIO@waveform.socialOPMEnglish
          1·
          1 year ago

          I think building a full replacement for the current UI would be too involved. I am talking about an additional service to augment this instance (which would be hosted on clips.waveform.social).

          So basically people will go there, drop/upload a file and get a link to be able to create a post on this instance.

          Lemmy already supports embedding post content if the target site supports embedding (through opengraph metadata) which is why we can easily embed the media into the post.

          If you’re willing to design some pages that would be awesome.

          • macniel@feddit.deEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            So in essence an imgur but for audio.

            Instead of a grid of images you have a list of audio clips (represented as waveforms for example), perhaps annotated with metadata, tags and or a short descriptive text (what about deaf people?).

            Could people just drop-in audio without the need to register, what about deletion. What about copyright claims/DMCA? Can people edit/manipulate their uploads?

            What about discoverability, would there be a search function or should it just be a dump space for which you get a link as a reference to your uploaded audio file?

            • ChappIO@waveform.socialOPMEnglish
              2·
              1 year ago

              It’s way simpler than that. No lists, no accounts, no search. You literally just upload a file and get a link to a viewer/player. The main place to be will still be waveform.social, this clips thing is just a way to upload media to get a link to share on waveform.social.

              With regard to copyright claims: a link to send an email in the footer would be enough. I can go and delete any infringing content.

              If at some point people would like to do more (like delete their content) then we can add it at that point. But right now I want to do the simplest thing that could possibly work.

              • macniel@feddit.deEnglish
                1·
                1 year ago

                I see.

                I guess you can just use the same look and feel of your instance. And take the create post screen as reference. Instead of uploading an image, you change it to accept audio/* instead.

                Once the audio is uploaded, you can process it via ffmpeg to turn it into a visually appealing waveform png you then can show the users. Next to it would be a play and pause button, and seeking is done by sliding over the waveform (it also shows the current location by graying out the given portion like a progress bar).

                Once an audio is uploaded, you also could generate a UUID to reference that exact post for embedding or linking.

                In embedded form: you see the same playback controls as the uploader, including the waveform.

    • ChappIO@waveform.socialOPMEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Hm that’s actually not a bad idea. Initially I wanted to make it unauthenticated and just make a website where you can drop files.

      The downside would be that only local users could upload audio and video as they would have to use waveform.social to do that.

  • BKLronin@waveform.socialEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    I could imagine something with flask- html - css. Ive at least seen a drag and drop component in flask. Iḿ experimenting a lot with webservices lately like my 4-tracks beat site. Not sure if Iḿ up to anyones standrads but I could probably write a working and acceptable looking UI for that.

    Problem is that Iḿ currently focused on stuff I need to get down in this month. So maybe in the long run I could help with that.

  • amanaftermidnight@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    This post came up when I searched the lemmyverse for “imgur but for audio”. I’m loving the idea.

    I’ve been looking for a way to hot link audio into my Lemmy comments using the ![]() markup but the problem is either Lemmy doesn’t render audio urls as audio elements or the website I’m linking disables hotlinking. I can’t tell.

    If you don’t mind the default Lemmy ui look then you can easily copy them over, because it uses Bootstrap 5. I’ve also seen elsewhere on the lemmyverse instances who ask their users to use an external affiliated file host that runs a linx-server instance. A simple off the shelf server that you can spin up in a docker.