how to organize my inspiration/ideas digitally
August 7, 2022 5:13 PM Subscribe
i want a way to collect and search through all the artworks and other sources of inspiration i find but i can't seem to find anything that matches all my wants. preferably i'd like to find a website that already has everything i want because i'm lazy. although i wouldn't mind throwing something together myself and it would probably be better in the long term if i held all the files as opposed to relying on some other website.
i've come to the conclusion that a website is the best option because i want to easily access it from any location, even if i can't edit it from wherever. i have 8 years of spaghetti coding experience (mostly c++, python, and processing) and i would like to learn more in general, so you're absolutely welcome to suggest tutorials and free/cheap scripts that i can (carefully) mash together, as long as it isn't expert level. right now i'm using a version of this html ('fic rec' version) that i slightly altered to sort movies i like or recommend. but it doesn't have every feature i want, and i'm only using it for a few dozen entries right now. if i made a personal site, i would host (is that the right word?) it through neocities because i also have plans to make silly websites through there.
it's likely that's there's a blogging website (maybe a database or archive template?) out there that already has everything i want. but again it'd probably be better in the long term if i host it, and putting together a project like that would be satisfying despite being annoying in the process. you're free to recommend solutions towards either goal
so, list of things i need:
- able to be unlisted or private/mildly password protected
- allows me to select multiple overlapping tags (similar to what i linked, has categories of tags like artist, year, genre, medium. but with the ability to select multiple tags within a category. ex able to select 'oil paint' and 'charcoal' from the medium category instead of just selecting a generic 'mixed media' that could also include unrelated mediums like 'wood' or 'collage.')
- tag selection has tags separated by category instead of one big alphabetized list in the sidebar
- items show up with a thumbnail, title, entire list of tags applied to it, and perhaps a short description, then you can click through to a page with more text, pictures, or video embeds like a blog post
- one or two columns
- able to sort chronologically or alphabetically
- able to view from basically anywhere
optional:
- a way to toggle how much is shown in the list. thumbnail on/off, description on/off etc
- able to add entries from anywhere
unneeded:
- prettiness
- i will always access it on desktop, likely firefox on windows. i have no interest in a mobile version.
question if i were to do it myself:
- in the html i'm using right now every entry is in the same long file, apart from the javascript that handles the filtering. it's gotta be better to have each entry be a separate file (?) but i have no idea how to implement that (no idea = i spent a couple hours thinking about it 11 months ago and gave up). as long as that is included in a tutorial somewhere i should be okay.
TIA!!
i've come to the conclusion that a website is the best option because i want to easily access it from any location, even if i can't edit it from wherever. i have 8 years of spaghetti coding experience (mostly c++, python, and processing) and i would like to learn more in general, so you're absolutely welcome to suggest tutorials and free/cheap scripts that i can (carefully) mash together, as long as it isn't expert level. right now i'm using a version of this html ('fic rec' version) that i slightly altered to sort movies i like or recommend. but it doesn't have every feature i want, and i'm only using it for a few dozen entries right now. if i made a personal site, i would host (is that the right word?) it through neocities because i also have plans to make silly websites through there.
it's likely that's there's a blogging website (maybe a database or archive template?) out there that already has everything i want. but again it'd probably be better in the long term if i host it, and putting together a project like that would be satisfying despite being annoying in the process. you're free to recommend solutions towards either goal
so, list of things i need:
- able to be unlisted or private/mildly password protected
- allows me to select multiple overlapping tags (similar to what i linked, has categories of tags like artist, year, genre, medium. but with the ability to select multiple tags within a category. ex able to select 'oil paint' and 'charcoal' from the medium category instead of just selecting a generic 'mixed media' that could also include unrelated mediums like 'wood' or 'collage.')
- tag selection has tags separated by category instead of one big alphabetized list in the sidebar
- items show up with a thumbnail, title, entire list of tags applied to it, and perhaps a short description, then you can click through to a page with more text, pictures, or video embeds like a blog post
- one or two columns
- able to sort chronologically or alphabetically
- able to view from basically anywhere
optional:
- a way to toggle how much is shown in the list. thumbnail on/off, description on/off etc
- able to add entries from anywhere
unneeded:
- prettiness
- i will always access it on desktop, likely firefox on windows. i have no interest in a mobile version.
question if i were to do it myself:
- in the html i'm using right now every entry is in the same long file, apart from the javascript that handles the filtering. it's gotta be better to have each entry be a separate file (?) but i have no idea how to implement that (no idea = i spent a couple hours thinking about it 11 months ago and gave up). as long as that is included in a tutorial somewhere i should be okay.
TIA!!
tumblr will do all that with some work, although i rarely use their tags. I have friends who have sideblogs expressly set up for that. their tagging search has reportedly improved but you are better off using a custom google search.
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:34 AM on August 8, 2022
posted by dorothyisunderwood at 4:34 AM on August 8, 2022
Best answer: Basically all website hosting options these days will offer you as the simplest user package some variation of a content management system be it squarespace or WordPress etc. You don't handcode htmls anymore but you also won't be generating any html pages period. It's all database-driven. Even Tumblr.
All of the features you're thinking of are possible in all the popular options but the way to think about them these days is to use plugins to enable those features. That's going to be where most of your planning will go, even if you decide to at least go with a paid theme that should have most of these features enabled.
In any case, it sounds like whichever option you'll go for, my recommendation is to focus on how well its post/content tagging system works out of the gate for you. My sense is this will be your killer/non-negotiable feature.
posted by cendawanita at 5:22 AM on August 8, 2022
All of the features you're thinking of are possible in all the popular options but the way to think about them these days is to use plugins to enable those features. That's going to be where most of your planning will go, even if you decide to at least go with a paid theme that should have most of these features enabled.
In any case, it sounds like whichever option you'll go for, my recommendation is to focus on how well its post/content tagging system works out of the gate for you. My sense is this will be your killer/non-negotiable feature.
posted by cendawanita at 5:22 AM on August 8, 2022
Best answer: Notion would allow you to do this. For example, you could set up a database with all of the fields that you want to use and set up a gallery view that lets you click into the item and add things like video embeds.
For the tagging, you could either have a field with the full list of your tags as options, or crosslink to another database you create that lists your tags for even more flexibility (such as categorizing your tags).
posted by past unusual at 2:58 PM on August 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
For the tagging, you could either have a field with the full list of your tags as options, or crosslink to another database you create that lists your tags for even more flexibility (such as categorizing your tags).
posted by past unusual at 2:58 PM on August 8, 2022 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: i should have mentioned i coming from tumblr because it wasn't working for me and i already tried pinterest haha
thank you past unusual, notion looks very promising. and if that doesn't work out i'll look into wordpress more
posted by pfeffernusse at 3:10 PM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
thank you past unusual, notion looks very promising. and if that doesn't work out i'll look into wordpress more
posted by pfeffernusse at 3:10 PM on August 8, 2022 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by b33j at 2:09 AM on August 8, 2022 [3 favorites]