Video menus

[Dannicus]

Hey Ari,

I can't remember if it has been discussed, but I was thinking as I was watching vids on the site today, man it would be nice if these sections were broken down into positions as well as techniques. It might be more work than its worth, but I just thought it might make it a bit easier to find things. Its 8 am and I might be making more sense to me than to you guys, so just to be a bit redundant, I was thinking something like a Guard section, a side control section, mount..etc.etc.etc. Like I said, might be more trouble than it's worth, but it could be something to make things even more streamlined.

[Ari Bolden]

Dan:

Before I put up ver 2.0 of the site, I threw out the question on how to break down the techniques. I decided (because of the responses) that the current menu would be the best.

While it would have been possible to (and still is ) break it into positional sections (guard, half guard), it seemed that it left things too open (meaning that people wanted to seach arm locks, leg locks, throws , sweeps etc). Also, it would have been a tremendous amount of work to categorize the videos under those headings as well as the current ones (it would have tripled my work load and I am the only guy who updates and does the site.

So, I had to find a mid point where I could do it without spending another 200 hours adding more sections. While it isn't the best in the world I think it serves the purpose the best it can for a one man show.

Thanks for the input

Ari

PS: When I make $ on the site, I might consider it but that would mean everyone would have to start visiting my google ads and more companies would have to pay sponsor ads. Time vs cost vs me having a life:)

[BigD]

Hi Ari,
I don't mean to be presumptious in the least, I am going to assume your knowledge of site design vastly exceeds my own, but wouldn't you get ultimate flexibility (after probably a lot of front end work) if you incorporated a database query type of key word search? This would remove the restriction of having categories (which could be kept, for initial browsing) but also enable things like search by position, and browse by position.

This is just a stab in the dark, I have no experience editing websites, but I work with databases professionally, so any time I see something that can be searched or organized the knee-jerk is to suggest a database.

No disrespect intended, just trying to help.

[Ari Bolden]

Dave:

You are right. I am a front end programmer and have little experience with data bases.

I have a good friend that is a computer whiz (masters in Computer engineering) and I am sure he could help me out.

I will look into streamlining the site in 2008 with a better search function. I just need to get all this other stuff out of the way first!

Thanks for the advice...

[michaelwbray]

Ari,

When I get some free time, I'll do up a database backend for the website for you, and give it a templated front end so that you can easily change the look of the site, without spending hours each time there is an update. You spend hundreds of hours doing up videos to help me, I'l find the time to return the favour.

Once you've got that done it's easy. You add a new video and you add a few descriptors to it in the database:

Class: Sweep, Submission, Escape etc
Lock: Arm Lock, Neck Lock, Leg Lock, Neither
Position: Mount, Side Control, Kneeride, Neither

Then when someone loads up a category page, it might be submissions101.com/category.php?Lock=Arm_Lock&Position=Mount - it'll list all Arm Locks from mount.

You might just have category.php?Lock=Leg_Lock and it gives all Leg Locks from any position. Trust me, once you've got it setup that way - you'll regret ever doing it the old fashioned way.

You can either link to premade links, or use a form to allow people to search... Give me a few weeks and I'll do one up for ya.