Forum & Site Upgrades Coming in 2021

[Andrew]

Happy new year, guys! There were a ton of great suggestions from folks for lesson ideas for next year in this forum post.

Your feedback helps steer the direction of our content creation. So if you haven’t left feedback yet, please do so 🙂

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ADVANCED SEARCH ADDED TO FORUM

For the start of the new year, I want to shift my focus towards improving the user interface of the site. A couple months ago, Andy ( @sir_anzalot ) suggested adding an advanced search function to the forum. His suggestion was further requested a few times over in the aforementioned forum post.

First of all, thank you for the suggestion. It’s a fantastic idea and I’m happy to say that it has been added to the forum 🙂

This feature is located underneath the search box:

Here’s what the input form looks like:

As you can see, I have filled out the search fields to look for replies from me (Andrew) specifically on “how to hold the ukulele” in the RC101 Ukulele Lessons Forum only. This is the end result and here’s the link if you want to see it.

The advanced search function will help you find valuable information much easier than ever before.

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REVAMPING THE NAVIGATION OF LESSONS

The next project that I will be tackling is a revamp to the way you sort through lessons. Currently, if you navigate to the Ukulele Songs Page, it will load a single page that displays every single song that’s available. The problem with this, is that there are now hundreds of lessons… Making this page a bit like “information overload”.

Furthermore, there’s a standalone page for blues songs, classical songs, Hawaiian songs, etc… You get the idea. The problem is there are too many pages, with too many lessons on them, and no easy way to sort through difficulty levels.

But, I have a solution! We’re going to simplify everything and put it ALL onto 1 page. The new search feature will filter and display lessons using AJAX. This is a magical technology that refreshes a page dependent on your input data. Here’s an example of how it will work:

Here’s the input data that I’ve thought of including so far. Please let me know if you’d like to see other search criteria included.

The output data should be similar to what you currently see (Image, Title, Description and Audio Preview):

But the results will be 10 lessons per page. Furthermore, I’d like to add breadcrumbs to the top of every page. This feature is built into the forum already:

But, it would be very helpful for standalone lessons as you can track where you’ve come from. For ex:

All Songs > Beginner Series > Blues > 12 Bar Blues Strumming

So that’s the big change in a nutshell. There’s a lot of backend work that I need to complete to make this happen, plus I will have to hire a developer to help with the coding requirements for making everything work. So I don’t want to set a deadline on when to expect this, but hopefully in the next couple months. I’m always open to suggestions, so please let me know your thoughts 🙂

[daveh6700]

Thanks for your effort Andrew.
As a retired computer programmer I know it it not easy to design something for the wide range of students you have. I have yet to see another “lesson” site that works as well as I think they should.
HERE IS AN IDEA:
Ideally the student will help design the lesson plan – where to go next. The student would select features that would generate a dynamic, custom path. After completing a lesson or deciding to move on the student would go to a page full of “buttons” or pull down menus to narrow the choices – what are they looking to learn or improve. From their input the system would generate a series of links to one or more lessons to try next.

Good luck – I look forward to the new look. Dave

[lakeside339]

Sounds great Andrew. Websites like this are always a work in progress and I’m happy see that you are responding to student feedback!
Thanks for all the hard work you guys put it on this site.

[mark1256]

Hi Andrew. Just one suggestion- if you are going to add some baritone lessons this year, you should probably add “baritone “ to the search criteria.

It looks like it’s going to be a great year!

[cinichol]

Excellent! Thanks so much. Gonna be great to use advanced search.

[simonalexander]

Happy New Year, Andrew. Great to see that you are continuing to develop what is already a great site.
I have a small suggestion, which I think might be time-consuming rather than difficult to implement.
It would be useful to see what “Level” each song is at the search stage. I know that they are categorized into sections but, unless I’m missing something, I don’t think that you can see this information without trawling through the entire song list. It would be great if you could.
I hope that’s useful to you and, if it’s not possible, C’est la vie!

[smokealot]

Great improvmenets!

[sir_anzalot]

Hey Andrew, thanks for implementing the advanced search!
Helps a great deal to find stuff 🙂

• This reply was modified 3 years, 3 months ago by sir_anzalot.

[lisadmh]

Hi Andrew. The new search is great!

One thing. If you pick multiple levels, nothing comes up. I think it needs an OR on the code, not an AND. Picture for reference.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 2 months ago by lisadmh.

[rickeymike]

I want to see lessons on fingerpicking styles. So I used the advanced search for fingerpicking. I chose “Topics only” The search result of this was 15 topics on members questions and responses. But the search did not pull up any links to Lessons on the subject of fingerpicking. Should there be another drop down choice to limit the search to Courses and Concept Lessons?

[Andrew]

Great suggestion, Lisa! I made the change 🙂

Are you searching the forum Rickey? If so, that would be the correct results page.

You can search just concept lessons on that page: https://rockclass101.com/conceptcategories/

Or you can search all of RC101 using the general search form: https://rockclass101.com/?s=fingerpicking

You can find the general search form on every song lesson page or on the free lessons page or courses page.

[rickeymike]

Thanks Drew, I just found that out about searching within Courses, Concept Lessons, etc.

And yes, it works!

[Andrew]

Hi guys, if you’re coming here from today’s newsletter, please leave any feedback below on the new search features. They are available for:

Ukulele Songs

Concept Lessons

Live Lessons

We’re working on changing Courses, Free Lessons, and Gear Reviews to the new method too 🙂

[mangomama]

Thanks Andrew!
Really enjoying my membership during these difficult times. In particular, I’ve been well challenged by your Etude#19 and Satie’s Gymnopedie #1. Both beautiful pieces. You and your teachers are excellent instructors.
Kudos from Whidbey Island, WA
Nancy

[Andrew]

That’s awesome to hear, Nancy! Glad you are having fun 🙂

I’m excited to announce we finished the project earlier than expected. The last 3 pages in my post above now feature the new searching method!

[Author]

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