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Return: Ball Drop '23

site changes

• major restructure of all internal data structures as well as data file format, laying foundations for all following changes and additions to wiki features and lending much better to interoperability with outside code and internal data validation and error reporting
  • improved automatic data error reporting lead to many dozens of diverse data issues that had previously slipped by getting fixed this update, much improving overall wiki quality and raising the baseline level of data consistency
• new Additional Files feature added, including downloadable album booklets and other goodies, present across many official albums: Midnight Crew: Drawing Dead, Homestuck Vol. 4, Homestuck Vol. 5, Alternia, Squiddles!, Strife!, AlterniaBound, Homestuck Vol. 7: At the Price of Oblivion, Mobius Trip and Hadron Kaleido, Sburb, The Wanderers, Homestuck Vol. 8, coloUrs and mayhem: Universe A, coloUrs and mayhem: Universe B, Homestuck Vol. 9, Symphony Impossible to Play, One Year Older, Cherubim, and Homestuck Vol. 10
  • includes all booklets and resources released with official albums that aren't included in downloads from the recent (2019) official Homestuck Bandcamp restructure
  • files from solo re-releases are included and shared publicly on the wiki with permission from their original artists
  • includes unedited versions of Bandcamp banners and backgrounds used throughout the wiki
  • includes a few wallpapers and sheet music shared separately by the creators
• page headers, such as the main titles of albums and tracks, are now styled to be "sticky" - they follow the page scroll stuck to the top of the screen so you can always identify what page you're viewing at a glance
• new metadata for "social embeds" included on all album and track pages, making nice modals appear when linking to HSMusic from sites like Discord or... like... Facebook
• metadata for the page "theme color" makes elements of some web browsers subtly take on the color of the page (Safari and mobile)
• support added for uncompressed PNG album and track artworks
  • these don't replace the compressed jpeg thumbnails, but when you click art to view it in full, you'll get its lossless PNG format when available
  • mostly newly added albums for now, but more official and fandom artwork will be brought over soon
• support added for albums which don't have cover art at all, as seen in new albums from Additional Tracks and some releases from the community
• listing changes:
  • "new" Albums - by Date Added listing, which has actually existed since May 2021, but was previously somehow at a typo'd path and wasn't accessible from the listing index
  • Tracks - with Lyrics listing now sorts by album date instead of track date, i.e. so all tracks from the same album are always grouped together (thanks, Geese!)
  • Tracks - by Times Referenced listing now excludes re-release tracks (such as Black from Homestuck Vol. 1-4)
• "Tracks that reference..." lists are now grouped by Beyond and Additional Tracks as well, instead of grouping everything that's not an official Homestuck track under Fandom
• re-release tracks (such as Black from Homestuck Vol. 1-4) are no longer displayed in "Tracks that reference" lists
• though not all art has been ported yet, many albums and tracks (including most new ones) now have full resolution PNG artwork, accessible by clicking the cover art (thumbnails are still downscaled JPEGs to reduce data usage when generally browsing the wiki), as well as PNG banner and backgrounds where applicable
• "short name" for the wiki changed has been chagned from "HSMusic" to "HSMusic Wiki" - this shows up in browser tab titles, the site navigation bar, and social embeds like Discord
• homepage content entirely redesigned, with new "carousel" element showing off the official discography and a larger hand-picked selection of albums added in this update
• Unreleased Tracks has been completely reorganized, with many tracks having been moved to new organizational albums More Homestuck Fandom and References Beyond Homestuck, all collected under new Additional Tracks group
• new internal features which generalize behavior originally hard-coded for Unreleased Tracks, letting new albums make use of some or all desired features:
  • internal support for albums which don't have release dates (these get sorted to the end on artist pages and are excluded from chronology links)
  • new "Has Track Numbers" field on albums which switches between the default <ol> and unordered <ul> list displays for track lists
• slight appearance polish to various elements across the site