The Midibox Portal _ midibox.org _ will finaly launch on Wendsday, the 1.10.2003 @ 8pm (GMT+1).
Reviews, tutorials, pictures, software, designs (frontpanel+pcb) etc… which you want online for the “big day”, should be sent to me by email (please request my adress via PM) until 28.09.2003!
/EDIT Da Time - thanks Nils!
1.10.2003 @ 20pm
8 pm that is 
Man, I can’t hardly wait, I hope my hdd doesn’t “die” while moving… Hehe
nILS
Very cool, THNX a lot Poeleq! That will bring the MB community a BIG step forward (only a small step for a man but a … ;D)
The portal’s gonna be cool! 8)
I am documenting the building of my box very nicely with lotsa photos and all.. I will make sure to make a nice report when I’ve got everything up and running!
Countdown! ;D
The Portal is already on. Due to complications with my PC, I have finished a part (design [nILS] and the Newssystem) and will be finishing more categories day by day. The portal should be up by sunday!
Take a look at the design, enjoy and give me some time!
Really cool up to now! Respect from this side for that! :D
A nice and especially clear design! 
I’ve only one request (hope that you don’t feel attacked, I’m just a perfectionist ;-)) we should find a way to prevent that informations will be spreaded over three sites (uCApps.de, Portal and this forum) - for example, if somebody asks an interesting question about a certain topic in the portal news section, the followups cannot be retrived with the search function of this forum.
Nearly every day I get mails from newbies who are asking questions which are already answered somewhere in the jungle of uCApps.de - I just want to lower the “confusion rate”.
So, the three sites should be linked together, and the same informations should not be published twice.
For my part: I would like to change the purpose of uCApps.de to a pure technical site which overs the construction details, sources and documentations (also HowTos) of all MIDIbox projects. My plan is to structure it like a book which can be read fluently from the beginning (the advantage of DIY controllers) to the end (outlooks) - not immediately, but in the forseeable future.
The purpose of the portal could be to provide an interactive platform for the community - a quick way to publish pictures (MIDIbox gallery), reports, additional infos to my pages, FAQs, hardware extensions, software libraries, tools, SmashTVs and Mikes shop, links to related stuff — from users, for users, everything which cannot be maintenanced by myself anymore due to the effort.
In my oppinion the MIDIbox forum should stay the prefered communication platform - beside of alternatives like chat of course - to simplify the orientation.
Best Regards, Thorsten.
The portal is a great idea. I’m really looking forward to seeing everyone’s designs in one central location. But I agree with Thorsten about not wanting to create 2 forums. Anything that can be done to keep everything organized would be welcome.
I’ve been into this midibox stuff for a few months now, and I’m still coming across basic things that would have been very helpful if I’d found them a few months before! There’s tons of excellent information on the website and in the forum, but sometimes it can be a bit hard for a newbie to locate it all.
But hey, digging for treasure only makes it more fun, right?
I agree totaly, Thorsten! The Portal should not be used for communication. The News section comment feature will be linked to the forum, so that the Forum is the main communication platform. The forum will be intergrated by sunday, i hope. So you will see the forum in an iframe on the forum.
The Gallery page will have an upload feature (only for *.jpg, *.gif + *.png files - all other files will be *deleted*).
Also designs - for example by nILS - will also be published here.
At the moment I am extracting all the links from the forum, Elektor and other useful stuff.
The main problem at the moment is that my PC is broken, so I have to work on the site from my girlfriends, which can sometimes get pretty anoying ("Ian, get of the PC! You are always on the PC! bla…).
I hope that somebody will send me some stuff, especially FAQs. I already have permission to publish some articles, for example about PCB making.
Hope I cleared all that!
Ok. Thanks for the feedback so far! I wasn’t really available over the last weeks since I moved to a different city, but I’m back now
Poeloq and I’ve been working on the portal over the last days, so there will be quite a few updates over the next days / weeks! Stay tuned and forgive us if something isn’t yet working…
Hey Poeloq & nILS - the portal looks fantastic guys!! Nice one!
Please feel free to take the information off the FAQ i started - the source is all included in this link - http://homepage.ntlworld.com/keith.williamson/midifaq/MidiFAQ.zip
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/keith.williamson/midifaq/midi%20faq.htm <– thats just the page
I think it would be cool if there was some way to upload questions and solutions (with php maybe? i dunno i’m not leet :D), as people find out so the FAQ is continually growing and becoming a better source.
But keep up the good work guys anyway!
p.s. i havent been in the midibox channel for a while because i’m back at uni now, and my free time is gradually slipping away from me.. but i’ll pop back randomly just to keep the element of surprise there! Also as soon as i can find some 2.5 mm screws to fix my LCD to my shiny new box, there’ll be some nice new pictures of it - no joke this time, it actually looks good! :o :
p.p.s did ya miss me!? :P
Hi guys. Well the portal is up, but nothing much is happening. I have received some stuff from DriftZ, but nothing more. Just to remind you, the poral can not work without your help - we need your tutorials, FAQs, pictures, links, orderlists etc… Anything, basically, to do with the uCapps/Midibox Project.
I hope to have a big update until the 1.11.2003.
Hi Poeloq+nILS! First I’d like to say that you guys has done a fantastic job with midibox.org. It looks + works great!
I agree totally, and i am going to send you guys some stuff as soon as i can. Right now it’s mostly crappy design concepts, but i’m compiling some order lists and some other fun stuff… i’ll get in touch…
Auf Wiedersehen / J
btw:
I found two dead links at midibox.org: The GIF-links to “Downloads” and “Links” doesn’t have the same URL as the text-links. Just wanted to mention it.
/J
speaking of links…
I think the ucapps site needs some fixing linkwise - atm any direct links - ie, say u wanted to show sum1 just the SID or mios section, it just returns you to the main page…so any new viewer would have to find the page themselves…which is tricky when there’s a few various pages which can cover one project…
I think a lot of q’s which are asked here can be answered with a properly structured site…
I did think of this a while back but then the new portal was born, which still needs more time to develop…
Just a thought
Dan
nothing much is happening. I have received some stuff from DriftZ, but nothing more. Just to remind you, the poral can not work without your help - we need your tutorials, FAQs, pictures, links, orderlists etc… Anything, basically
Actually it is nothing spectacular that I sent in, just some pictures & drawings of ideas & concepts. But it may be inspiring for others. So it don’t have to be ‘finished’ works that the portal people are asking for
Hi Dan,
speaking of links…
I think the ucapps site needs some fixing linkwise - atm any direct links - ie, say u wanted to show sum1 just the SID or mios section, it just returns you to the main page…so any new viewer would have to find the page themselves…which is tricky when there’s a few various pages which can cover one project…
I don’t agree, every page is listed on the navigation bar, so you only have to refer to the titles like “Concepts->MIOS->Introduction”. By doing so, a new viewer will regognize that there are even more pages related to MIOS which maybe provide exactly for what he was looking for.
The root cause for the bad overview is, that the pages grown up with the years and need some overwork. I’ve planned this for the time after the PIC16F phase out.
Ok, but it wasn’t really my intention to prevent direct links, this is more an imperfection caused by the way how I realized the navigation bar. I don’t know how to make it better without producing much more net-traffic (e.g. by including the HTML code for the navigation bar directly into every page).
Best Regards, Thorsten.
Ok, but it wasn’t really my intention to prevent direct links, this is more an imperfection caused by the way how I realized the navigation bar. I don’t know how to make it better without producing much more net-traffic (e.g. by including the HTML code for the navigation bar directly into every page).
I found a solution - direct links are working again.
Best Regards, Thorsten.
Hi guys!
I hope to get a big upload batch for the portal ready until the weekend so you can have some new stuff to look / read at.
The following things should be ready: Gallery, HowTos from uCapps in new layout and updated, link database and hopefully more downloads.
There is going to be a article by me on MIDI in general and a article from Pilo about using Linux to make music.
At the moment I am having a very stressfull time at school and I am off ill today, recovering from a flu.
Still, I hope you enjoy the portal and keep sending me stuff!