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Not sure but maybe there's a way to set an og panel as default? So when someone uploads an alternate panel, one can choose to show that in your own rack (as you allready can if there'd alt panels available.
-- geusensdriesmusic
Yeah, that's a good idea! There are two problems:
We need a way to add panels to existing modules, even if those modules are "manufacturer locked", as some sort of add-on that users can pick.
There needs to be a way for these alternative panels to NOT replace the default/OG panel art, so the pic-upload thing needs to have a setting for "primary" vs "alternative" panels, with different links for the alternative panels so that you can know where to get them / who makes them.
And of course the hidden third problem of fixing the existing mess, which is probably bigger than these two obvious problems.
I hear you, and I also use the "newest first" view to watch for new releases... so an avalanche of panels does clutter things up.
Looking at other manufacturers of panels, this seems like a long-lived problem that MG doesn't care to solve. For instance: check out Grayscale's manufacturer listing, containing dozens of "modules" that are panels (also great panels, but still: same problem). https://modulargrid.net/e/vendors/view/191
I agree that some alternative thing like panels listings would help reduce the noise from dozens of new panels pushing new actual modules down the most-recent list.
Mork makes great panels, and i get why you would want to list them in what is basically a storefront venue, but it is starting to become annoying.
Three more feature ideas that are probably easier than AI:
A filter on "My Modules" to show only modules not in the current rack would be very helpful when contemplating swaps.
A way to "diff" two racks so that I can see what modules are not in common between the two would help for what seems like a common use case around here: versions of the same rack. Bonus points for movement notation or visualization (e.g. this moved here and that moved there and this was added and that was removed).
A way to say that I own more than one of each module, and a counter in the “My Module” list that would show me how many I have used (e.g. 2/3). If this worked with the “not in this rack filter” in a smart way, so that if I had used 2 of 3 I own it would show 1 not used in the rack, all the better!
I think it would be cool to use AI image recognition to build a rack from a photo of a real world setup. Sometimes someone has a cool rack in a photo and I wonder what the modules are: how great would it be to leverage all the module photos on MG (let alone faceplate variants) to recognize and reconstruct their rig?
I don't know what the sparkles next to some manufacturers' names (like Xaoc Devices) mean, but in the module list they flicker incessantly on my iOS devices... is that intentional or broken? It is very distracting.
Checking out page source and a few network requests, I came up with two more ideas!
Save some hosting money and bandwidth! It looks like each rack view is loading both the "thumbnail" WebP rack image for each module as well as the full-size PNG that is shown when you click the magnifying glass in the hover-tools. For my 6-row, 150U wide cabinet, that's a total of about 7MB. On subsequent page loads that gets smaller (hooray, cache!), but it seems like it'd save time for users and money for you to only load the full-size images on-demand, when the user actually clicks on the full-size magnifying glass. It looks like the gear.svg file is loaded on-demand when I move a module -- same concept could save a lot of network bandwidth for your site and your users.
ModularGrid API for Unicorns! The rack data is embedded in the page server-side (it seems like), rather than loading with a separate GET request; moving a module happens over a GET request to a path that acts like loading a move.json file, rather than a POST, etc. The great thing about an API is you could offer developer access to Unicorn accounts: An API key that paid accounts could use to build their own UIs, add their own UI/UX features, etc. The APIs could still require a valid user login/session (so that MG still controls feature access and user accounts), and if you asked Unicorns to enter the URL to whatever they build, you could check their work out and learn from whatever they build. Modular Grid As A (paid!) Service! Another cool thing: you can build a new API server separately from the current site, if it's too complicated to convert the site to web-client-and-backend-API-server — https://api.modulargrid.net/ or whatever — and use the same image-store and database(s) as the web site uses.
I really enjoy using racks to build/plan my "wishlist" of modules that I'd like to buy and figure out where to put the new ones... so some of the modules in my rack I own already (and they're in my Collection), but others I don't yet own. It'd be amazing to be able to dim them (e.g. put a 50% opacity solid black/white div over the image) as "placeholders". That way I can see where I'd like to put the modules I haven't bought yet, and at a glance tell which I have and which I don't have. A small add-on would be to show two total cost numbers for the rack: total, and total to buy (wishlist, or things not in my Collection). A toggle in the rack settings ("Dim things not in my collection") would let people opt-in to this display mode. I'd guess this could be based on the "in Collection" boolean/flag for each module.
The total-rack power values are great, but sometimes I toggle back and forth between the Data Sheet view and the Rack view to see row-by-row statistics (which are at the bottom of the DS table). It'd be fantastic to be able to turn on/off a row-statistics view to the side of the rack, aligned with that row. Module count (passive count, too, but not as important to me), and power consumption in the row. That would let me see things like a specific row has a lot of power-hungry modules and the row below/above it doesn't, so that I can move things around to balance that out. An add-on here would be to make the "consolidate space" button that rearranges modules take power-balancing into consideration, too!
Rack statistics, and maybe even Collection statistics: I am a bit of a nerd for how my rack (and my module Collection) is balanced: each module has tags for functions (e.g. Oscillator, LPG, etc)... what percentage of the modules in the rack are Oscillators? How many things that can be LFOs do I have? Do I have way too many VCAs (how could that even happen?)? A chart would be awesome, but even just a table showing counts would be fun. In the same way, what about manufacturer breakdown (This rack is 30% Instruo, 41% DIY, 3% Make Noise, etc), module widths, or other facts about the rack in aggregate? I am the type of person to build a spreadsheet to figure stuff like this out, but maybe other people aren't ... like that.
There is a panel selector that lets you pick different face plates for modules; the other, pre-existing Malekko Quad VCA module has both black and white face panels available.
