DDR Song Lists 愛道
Song lists for the dancing masses

Long Time No See // natmal // 2010-07-19 22:25:34 EST Wow. I just noticed it's been over a year since my last update. I'll see if I can find some time to continue work on my code and population of the new site that has yet to be.

Still Alive // natmal // 2009-07-13 19:15:10 EST Unlike Richard Pryor, I ain't dead yet.

New Planned Features // natmal // 2008-05-24 11:28:53 EST Now that I've covered all of the DDRs between 1998 and 2000, I think I'm going to take a break from data entry and work on some new code for the database. The improved database will involve storing charts which, as you may be guessing, will probably utilize and/or encompass DDRUK's step chart generator, and, during the planning, I may end up figuring out how I want to store and display courses.

Main Page Launch // natmal // 2008-05-18 11:47:09 EST I've had a main page that I've been throwing together. It's nothing special; just a page to show the latest news post, along with the top 10 most popular song lists and a few database stats. It's always been accessible from http://lists.natmal.net/?main, but I've just now decided to make it the default page. Hope you like it. Comments can be made at the DDRUK forums as always.

Stage 2 // natmal // 2008-04-19 02:09:32 EST Tonight marks a milestone for me. I've added DDR 3rdMIX PLUS. I no longer have to traverse two to three different game sections (2ndMIX, 3rdMIX, SSR), each with both Soft and Normal difficulties (Excluding SSR).

The next phase begins with the 4thMIX games. Here, I only need to gather Single and Double, or 4-panel and 6-panel for the Solo games. After 4thMIX, I'll have the ability to retrieve data for -all- songs at one time, which will speed data entry, which means more games in a shorter amount of time. Stay tuned.

On the Up and Up // natmal // 2008-04-09 12:54:56 EST The keen of eye will notice that I've added a few more games in the past week, pretty much finishing off the System 573 Analog games (With a few exceptions), and now I've started work on the System 573 Digital games. I've completed and verified the song list for DDR 3rdMIX (Japan). The early Bemani games (DDR, beatmani pre-2000) are a pain. There's no actual song wheel or list, and some of the games require you to play a round or two to access other songs. Once I hit 4thMIX, the data retrieval/entry should speed up a tad.

Getting there! // natmal // 2008-04-05 00:16:11 EST Everything up to 2ndMIX/2ndReMIX is done and up. I'm going to see about starting on the Club Versions and 3rdMIXes this weekend and getting those up. I'm also trying to be diligent about having a screenshot for each game as I complete them. I'm skipping the Solo and Japanese Dancing Stage games for the time being. Those can be addressed later.

Starting Over--Again // natmal // 2008-04-03 16:58:56 EST For the sake of getting things done the way I want them done, I'm re-entering all of my existing data, somewhat from scratch. I'm going to get all of the main DDR arcade data put up (1st-EXTREME, what I have of the Dancing Stages), then concentrate on the main-lineage home versions. At the moment, all that's available is 1stMIX Internet Ranking Ver and 2ndMIX, and I'll try to have the others updated ASAP.

Really the only side effect is that the lists for the DDRs for Asia and North America are disabled and the songs after 2ndMIX (2ndMIX Link Ver, 3rd, etc) don't match the newer versions. So while you'll see MY FIRE on 3rdMIX, when you go to view it, it won't say it was ever on 1stMIX IRV or 2ndMIX.

Memorable Searches // natmal // 2008-04-03 12:26:40 EST I finally got around to having the site remember searches when you go poking around in song lists. You can now view song lists and song info (As much as you like) and when you wish to resume browsing by clicking 'Browse' at the top of the page, it will automatically show your last search. You can also clear your current search at any time by clicking the 'Browse' link while on the Browse page. If the behavior gets on my nerves, I may change it to be a tad more resilent.

Navigation Changeup // natmal // 2008-03-31 21:24:13 EST I changed the way selected criteria is displayed on the browse page. Now, instead of removing the category and putting the filters in in the Criteria box, it'll turn your selection green, trim the fat, and put a little link next to the header so you can clear it. I've nixed the Criteria box altogether. I think the next thing I'll do is save the search filters as session data so users won't have to start from scratch when they go to view a song list or two.

Button Mashing // natmal // 2008-03-14 11:03:47 EST I have to admit this outright: I've gotten jealous of DDRFreak's DDR button graphics, and thus I have made a few of my own:
MenuLeft Start MenuRight
I've added BBCode to make inserting them a bit easier (Not that anyone will really notice or care), and I'm also now running the songlist notes through the BBCode function, which means I'll be able to put graphical representations of input codes into those notes, such as the requirement of holding MenuLeft+Start on DDR IR/1.5 to play PARANOiA and TRIP MACHINE in Easy Mode. I've commissioned a friend of mine to fill in my arrows, so those will come later.

Also, another thing to watch out for is my expansion of some of the earlier mixes. The jaded will remember that these early mixes had different modes, each with their own song selection. This was most evident with 3rdMIX PLUS (And to a lesser extent, the prior 3rdMIXs, 2ndMIXs, and 1stMIXs) in that it had three separate songlists: 2ndMIX, 3rdMIX, and 3rdMIX PLUS, with no repeats or crossovers. I'll be expanding that game's songlist into three separate lists, each appropriately labelled. Stay tuned.

Best of Cool Dancers // natmal // 2008-03-06 14:02:28 EST After googling for some information on Best of Cool Dancers, I came across this Konami press release on the 'Best of Cool Dancers' tournament held between Feb. 11 and Feb. 28, 1999. Now, I'm assuming that's when Best of Cool Dancers was distributed, and thus I'll be using the start date as the release date.

Care for a Little Necrophilia? // natmal // 2008-03-04 13:25:40 EST Added: In The Groove 2 songlist
Fixed: Changing sort order on Browse page would not show search results
Changed: Lists and songs are now sorted alphabetically using romanizations where applicable.

Expect the ITG PC songlists to go up tonight.

In The What Now? // natmal // 2008-03-01 14:47:24 EST In updating my ITG1 Arcade information, I discovered that most of the information I already had for it was incorrect. When I doublechecked my records, I noticed most of entries that were unique to ITG1 were identical to their latter, changed appearances. I'm betting this was due to some bad transformations I applied many months ago. So, because the entire ITG series only spanned five games, all of which I have at my disposal, I decided to start on those from scratch. I just finished the ITG 1 Arcade information, and I'll try to finish them all this weekend.

Enough with the Guitars Already // natmal // 2008-02-21 17:05:03 EST A few additions, probably several mistakes. I've decided to move discontinued and/or short-lived series into one of the Miscellaneous categories. One for Bemani and another for non-Bemani. Other series that are still being updated and have more than a dozen games are granted their own category. Something else I'm toying around with is the idea of compounding list entries. If a game is released across multiple regions or platforms (Specifically Guitar Hero 3) but all versions have an identical song list, then it would be simpler to have one entry in the database. I may end up implementing that tonight (So the database might break a couple times).

Added: Guitar Hero games
Added: TBD category under Year
Moved: PPP and BM III games -> Misc. Bemani
Moved: Techno Motion -> Misc. Non-Bemani

The "More" Trifecta // natmal // 2008-02-19 16:23:00 EST I've been sifting through my code to pull out all of the inline CSS. I also fixed an issue with the song page not loading (Forgot to remove a reference to a file I deprecated). Everything should be back in working order.

The More Browsers, The Better // natmal // 2008-02-19 11:08:00 EST As pointed out by AeronPrometheus on DDRUK's forums, the database browser was broken in Safari. I've reworked a few tables and now it appears similar in the latest versions of the four major browsers (Firefox, Opera, Safari, IE7). If I goofed somewhere, don't be shy to tell me!

Few More Additions // natmal // 2008-02-18 16:56:07 EST I've updated the release dates for several of the more recent games released in the past 6 months. Unfortunately I don't usually get to update as the games come out.

Also, I've added a multitude of GF/DM games to the database. I'll also need to add the few PPP games there were and add pretty much all of the non-US-home-version Pump games.

The Penis Mightier // natmal // 2008-02-08 13:26:31 EST No, I'm not quite dead. I just haven't had much time to allocate to this project. Luckily for you all, I'm going to be pushing further updates in the coming months. I'll be focused on adding data for the main lineage and newer games, while the data for obscure and spinoff titles will be filled in as my schedule permits. Stay tuned.

Spaaaace Channel 5. *zap*

The System. Is Down. // natmal // 2007-11-01 12:03:20 EST Down down, down down. Duh duh duh-duh, duh duh duh-duh duh (Yes, Strongbad for the win). Sorry about the downtime the past several days (Or was it a week?). I had some issues updating gcc, and then more issues upgrading Apache and getting the vhosts to work. Everything seems to be in working order now. Move along, nothing to see here.

I'm looking for Neo. // natmal // 2007-09-29 21:46:02 EST I know, it's been a while. I just rewrote a section of the song page code so now it'll display the song names in reverse chronological order. This way the display is no longer dependant on a song's revision tag, rather by the order of the games on which it appeared. Basically it means that I can add song lists and data out of order and the system will still order it correctly. Cool, huh? I'll try to add more song lists so I can finally depricate v3.

Bugfix 0004 // natmal // 2007-09-06 23:51:44 EST Fixed: Header/footer not included when list page throws up error.

One Session, Two Session, Red Session, Blue Session // natmal // 2007-08-31 00:51:08 EST Added: Minimal session support (User must have cookies enabled)
Fixed: 404 not redirecting properly
Fixed: Rogue data with mouseover translations
Tweaked: News post width

Breaking News.php // natmal // 2007-08-27 12:48:26 EST Added: Latest post url: ./?news&post=latest
Fixed: Bug when viewing individual news posts

A Few New Games // natmal // 2007-08-25 03:01:07 EST I added a few new games; namely the various editions of DDR SuperNOVA2 and DDR HOTTEST PARTY, including the games that were announced at the Leipzig Games Convention. I'm thinking about rearranging how the pages work as well as implementing PHP sessions to handle search criteria memory (The current method is a tad convoluted, and only applies to the browse page). Stay tuned.

Bugfix 0003 // natmal // 2007-08-25 02:59:15 EST Fixed improper order when using a descending sort.

Bugfix 0002 // natmal // 2007-08-08 23:51:50 EST Fixed: Issue using semicolons in list comments.

Bugfix 0001 // natmal // 2007-08-08 01:54:48 EST Fixed: Somehow the mouseover translations for game titles stopped working.

Beware Rodent Bites // natmal // 2007-08-01 18:36:03 EST Aside from my large pet rodent clamping her teeth onto my flesh, I managed to get box shots working on the Song List pages. I also implemented the individual song pages and added the current section in the page title. Does it look better as "Site Name // Section" or "Section // Site Name"?

VSD02C // natmal // 2007-07-31 01:39:37 EST I've moved the song list code over from my trunk site. I haven't finished the page that handles the individual songs just yet. Unfortunately the only song lists I currently have available are for the ITG games, but they're still there demonstrating the code. In what free time I have, I'm going to be writing some code to make my life posting updates like these a tad easier, and hopefully I'll get around to finishing the code for the individual songs. Stay tuned.

Coding by Candlelight // natmal // 2007-04-25 23:18:52 EST I've been working on getting the backend for the actual songlists configured. I've figured out a way to store everything in SQL, so now I've just got to code up a page for viewing songs, and then I get to populate the database with songs. Fun stuff. I also have an idea on how to handle song packs. After I get all that done, it'll be trivial to code a page for viewing individual songs. I'm still not sure how I'm going to handle courses.

pop'n ahoy! // natmal // 2007-03-30 16:32:44 EST I updated the search results, added integrated sort options to the search results (Sort by Region, Platform, Release Date, or Release Title), and added all of the pop'n music games I could find from the ja.wikipedia.org article (With the exception of those two pop'n puzzle games).

Themes, More Bemani, and... More // natmal // 2007-03-22 22:51:57 EST So I've been tooling away at some more code this week; mostly fixes and things. This morning I put together a theming system and I tweaked the Guided Search. The guided search now even more acts like Newegg's search; when a category only has one choice, that category is omitted. Example: the only product Andamiro has on this site is Pump It Up, thus when you select 'Andamiro', the Series category will only have 'Pump It Up', so it's omitted from being displayed. The theming system will allow me to swap out stylesheets and images by reading a cookie. I actually plan to accept user submissions, and, though it's not a requirement, I'd like one or more of them to use the Emergy-C Low-Wattage Palette. It's a selection of six colors that don't use much energy to display on a CRT (White is only included as an accent color). The palette is as follows: #822007, #000, #B2BBC0, #19472B, #3D414C, and #FFF. Please make your submissions via DDRUK's IRC channel.

Window Shopping // natmal // 2007-03-14 13:06:55 EST I've gotten the browse section working, though the only entries I have at the moment are for In The Groove. I'll be fleshing that out in the coming days. I also need some suggestions for the formatting of the search results. The old layout of "Region Image -- Entry Title -- Platform" isn't doing it for me anymore.

...And Bemani for All // natmal // 2007-02-28 20:32:08 EST I've made a few decisions on how I'm going to handle certain items within the database. For BemaniPocket, even though it is its own brand and should probably get its own section, because it can be classified according to associated Bemani series (DDR-themed units, Pop'n-themed units, etc), I'm going to use BemaniPocket as a platform, rather than a brand. Likewise, OSTs and other Audio releases can also be classified according to associated Bemani series, Audio will be a platform rather than a 'series'. Also, if you've been poking around the Browse section, you've noticed additional Bemani series (And other non-Bemani). This is for future use should I come into contact with data for those games (The entries will disappear when the Browse section begins to work). Also, in my effort to include all Bemani, some games that were short-lived or unpopular (Mainly games that have only had one or two releases will be placed in the Misc. Bemani category. You'll see games like Toy's March and Dance 86.4 in there.

Browser Testing // natmal // 2007-02-22 10:03:23 EST I've looked at the site in Firefox 2.0.0.1, Opera 9.10, and IE7 (Via Total Validator), and it looks great--only minute differences, if any. IE6, however, doesn't respect the position:fixed; attribute so the copyright bar at the bottom is misplaced and its div is stretched horizontally. Not much I can do about that. Everything else displays fine. I'm going to talk to a few people about what to support then update this post.

Update: 2007-02-23: I've tested the site, and it looks fine in the following browsers, in addition to the big three (Firefox 2, Opera 9, IE 7), via TotalValidator.com:
Epiphany/Gnome v2
Firefox 1.5, Firefox 1.0, Mozilla 1.7
Konqueror v3
Links2
Safari v2

If you want me to support other browsers, by all means, send me a message.

Codename: Road of Love // natmal // 2007-02-20 11:49:39 EST Yeah, I know. I scrapped my site again. I keep learning new things, and the old designs just seem to continually get worse as my tastes mature. I'm experimenting with divs and CSS, among other things. The site is, as usual, being developed in Firefox, though I do plan to test in IE, and occasionally in Links2 (Yes, the Linux-based CLI text browser).

I also have a few things in mind, especially for the navigation and layout. I'm looking into a NewEgg-style Guided search (I like it. Gimme a break) where the user is presented with several categories and can repeatedly select from said categories to narrow the search.

I'm also going to be incorporating my DDR and ITG databases into one, along with PIU, beatmania, and Audio CDs (Such as V-RAREs and OSTs). Those will replace my current set of categories (BemaniPocket, DDR Club Version, Dancing Stage, etc).

Also on the plate is songlist popularity. Each entry will have an invisible hit counter that increments every time a given songlist is viewed (I'm still working out how that will function). Using those values, the front page will end up displaying the 10 most popular songlists...and maybe the least popular, with a sad face and a tear next to it.

If you, the reader, have any comments or ideas, feel free to drop me a PM at DDRUK.com.