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Post #1 · Posted at 2025-02-04 09:28:11pm 1.4 weeks ago

Offline sanchny
sanchny Avatar Member
6 Posts
United States
Reg. 2020-10-24

Weird topic, but how do people keep track of their simfile-making? Curious what people have tried and what works for you.

Many years ago I kept track on a Google Sheet, then switched to Notion for a bit. Both are great for current state of things but not so much for keeping track of progress and history, so I'm thinking of switching to Jira instead, especially to get a bit more experience with it for actual job-work. It's probably overkill for simfiles, but does anyone else geek out over this stuff? Happy

Post #2 · Posted at 2025-02-04 10:17:35pm 1.4 weeks ago

Offline chewi
chewi Avatar Member+
8,545 Posts
United States
Reg. 2008-02-24

"It's The Vibe."

Last updated: 2025-02-04 10:20pm
I just use a simple spreadsheet that's basically a glorified checklist.

https://i.imgur.com/uql1yiq.png

I keep another tab with songs I wanna cut/step eventually but that's about it. Curious to know what other people do as well.
https://zenius-i-vanisher.com/simfiles/Vibe%20Vibe%20Relaxation/Vibe%20Vibe%20Relaxation.png?1677865262
Vibe Vibe Relaxation... it's the vibe!

Post #3 · Posted at 2025-02-04 10:23:22pm 1.4 weeks ago

Offline SomethingRandom
SomethingRandom Avatar Member
2,842 Posts
United States
Reg. 2015-02-21

Game Center Nickname: blearymoos
"bootylicious "
i just plop files into semi-organized folders & hope i can find them later :3c

unironic answer: usually i just organize by what kind of file it is, is it a new song? is it a bemani file or not?
also i've been in the process of updating music files by sourcing them straight from the FLAC files so i also divided my folders into which files need to be updated

Post #4 · Posted at 2025-02-14 08:14:02pm 10.9 hours ago

Offline sanchny
sanchny Avatar Member
6 Posts
United States
Reg. 2020-10-24

I've been thinking about this for a bit and trying out some new things this week. It ultimately depends on
how complex your workflow is: A) do you work on one song at a time or multiple, and B) do you always work on the simfile components in a set order or hop around the different elements (do graphics first for a file, leave it for last for another)?

That helps inform what you want to keep track of. I remember I originally started with just folders of files to work on, including where I'd cut the song and have the basic bpm and offset set up in a file so it'd show up on the song wheel where I could scroll through them.

Then I moved to a spreadsheet:
https://i.ibb.co/hxFRR0Dh/GSheet-1.png

I used it for tracking some informational things like difficulty and number of steps, along with some checklist items. Based on those numbers, I could do some pivot tables and calculations, but the effort required for these is a little annoying.
https://i.ibb.co/KvNt1GY/GSheet-2.png

I switched to Notion recently when I recently decided to update/remaster some songs. Instead of just data on a spreadsheet, Notion is set up as a database, with each song as its own entry. I can then edit the database view like a spreadsheet, or open each individual song page and edit the properties there along with longer notes, since it's a full page in its own right. That means I can have a section of the page to write the readme, and then export it to a .txt file when the time comes. I can also embed the banner, jacket, and BG into the page to have those easily accessible.

In the song page properties I recreated some of the old spreadsheet columns I had like difficulty and number of steps. This is where it's a lot more powerful and easier to use than a spreadsheet because I can set up all types of fields: dropdown selection from a set number of choices (for difficulty / foot rating, for example, or for something like song folder/grouping), freeform numerical input (number of steps), checkbox for simple Yes/No things (did I get a FLAC file for this? Did I cut the song? Did I edit the video to match?), freeform text fields (song name, artist name, romanized artist name, etc.), URL (link to a Youtube recording I've uploaded of the song in Stepmania/Project Outfox). I've added additional parameters like what year the song was originally released, what's the offset, what's the samplestart, etc.

The original database view is what looks most like a spreadsheet. It's easy to set up additional views as tabs along the top that each have different filters and sorts, so I can for example have a view that shows all the songs I've completed (every checkbox is checked and the steps fields are filled out), another that shows which songs need to be cut (audio cut checkbox is empty), another that shows which ones are missing Standard steps, etc.
https://i.ibb.co/7dgQ6RGt/Notion-db.png

In addition to having different views for this, I also set up an additional field as a formula that looks at all the different checkboxes and determines what Status it's in, ordered by my most common workflow: Roadmap, Audio cut, Light, Sync, Video BG, Heavy, Standard, Jacket, BG, Banner, etc. This allows me to set up a Kanban view so I can see how many and which songs are in each status on their way to being done. This view is also easily filtered, so I can narrow things down more easily that way.
https://i.ibb.co/MkJbNqdM/Notion-Kanban.png

I can also set up charts as additional views, like this distribution of Heavy difficulties:
https://i.ibb.co/3mdKb63q/Notion-chart.png

Or this gallery views to show songs as banners/BGs/jackets:
https://i.ibb.co/hR1qmFjv/Notion-gallery.png

There are also timeline and calendar views but I haven't played much with those and they probably don't make sense for simfiles.

One next step I wanted to look at was automating some of the data entry. For example, I could scan a simfile folder on my computer to see if there's a *banner.png file in there, and if so then it could automatically mark the banner checkbox as complete. Even beyond that, using the Python simfile library to automatically read through a folder, extract the rating and step count information, and update that data in Notion instead of me updating it manually after I create a new chart or edit an existing chart in Project Outfox / SMEditor / Arrow Vortex.

Lastly I mentioned I was trying some new things this week, namely Jira and then Confluence. Jira is more tailored for collaborative teamwork and not single person projects, and in general tracking things like level of effort and amount of time spent working on something is not as useful, so Jira's not best suited for my simfile-making workflow. I looked at Confluence databases, but it didn't seem to be quite there in terms of capabilities compared to what I already set up in Notion. There was no easy way to have page properties that were also visible, filterable, and sortable in a database view like I described and showed above.
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