For the longest time, I’ve wanted to have an interactive landing page for NICKEL, more than the spinning 3D coin with our logo near the bottom (that has been moved to the /about page). I wanted a TV Guide-style interface and at long last, it’s live! After 5 seconds, the guide starts scrolling horizontally.

In the screenshot you can see three channels: #Fortnite, "Fortnite Highlights", and #Victory Royale. The logic behind their appearance is:

• there's at least 5 videos using a particular tag
• there's at least 5 videos in a channel

I upload a lot of videos to my Fortnite Highlights channel and I use the #Fortnite and #Victory Royale tags often. What you see in the screenshot is kinda repetitive right now but that'll change as Creators are onboarded and I add Arc Raiders clips and whatever else.

Each block in the guide is sized relative to the video's duration. As the guide loops, there's animated static via CSS. I thought this was a rather clever technique before I learned that it is only achievable because of a gradient rendering bug in all browsers...except Safari. Safari's gradient rendering is just better so you'll see a gray block in that browser. I guess I gotta go for a TV static GIF instead.

Now that this complex feature is done (took me ~2 weeks to think through and implement) I can get to the low hanging fruit and quality of life updates I've been dying to get to. Namely, UI improvements and implementing many pages on the site that have "SOON" tags on them.

Also, remastering music I've released in the past. Why not make music videos for them too? I've always wanted to have my TV channel...Toonami and Adult Swim inspired me a lot.

See you in the next dispatch!

— Paul

If you’re a Creator or aspiring to be one, let me know what you need in a platform (here’s my profile and a random video, if you want to see how the UI is shaping up). If you know a Creator, let them know about NICKEL! By signing up for the mailing list, you’re also on the waitlist (which makes you eligible for future perks).

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