Yes ! We are now live ! We'll soon be linking it from the main page of and making an annoucement through osarch.org;
In the mean time :
can the community recommend some educational content ?
any suggestions to improve the User Experience and User Interface?
Github repo: https://github.com/myoualid/learn-osarch
You can load a local version and help us feed the database aswell, or even improve the website if you see fit!
Pull Requests are welcome.
The web-app will be refreshed weekly with new goodies ( and fixes if required).
@SigmaDimensions said:
Yes ! We are now live ! We'll soon be linking it from the main page of and making an annoucement through osarch.org;
In the mean time :
can the community recommend some educational content ?
any suggestions to improve the User Experience and User Interface?
Sure! Where do we send the suggestions of content?
I would suggest a link in the learn page with a "send us new links" or something.
I would recommend to change the font color in some cases:
@bitacovir said:
Sure! Where do we send the suggestions of content?
I would suggest a link in the learn page with a "send us new links" or something.
I would recommend to change the font color in some cases:
Yes, very useful link - good one!
I think that this thread can do the job of gathering content resources? Or is it easier to have an email inbox to receive public suggestions that are not otherwise in the forum?
Woops, think that's the old stylesheet. Can you hit F5 to refresh ?
It would be great if there was a link somewhere on how to submit new educational resources :) Also, would love for this to link back to the respective Wiki page for each app, perhaps with an "OSArch Wiki" button.
@Moult said:
It would be great if there was a link somewhere on how to submit new educational resources :) Also, would love for this to link back to the respective Wiki page for each app, perhaps with an "OSArch Wiki" button.
@SigmaDimensions and I have discussed a good way in the UI to link to and from the wiki. On the wiki I want to make a fake button that looks like it links to an osarch themed video but actually links to the relevant section of learn.
@duncan said: @SigmaDimensions and I have discussed a good way in the UI to link to and from the wiki. On the wiki I want to make a fake button that looks like it links to an osarch themed video but actually links to the relevant section of learn.
Hey @duncan ,
Made an update yesterday following our discussions, it looks like this right now : https://learn.osarch.org/categories/1
--> Every software project links to the relevant wiki page
PS. Whilst doing that, I have found a lot of information I didn't know existed in the wiki.. so I am ever so motivated to feed the wiki's content :D
@bitacovir said:
Other suggestions: Rating system for the videos, Tags system for videos (language, muted sound, etc).
Tag system is a great thing - I'll try to add that asap. Regarding the rating system, I thought it would be good idea at first, but in fact rating systems tend to push specific items to the top whilst throwing other valuable new content down the list; Users tend to trust best rated videos. In this secnario, I had to go through a pre-selection myself - it may be biased aswell, but I try keep my research impartial and inquisitive; the more additions from everyone, the better though.
Thank you @bitacovir for the suggestions above - :D
Currently it may appear as though there isn't much content on the video courses, but there are a many more free to re-use tutorials coming soon + a lot of unpublished videos awaiting approval - circa 300 quality video tutorials.
Sometimes content creators do not share their videos as Creative commons license, so that can be a pain as I am sending emails asking for permission ( and some content creators don't share their contact info..).
Therefore: This thread is the best way to keep the suggestions coming in. I'll be centralising the content, and sending a weekly email asking individual permission to each content creator suggested from the videos in this thread.
The nice thing however, is that many teachers and educators are also members of OSArch which makes it easier.
However - whilst this isn't always intended, some of your videos are not shared under a Creative Commons License: @dimitar@stephen_l@topologic@Jesusbill@Cyril@condur@theoryshaw@Moult -
I have spoken to, or received support from, many of you through the forum, live chat, or linkedin - Thus I kept your videos. Are you okay with your Youtube videos being included, or would you like me to remove them?
@SigmaDimensions said:
However - whilst this isn't always intended, some of your videos are not shared under a Creative Commons License: @dimitar@stephen_l@topologic@Jesusbill@Cyril@condur@theoryshaw@Moult -
I have spoken to, or received support from, many of you through the forum, live chat, or linkedin - Thus I kept your videos. Are you okay with your Youtube videos being included, or would you like me to remove them?
I understand, that learn.osarch.org is an link aggregator and classification system. Does not storage third party content. Does not download the videos. Therefore, there is no copy right violation. If creators want their videos only accessible on youtube webpage, they should setup some restrictions or state what they want. Maybe they would prefer as much visits as possible to their youtube channels (for visit count and click on "Likes"). For that, learn.osarch could implement some links to their accounts or recommend to user to visit their channels for additional content. Anyway, learn.osarch does not make any profit with this system.
@bitacovir said:
I understand, that learn.osarch.org is an link aggregator and classification system. Does not storage third party content. Does not download the videos. Therefore, there is no copy right violation. If creators want their videos only accessible on youtube webpage, they should setup some restrictions or state what they want. Maybe they would prefer as much visits as possible to their youtube channels (for visit count and click on "Likes"). For that, learn.osarch could implement some links to their accounts or recommend to user to visit their channels for additional content. Anyway, learn.osarch does not make any profit with this system.
You are most certainly correct; it only gather hyperlinks to resources, and if anything the UI helps in discovering content creators and hidden gems of youtube ( I'll highlight the hyperlink to each youtube channel better).
Since youtube can be a bit confusing, and it's not made specific anywhere, I went with a conservative approach - but so far I have not had any oppositions ... and it would save me a lot of time and processing...
@SigmaDimensions said:
Since youtube can be a bit confusing, and it's not made specific anywhere, I went with a conservative approach - but so far I have not had any oppositions ... and it would save me a lot of time and processing...
You could add a button for messages saying "If you want the link to your content removed, please let us know". This way, anyone will have the option if they feel that way.
Fantastic resource. Congratulations. I am happy for you to openly share any videos that I have made. When I have a bit of time, I will look into the issue of CC and make sure all my videos are open and free to share as you wish with no restrictions. I will also send a better icon on transparent background and fill out the Wiki pages. I need to start making videos for Topologic on Blender/Scerchok.
With youtube, if the creator has allows the videos to be embeddable, then they can be posted anywhere, really, no matter the license. And most would be happy to have their videos listed in more places. So I I would say post link and videos unless an author complains.
Now, as someone that operates on quite a few educational channels, I have a couple of remarks about the UI and organisation of content:
Is this a discovery tool where someone is curious and find out what tools/workflows are available for a specific tool?
Is this a search tool, for someone that has a concrete idea in mind and is looking for the right source to help her/him along the way?
I see it as both a discovery tool and a potential search tool once it grows larger. As a search tool, the cc0 textures interface is quite nice witho automatic suggestions for the tags: https://cc0textures.com/list?sort=Popular
the sidebar navigation is great
the front page feels a bit tacky - the moving boxes are a bit distracting. How about not having a separate sidebar in the front page and somehow adding icons to each item in the sidebar?
I see that the website uses categories but it may be better to use tags for content? reason being is that quite a few channels or videos may fall into multiple categories. Edit - I am reading some of the previous posts and see this has already been mentioned.
schematic design - this is an American term for concept design. In most parts of the world, it is called concept design. Within the US, concept design is also understood to be the earlier phases of design, so I would suggest renaming schematic design category to concept design. (note for those who are wondering, I am a US registered architect operating in the UK, with work experience and degrees from both sides of the ocean)
I think we need a procedural design category. Not sure if it should be within the concept/schematic design, as procedural design can fit within multiple phases. In there, we could have info about Sverchok, Geonodes, topologic, Homemaker, and also touching upon some of the inherent proceduralism of Blender and Freecad for those that are interested to learn more specifically.
I like the phasing of each category, which make me question the software to find inside. Maybe, with tags it would make more sense to have search filter in the front page, with each item tagged with both the software it is showcasing, and the workflow (design phase, etc)
@bitacovir said:
If creators want their videos only accessible on youtube webpage, they should setup some restrictions or state what they want.
It would be nice if this was how copyright worked - but it isn't. Anyone who fails to make a copyright statement is keeping full copyright of their work. That's something we as Free Software / Creative Commons advocates have to educate people on.
But as has been noted, I don't think there is a problem. I have not heard of anyone ever having a problem with embedding/rapping youtube content.
Could someone, @bitacovir , @dimitar explain more the whole idea of tags on video tutorials? Isn't the categories Yassine has made enough? If we really want a system for organizing content then we should implement it centrally so the software list, wiki, and tutorials use the same system and can link to each others categorization. For example if we think a category is "Energy Modelling" then we should have an energy modelling section for the software list, the video tutorials and link the wiki software pages together as well as a general page like this https://wiki.osarch.org/index.php?title=Energy_Modeling
Really, I suggest that the category / tags discussion is a separate discussion and deserves it's own thread. If we're going to do it then we should first explore existing ways of dividing software into groups. Phases do not work at all as we all know much software is used in several / all phases. So then we have to use multiple tags instead of categories to create the relevant overlap.
While I agree with much of what you write @dimitar I just think we need to take a broad perspective and find a way to organize content that includes the whole osarch project and not only this collection of links to videos.
Does anyone have a suggestion on a good way of finding/making a list of tags/categories? Maybe ISBN has something? A long discussion thread is probably not a good way to do it. Maybe a wiki page? I feel like maybe categories are most useful for tools with a narrow focus while tags make it easier to include something like Inkscape in basically every phase from sketch, to presentation to documentation.
Great! I've tried to make the Inkscape page an example. Let me know of any way you don't like that page so we can expand/change it to keep it as a good example other pages can follow. It's missing things like embedded video etc. https://wiki.osarch.org/index.php?title=Inkscape
With youtube, if the creator has allows the videos to be embeddable, then they can be posted anywhere, really, no matter the license. And most would be happy to have their videos listed in more places. So I I would say post link and videos unless an author complains.
I do think I went overboard... gotta get acquanited with a good lawyer haha.
Right. Videos will be referenced to regardless of license - the option to " complain" or request "removal" will be removed. Youtube videos are indeed meant to be shared.
Is this a search tool, for someone that has a concrete idea in mind and is looking for the right source to help her/him along the way?
I see it as both a discovery tool and a potential search tool once it grows larger. As a search tool, the cc0 textures interface is quite nice witho automatic suggestions for the tags: https://cc0textures.com/list?sort=Popular
Yes; for now it's only a discover tool before it can become a search tool, but think it's best to add the search option and try and reach final UI as soon as possible
the front page feels a bit tacky - the moving boxes are a bit distracting. How about not having a separate sidebar in the front page and somehow adding icons to each item in the sidebar?
Agreed - let's try this.
I see that the website uses categories but it may be better to use tags for content? reason being is that quite a few channels or videos may fall into multiple categories. Edit - I am reading some of the previous posts and see this has already been mentioned.
Indeed this scenario is recurrent and I hand't found a fix for it. Tags is the way forward
schematic design - this is an American term for concept design. In most parts of the world, it is called concept design. Within the US, concept design is also understood to be the earlier phases of design, so I would suggest renaming schematic design category to concept design. (note for those who are wondering, I am a US registered architect operating in the UK, with work experience and degrees from both sides of the ocean)
Agreed !
I think we need a procedural design category. Not sure if it should be within the concept/schematic design, as procedural design can fit within multiple phases. In there, we could have info about Sverchok, Geonodes, topologic, Homemaker, and also touching upon some of the inherent proceduralism of Blender and Freecad for those that are interested to learn more specifically.
I like the phasing of each category, which make me question the software to find inside. Maybe, with tags it would make more sense to have search filter in the front page, with each item tagged with both the software it is showcasing, and the workflow (design phase, etc)
Good suggestion to add a seperate procedural design section - I also thing tags will definetly solve it, and provide the means for better search in future.
@duncan said:
While I agree with much of what you write @dimitar I just think we need to take a broad perspective and find a way to organize content that includes the whole osarch project and not only this collection of links to videos.
And not to forget the overaall theme integration which I went freestyle on. Can we start this discussion @JanF@duncan@Moult@tetov ?
@bitacovir said:
If creators want their videos only accessible on youtube webpage, they should setup some restrictions or state what they want.
It would be nice if this was how copyright worked - but it isn't. Anyone who fails to make a copyright statement is keeping full copyright of their work.
That is not what I mean. I am talking about the preference of some creators for direct visitors on their youtube channels. Some people make money with direct visitors: because this way, visitors keep watching more videos, and click on the "bell" or on the "Like". etc. That is a possible cause of complains if the videos are imbedded in other sites. But at the same time, is responsibility of the creator to set up restrictions for Youtube's functionalities if that is their intention.
@bitacovir I don't think I agree with you (but I'm not a lawyer). If you make a film and put it on your private website for free viewing but keeping all copyright intact - it is not reasonable for me to then embed that film in my own website surrounded by links to my favorite popcorn brand on Amazon. I could still link to your film, but I couldn't embed it. Whether or not someone makes a technical effort to stop it is beside the point. The fact that Youtube makes it easy suggests it's buried somewhere in their terms. Interesting reading at turbofuture and blogpros ... oh and it gets more complicated reading techlawforum
Basically @SigmaDimensions just ignore me and keep doing your thing with the videos
Actually @SigmaDimensions how it is getting the 'episodes' and why not just open the whole channel in a new browser window?
@duncan@bitacovir - thank you for your the discussion, it has shed some important light :
I was wrong too - and that is perfect !
Youtube clearly states on their Terms and Services that:
"** Licence to Other Users**
You also grant each other user of the Service a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to access your Content through the Service, and to use that Content (including to reproduce, distribute, modify, display, and perform it) only as enabled by a feature of the Service."
Therefore: Regardless of the Creative Commons License that a content creator may set or not, any other youtube user worldwide can embed videos. The code is also public, and anyone can check that it is indeed using the youtube iframe feature to emebed the videos in html. Hence, this is absolutely fine.
Happy Days !
Let the fun begin !
PS. To the content creators I have buzzed above - appologies for the useless ping. You guys are doing wonderful things, and it is a pleasure to watch and learn from you. Thank you :)
Yassine. (SigmaDimensions is nothing but a Trademark - in case curiosity itches)
@SigmaDimensions it's not a useless ping to remind people to sort out their licenses. Wouldn't it be great if was hosted many of these videos on a non-google platform like our own peertube instance? That would require that there are clear copyright statements.
i just got a chance to review the website and kudos to those who made it. it looks great. as others mentioned, my feedback is as follows:
moving boxes on the home page makes me feel dizzy, it feels kinda different.
definitely needs search bar.
tags for content is definitely more suitable. as a user, i have to go through several pages in order to access the content right now and it is not ideal.
as @dimitar mentioned, more like cc0textures kinda interface is great. i love the design of the https://www.dimensions.com, and i think we can inspire from it. -in my humble opinion :)-
do we have admins for this page that uploads content?
if there is anything i could do, i would be more than happy @duncan@SigmaDimensions , just let me know. keep up the good work!!
Comments
UPDATE :
Launching end of the week !
A W E S O M E
Congratulations for the new https://learn.osarch.org/
Yes ! We are now live ! We'll soon be linking it from the main page of and making an annoucement through osarch.org;
In the mean time :
Github repo: https://github.com/myoualid/learn-osarch
You can load a local version and help us feed the database aswell, or even improve the website if you see fit!
Pull Requests are welcome.
The web-app will be refreshed weekly with new goodies ( and fixes if required).
Sure! Where do we send the suggestions of content?
I would suggest a link in the learn page with a "send us new links" or something.
I would recommend to change the font color in some cases:
I think that this thread can do the job of gathering content resources? Or is it easier to have an email inbox to receive public suggestions that are not otherwise in the forum?
Woops, think that's the old stylesheet. Can you hit F5 to refresh ?
It would be great if there was a link somewhere on how to submit new educational resources :) Also, would love for this to link back to the respective Wiki page for each app, perhaps with an "OSArch Wiki" button.
Other suggestions: Rating system for the videos, Tags system for videos (language, muted sound, etc).
Here, some suggestion of playlists with videotutorials about FreeCAD:
FreeCAD BIM Workbench (8 videos)
FreeCAD TechDraw for BIM (11videos)
Introduction to BIM with FreeCAD (6 videos)
CAD Stick Framing with FreeCAD (12 videos)
@SigmaDimensions and I have discussed a good way in the UI to link to and from the wiki. On the wiki I want to make a fake button that looks like it links to an osarch themed video but actually links to the relevant section of learn.
For SEO have you looked at more descriptive URLs?
Hey @duncan ,
Made an update yesterday following our discussions, it looks like this right now : https://learn.osarch.org/categories/1
--> Every software project links to the relevant wiki page
PS. Whilst doing that, I have found a lot of information I didn't know existed in the wiki.. so I am ever so motivated to feed the wiki's content :D
Some software do not have logos, like Radiance. Maybe we should implement a OSArch's symbol for these cases. This way broken link icon is not shown.
Tag system is a great thing - I'll try to add that asap. Regarding the rating system, I thought it would be good idea at first, but in fact rating systems tend to push specific items to the top whilst throwing other valuable new content down the list; Users tend to trust best rated videos. In this secnario, I had to go through a pre-selection myself - it may be biased aswell, but I try keep my research impartial and inquisitive; the more additions from everyone, the better though.
Thank you @bitacovir for the suggestions above - :D
Currently it may appear as though there isn't much content on the video courses, but there are a many more free to re-use tutorials coming soon + a lot of unpublished videos awaiting approval - circa 300 quality video tutorials.
Sometimes content creators do not share their videos as Creative commons license, so that can be a pain as I am sending emails asking for permission ( and some content creators don't share their contact info..).
Therefore: This thread is the best way to keep the suggestions coming in. I'll be centralising the content, and sending a weekly email asking individual permission to each content creator suggested from the videos in this thread.
The nice thing however, is that many teachers and educators are also members of OSArch which makes it easier.
However - whilst this isn't always intended, some of your videos are not shared under a Creative Commons License: @dimitar @stephen_l @topologic @Jesusbill @Cyril @condur @theoryshaw @Moult -
I have spoken to, or received support from, many of you through the forum, live chat, or linkedin - Thus I kept your videos. Are you okay with your Youtube videos being included, or would you like me to remove them?
Let's keep education OPEN to all <3.
I understand, that learn.osarch.org is an link aggregator and classification system. Does not storage third party content. Does not download the videos. Therefore, there is no copy right violation. If creators want their videos only accessible on youtube webpage, they should setup some restrictions or state what they want. Maybe they would prefer as much visits as possible to their youtube channels (for visit count and click on "Likes"). For that, learn.osarch could implement some links to their accounts or recommend to user to visit their channels for additional content. Anyway, learn.osarch does not make any profit with this system.
I agree with @bitacovir but I'm not a lawyer so... :)
You are most certainly correct; it only gather hyperlinks to resources, and if anything the UI helps in discovering content creators and hidden gems of youtube ( I'll highlight the hyperlink to each youtube channel better).
Since youtube can be a bit confusing, and it's not made specific anywhere, I went with a conservative approach - but so far I have not had any oppositions ... and it would save me a lot of time and processing...
You could add a button for messages saying "If you want the link to your content removed, please let us know". This way, anyone will have the option if they feel that way.
Fantastic resource. Congratulations. I am happy for you to openly share any videos that I have made. When I have a bit of time, I will look into the issue of CC and make sure all my videos are open and free to share as you wish with no restrictions. I will also send a better icon on transparent background and fill out the Wiki pages. I need to start making videos for Topologic on Blender/Scerchok.
Oh wow! Great initiative!
With youtube, if the creator has allows the videos to be embeddable, then they can be posted anywhere, really, no matter the license. And most would be happy to have their videos listed in more places. So I I would say post link and videos unless an author complains.
Now, as someone that operates on quite a few educational channels, I have a couple of remarks about the UI and organisation of content:
Can you tell me which ones ? Because I check some of them including the earliest and latest ones and they are all under Creative Commons license.
Videos posted on youtube are made to be shared !
It would be nice if this was how copyright worked - but it isn't. Anyone who fails to make a copyright statement is keeping full copyright of their work. That's something we as Free Software / Creative Commons advocates have to educate people on.
But as has been noted, I don't think there is a problem. I have not heard of anyone ever having a problem with embedding/rapping youtube content.
@SigmaDimensions the buttons look good! Nice work.
Could someone, @bitacovir , @dimitar explain more the whole idea of tags on video tutorials? Isn't the categories Yassine has made enough? If we really want a system for organizing content then we should implement it centrally so the software list, wiki, and tutorials use the same system and can link to each others categorization. For example if we think a category is "Energy Modelling" then we should have an energy modelling section for the software list, the video tutorials and link the wiki software pages together as well as a general page like this https://wiki.osarch.org/index.php?title=Energy_Modeling
Really, I suggest that the category / tags discussion is a separate discussion and deserves it's own thread. If we're going to do it then we should first explore existing ways of dividing software into groups. Phases do not work at all as we all know much software is used in several / all phases. So then we have to use multiple tags instead of categories to create the relevant overlap.
While I agree with much of what you write @dimitar I just think we need to take a broad perspective and find a way to organize content that includes the whole osarch project and not only this collection of links to videos.
Does anyone have a suggestion on a good way of finding/making a list of tags/categories? Maybe ISBN has something? A long discussion thread is probably not a good way to do it. Maybe a wiki page? I feel like maybe categories are most useful for tools with a narrow focus while tags make it easier to include something like Inkscape in basically every phase from sketch, to presentation to documentation.
Great! I've tried to make the Inkscape page an example. Let me know of any way you don't like that page so we can expand/change it to keep it as a good example other pages can follow. It's missing things like embedded video etc. https://wiki.osarch.org/index.php?title=Inkscape
Oh yeah~ very wonderful resource~
I do think I went overboard... gotta get acquanited with a good lawyer haha.
Right. Videos will be referenced to regardless of license - the option to " complain" or request "removal" will be removed. Youtube videos are indeed meant to be shared.
Yes; for now it's only a discover tool before it can become a search tool, but think it's best to add the search option and try and reach final UI as soon as possible
Agreed - let's try this.
Indeed this scenario is recurrent and I hand't found a fix for it. Tags is the way forward
Agreed !
Good suggestion to add a seperate procedural design section - I also thing tags will definetly solve it, and provide the means for better search in future.
Let's see what next release will be like ?
And not to forget the overaall theme integration which I went freestyle on. Can we start this discussion @JanF @duncan @Moult @tetov ?
That is not what I mean. I am talking about the preference of some creators for direct visitors on their youtube channels. Some people make money with direct visitors: because this way, visitors keep watching more videos, and click on the "bell" or on the "Like". etc. That is a possible cause of complains if the videos are imbedded in other sites. But at the same time, is responsibility of the creator to set up restrictions for Youtube's functionalities if that is their intention.
@bitacovir I don't think I agree with you (but I'm not a lawyer). If you make a film and put it on your private website for free viewing but keeping all copyright intact - it is not reasonable for me to then embed that film in my own website surrounded by links to my favorite popcorn brand on Amazon. I could still link to your film, but I couldn't embed it. Whether or not someone makes a technical effort to stop it is beside the point. The fact that Youtube makes it easy suggests it's buried somewhere in their terms. Interesting reading at turbofuture and blogpros ... oh and it gets more complicated reading techlawforum
Basically @SigmaDimensions just ignore me and keep doing your thing with the videos
Actually @SigmaDimensions how it is getting the 'episodes' and why not just open the whole channel in a new browser window?
@duncan @bitacovir - thank you for your the discussion, it has shed some important light :
"** Licence to Other Users**
You also grant each other user of the Service a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to access your Content through the Service, and to use that Content (including to reproduce, distribute, modify, display, and perform it) only as enabled by a feature of the Service."
Therefore: Regardless of the Creative Commons License that a content creator may set or not, any other youtube user worldwide can embed videos. The code is also public, and anyone can check that it is indeed using the youtube iframe feature to emebed the videos in html. Hence, this is absolutely fine.
Happy Days !
Let the fun begin !
PS. To the content creators I have buzzed above - appologies for the useless ping. You guys are doing wonderful things, and it is a pleasure to watch and learn from you. Thank you :)
Yassine. (SigmaDimensions is nothing but a Trademark - in case curiosity itches)
@SigmaDimensions it's not a useless ping to remind people to sort out their licenses. Wouldn't it be great if was hosted many of these videos on a non-google platform like our own peertube instance? That would require that there are clear copyright statements.
i just got a chance to review the website and kudos to those who made it. it looks great. as others mentioned, my feedback is as follows:
if there is anything i could do, i would be more than happy @duncan @SigmaDimensions , just let me know. keep up the good work!!