As I continue to look at it day after day, I thought it might be a good idea to say something now. The list on the left side of the site labeled "Apps Hosted Here" needs to be re-worked a bit in my opinion.
I think we should have kinda a vote on which apps are most important to users, so we can show those in the sidebar, along with which is most popular. Because name's normally don't give away an application function, but if it's popular, the user will click on that link.
So I was thinking we can remove stuff like winMd5Sum, On-Screen Keyboard, etc to add some more popular ones like WinMerge and even Task Coach would be more popular than an Md5 tool. Just an idea, as we can't list EVERY app there, but the ones we do list should be the most popular and well known.
Thoughts?
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Actually. it's gonna get ditched. It was a temporary measure when all are apps were in a couple categories. (how exciting is clicking into Games and finding nothing at all) The list hasn't been updated with Toucan or Task Coach, etc. And it will soon grow too big to fit. So, I'm going to switch it back to the base list. Just the categories.
After that, we can think about picking an app of the week. Usually highlighting a new useful app by a new dev. Or an updated app that added a lot of useful features. Thoughts?
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A "PortableApp of the Week" sounds like a good idea to me. Have it be an app that someone developed, not one that the site is officially hosting. Name the app, include a description of what it does/is used for and a few key features.
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Category list sounds useful. I second that.
And a periodically highlighted application. I think it would be cool to have a new apps to the site listed there. But hopefully it will not double the RSS news feed list, else the rss feed itself could be 'highlight' new and updated apps all by itself.
But if time spend on a featured app means time not spend on releasing another app, I might think I rather have a new app. Having a featured app is again something that needs to be maintained. And seeing that many many apps are waiting for a release it seems to me the time is better spend on getting the apps out and revisit the idea when the new apps runs dry
Highlighting just a new dev? Hmm highlighting new apps seems more useful to me, from a user's point of view. But maybe the RSS feed can function as that...
I think users would be most interested in the apps themselves.
I liked it if I wanted to quickly navigate to Firefox. So I would keep the important Apps.
In my opinion, putting important Apps there is more important than updated Apps. We have the start "home" page for updated Apps and I think thats enough. An App of the week would be fun and maybe there could also be a link to it on the main page?
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What about 1 officially released "App of the Month" and 1 pre-release/dev-test "Test of the Week"?
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Testing is for forum members and more experienced users. We don't want average end users grabbing Pre-Releases since there may be some bugs... and definitely not Development Tests. The only time we do wider testing is for the platform if we don't have enough testers.
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I suggested that the dev app of the week only comes after being logged in. Or maybe as a setting in the user account.
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It looks like one can get a download count from sf.net, so that could pretty well tell what are the most important. Might have to fudge a bit to take into account apps that have been updated more frequently and that sort of thing.
"Featured" could draw some from the other end of the list, those that have fewer downloads, on the theory that they would have more if people knew about them. I think there are almost enough to "feature" apps at random, so visitors would see a different one each time they came to the site.
WinMD5Sum is one of the more important tools here, even if nobody ever uses it to check their downloads.
MC
Well, I agree. I think an app of the week would be awesome, maybe a dev app of the day when your signed in.
I know it's highly possible to do expandable columns, that way even more easier :D.
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the category navigation will be good as long as it is expandable and collapsible with the apps under each category.
Maybe AJAX could even be employed to update the category and/or app listing every 60 seconds or so. Maybe that's overkill for a relatively minor website feature (compared to the entire rest of the site), but I'm sure it could be done without too much effort.
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