Wouldn't it be more logical to have resource discussions in the RM? It feels redundant in forums.
Why go from this:
To this?
Resource and Add-on Releases
- Thread starter MilesDB
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Why go from this:
To this?
It has been suggested: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/resources-files-and-dicussions-separed-yes-but.26719/
Rigel Kentaurus
Well-known member
My feedback is about the categories.
All the add-ons seems to be making it's way into Add-On - other, which will become a nightmare really soon, it will be impossible to browse.
I remember in the old UBB days (and which later vb.org copied), we use to have categories by area ...
That was pretty cool, actually, as it enabled me to just "shop" for add-ons. One day I would wake up and say "what's available to enhance my showthread" and I would start browsing that category to see what I could to to make it more interesting.
All the add-ons seems to be making it's way into Add-On - other, which will become a nightmare really soon, it will be impossible to browse.
I remember in the old UBB days (and which later vb.org copied), we use to have categories by area ...
home page, forum list, thread page, member page, private messages, admin
That was pretty cool, actually, as it enabled me to just "shop" for add-ons. One day I would wake up and say "what's available to enhance my showthread" and I would start browsing that category to see what I could to to make it more interesting.
Digital Doctor
Well-known member
Do I have to go back and re-Like all my fav addons ? 
The Avatars are ... well ... Super large. Thankfully digitalpoint is a good looking guy, but I don't see why I should be able to count the pores on his nose.
It is day #1 and the star ratings already don't make sense. The people who said the stars were useless were correct.
3 columns makes things cramped. The whole left column should be put in the right column to make more room for documentation / images.
The Resources Home Page which doesn't need tabs ... has tabs .... and the individual Resources pages .... which would really benefit from Tabs (Installation, Release Notes, Mods, FAQ, etc) ... doesn't have them.
Paid addons are excluded ? (I'm researching this still).
There is a real scattered feel to Resources. The lack of integration between the discussion of the addon and the Resource Manager is odd.
The categories aren't really helping to make things findable.
I see no way of being alerted to new Addons.
I don't see any benefits to having Styles and Addons in the same location.
I don't see how the Resource manager will make Documenting easier / better.
I would like to issue a challenge to Xenforo.com - support your addons as you expect everyone else to do - use the RM for your own addons.
The Avatars are ... well ... Super large. Thankfully digitalpoint is a good looking guy, but I don't see why I should be able to count the pores on his nose.
It is day #1 and the star ratings already don't make sense. The people who said the stars were useless were correct.
3 columns makes things cramped. The whole left column should be put in the right column to make more room for documentation / images.
The Resources Home Page which doesn't need tabs ... has tabs .... and the individual Resources pages .... which would really benefit from Tabs (Installation, Release Notes, Mods, FAQ, etc) ... doesn't have them.
Paid addons are excluded ? (I'm researching this still).
There is a real scattered feel to Resources. The lack of integration between the discussion of the addon and the Resource Manager is odd.
The categories aren't really helping to make things findable.
I see no way of being alerted to new Addons.
I don't see any benefits to having Styles and Addons in the same location.
I don't see how the Resource manager will make Documenting easier / better.
I would like to issue a challenge to Xenforo.com - support your addons as you expect everyone else to do - use the RM for your own addons.
Trombones13
Well-known member
At the moment, XenForo.com's only add-on is paid, which automatically makes it incompatible with the Resource Manager as it has no compatibility with a payment system itself.
Digital Doctor
Well-known member
Fine. Then all paid addons should be allowed their own forum + subforums here @ xenforo.com
I have no problem with that.
Trombones13
Well-known member
I think the current method (which Brogan just pointed out) works fine for paid add-ons (unless they're later compatible with the RM, that is); an entire forum for each add-on seems a little over the top to me. It makes sense to do that here for Enhanced Search and the Resource Manager as they're add-ons from this site (i.e. I wouldn't go to ragtek.org and expect to see a subforum with information on the Resource Manager there).
Rigel Kentaurus
Well-known member
I think the challenge is completely valid. If the Resource Manager does not provide enough functionality to distribute XenForo's addon themselves, then the add-on itself is lacking.
It is a little challenging, though, because, they would need
- The payment gateway, so they can actually sell Advanced Search and Resource Manager
- Subscriptions, so they can charge an Annual Fee for it
- Integration with the XenForo license? (that one is tricky)
- Threads INSIDE the resource itself, not as a separate thread in some forum (sorry, but that was a lazy workaround)
- ... ugh, support? That one is tricky, unless they plan on building a bug tracker in the resource manager itself, then all it's left is threads. Then again, right now the bug tracking is with threads and prefixes so that might work
But, not to be completely negative here, I want to highlight a couple of things
- It's progress. And progress is good. Hell, I know what it feels to be sitting with a product with zero progress
- It's better than what we have, it's searchable, better organized, has ratings ...
- The XenForo devs said they would support the add-on developers. They are doing so. They are keeping their promise
- I'd rather have this add-on right now, than 2 years from now when they can finally add all the feature-fest we are asking for
erich37
Well-known member
Do I have to go back and re-Like all my fav addons ?
The Avatars are ... well ... Super large. Thankfully digitalpoint is a good looking guy, but I don't see why I should be able to count the pores on his nose.
It is day #1 and the star ratings already don't make sense. The people who said the stars were useless were correct.
3 columns makes things cramped. The whole left column should be put in the right column to make more room for documentation / images.
The Resources Home Page which doesn't need tabs ... has tabs .... and the individual Resources pages .... which would really benefit from Tabs (Installation, Release Notes, Mods, FAQ, etc) ... doesn't have them.
Paid addons are excluded ? (I'm researching this still).
There is a real scattered feel to Resources. The lack of integration between the discussion of the addon and the Resource Manager is odd.
The categories aren't really helping to make things findable.
I see no way of being alerted to new Addons.
I don't see any benefits to having Styles and Addons in the same location.
I don't see how the Resource manager will make Documenting easier / better.
I would like to issue a challenge to Xenforo.com - support your addons as you expect everyone else to do - use the RM for your own addons.
exactly my thoughts........
http://xenforo.com/community/thread...and-not-in-line-with-xf-easy-interface.26813/
Digital Doctor
Well-known member
Xenforo.com has more than one forum per addon for their addons.
If you think this is over the top then make a suggestion in the appropriate forum.
Trombones13
Well-known member
(Ugh; I imagine I'm being annoying and nitpicky, but...) I think that's not something that Mike and Kier would disagree with--it was announced as an "early version" and there are clearly more things to come. I agree that it's to be expected that they would use their own product as well, but at this early stage, I think it's fine not to until that necessary functionality is added.
....so in other words, we agree and I'm just nitpicking. lol
I don't think it's over-the-top for XF to have forums (multiple or otherwise) for Enhanced Search and the Resource Manager, hence why I see no need to make a suggestion. I just don't think it would be necessary for each paid, third-party add-on to have an entire forum per add-on. Most paid add-on authors usually do that on their own site anyway, since they can't have people pay for it here yet (and when they do, they can use the RM just like the free add-ons do now), so I wouldn't see a point; that's all I'm saying.
Digital Doctor
Well-known member
xenforo.org ?
They make perfect sense.
They are based on this system: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayesian_average
Essentially it stops a resource with a single 5 star rating from appearing at the top of the list and is a much more meaningful representation than a simple count or average.
Rigel Kentaurus
Well-known member
I don't think he meant that, but the fact of how people are using the system.
For example, some of my resources have been rated with 1 star
Are they poorly coded? No
Do they have bugs in them? No
Are they uninteresting? Probably so (add a reason for delete post? meh)
So, the rating does not seem to be a rating about the quality of the product but rather a subjective score of how "cool" a person think the add-on modification is. If that is the case then it might be useful to locate the best mods (as they would be the highest rated), but it would be useless as a generic indicator of the quality of the resource.
It does create the problem that you would have something that works flawlessly, left with a 1-star rating
I tend to use something else for popularity, for example, the "number of downloads" might be a better indicator of what is "hot". And vb.org went one step ahead with the number of "installations" (which was annoying because you had to mark the add-on as installed, though), even the number of replies in the thread is a better indicator of how interesting the mod is
erich37
Well-known member
agree, "number of downloads" is objective. "star-rating" is subjective and makes a talented add-on developer wondering why his great work has only 3 stars out of 5.
This might give a developer less motivation in coding more stuff in the future.
why not transform the "number of downloads" into "stars"?
the quality of an add-on is anyway given by user-feedback within the resource-discussions, e.g. "this add-on is great" or "this add-on does not work with version XF 1.0.x anymore..."
Rigel Kentaurus
Well-known member
You can, actually, you can engage into educating the users.
A simple legend of what you are supposed to be rating would go a great length, I think the people have no idea about what they should do with the rating itself, and since there are no reviews, the downloader is left with a meaningless number (quantitative, but not qualitative)
You don't see people in Amazon saying things like "This refrigerator is cool but I'll give it a one star rating because I saw a TV and that is a more interesting piece of electronics"
So .. if you acknowledge that it is a problem, and that it exists, and that nothing can't be done about it, indirectly you are acknowledging that the ratings are useless, which .. kind of was the original comment.
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