Well, the idea was to
not just create yet another new site. It was more the idea of having MorphZone
and Morphos-News throw together the 'Software' map into one new site. That is two sites getting rid of their feature in favor to a new one.
The way
KDE-Apps works for example is quite simple. It will require some work to set such a new page up no doubt but once it's done you can:
- create an account,
- log in,
- maintain your software,
- add screenshots,
- add new description,
- add comments,
- vote for the app,
- more.
Most of the maintainance required afterwards is done by the authors of the software itself and would take maintainance away from the Webpage owner (besides looking there every now and then so the users behave).
The situation around Aminet is a different one. I don't plan to remove Aminet or have people convince to not post their stuff there. But Aminet is an ancient relict from former times. Not suitable for new audience and probably not even suitable for you either.
You may got used to Aminet since you learned it's structure for the past years. You learned to use it and you got used to it.
But for a modern time like this we need to look over the plate and see in the future. Even I know about Aminet from former times (the times where BBS's were still actual, you logged in, you scanned for new 0 day warez, you read the file_id.diz, you leeched the stuff and went off again. Same schema as usually). Aminet is quite similar but it bombs out over the years. There are a lot of useful stuff there and a lot of junk as well. But you can't figure out what is junk and what not by just reading the description of the file. You need to download it, install it, start it (think about trojans and viruses) to figure out if the app suits your needs or is visually appealing to you.
Even I had my hard times looking through Aminet, not even clear to find what I search and if the stuff I downloaded is the right one for my tasks. You are stuck for hours searching for something. Then you find something but it's not sure whether there is a far better solution for your needs.
That's why I think a new site is required. It's just a NEWS site. People can continue putting the files on Aminet if they like. But they announce them on the new site including some screenshots.
When you go out for Applications then you usually dig on google for screenshots. Same with the games you use. How do you figure out if the GAME is something for you or not if you don't look at screenshots first. (Say Knights and Merchants, or the other Epic-Entertainment or Hyperion-Entertainment GAMES) you go to their page, search for some reviews or screenshots and then you decide whether you may like the app or not.
How often did I hear from people 'Hey, what's this app on your screenshot' and people reply to them 'This is ANR or AmiTradeCenter' or whatever. They say this because they were looking at some screenshots and decided that this may be an application they would like to use.
A lot of people announce (and still announce) software for Amiga these days but many of them forget adding a tiny screenshot or windowshot of these apps describing them.
Sure there are a lot of experts amongst you who say 'Why, for me it's natural to do it the way we did for years' but you are limiting these views only for your own. We need to expand this community in all areas and every new user is a good user. No matter if he uses an PegasosI or PegasosII or AmigaONE or even AROS (on different Architectures). When we talk to people and like to have them peek on the capabilities of our system then we need to go out and offer sane solutions and nice places where they can go and look at.
See AROS for example. A handful changed ICONS and THEME engines and voila two screenshots shown to other people make them get interested to download the ISO and try it out at least. We can indirectly help promoting for our system and philosophy but we need to change.
These are for sure my own ideas here and I do respect other ideas as well and maybe we need to find some arrangement to get this stuff started. I for my own peek over to Targhan and Antibike here in hope they are willing to help.
What would be nice is following:
- The page should be easy to remember (www.morphos-apps.org) for example.
- The page should not be overblown with thousands of sublinks
- New applications should be prompted in the Middle of the page including an immediately to click Thumbnail (which enlargens itself when clicked).
- In a Menu the applications should be also categorized in teir own area.
Something I don't like is annoying links everywhere. I usually search for something but don't have in mind at first what I really search for. Say I only want to dig around for something new. I want to click on the app and I want that when I click on the app that a Thumbnail shows up with it as well. I don't want to click yet another link that says 'Screenshot' only to get an screenshot afterwards.
So there are quite a few attributes that should be considered to be important.
- The Application itself,
- The Thumbnail,
- The Description,
- Vote.
The BeBits page is quite nice but you need to click some extra links for screenshot while imo it could have been added to the filedescription itself as thumbnail (which you can then click to enlarge it). Some apps simply don't come with screenshots there and then you spent one click more to figure out 'no screenshot added'. Which can be quite annoying after some time.
So simplicity is required and an easy navigation modell.
KDE-Apps and
FreshMeat are quite good examples how to do it in a pretty fine way. You have an easy to remember url, you load it and you are prompted with the new stuff directly. When the app is clicked you get an Thumbnail as well.
Someone said we don't need this for just '1000' apps. Sorry ? Just '1000' ? Thousand apps are quite a lot and the efforts would be honoured.
We also need to see our own Amiga world from a different perspective. We shouldn't see it as a shrinking community. We should see it as an community that we expand with every day. We are expanding by promoting it, we are expanding by demonstrating others that we can still do it and that we can do it better or equally than others, we are expanding because we believe we are right. We need to stop to feel self-pity of ourselves. We are expanding and not shrinking.
I would also like to add that there is a lot of duplication of efforts being done for Open Source and Free Software applications. E.g. AROS has their own 'contribs' stuff and even on MorphOS and AmigaOS we find that there are different people who attempt to port the same software again. Maybe we can find an way of arrangement that this software is of general benefit for us all. E.g. AROS has quite a few nice Demos which are great for promotion. We should keep them on one location and work on them so it works on AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS and whenever it's update that we all benefit from it (This also reduces that we work ourselves on everything over and over again). Say if someone works on DOpus 4.x then we should make sure it works on AROS, AmigaOS and MorphOS at the same time by grabbing the sources, untar, configure and make them. It doesn't make sense to have 5 people working on 5 different attempts to improve it. Nobody is helped that way. There are so many nice tiny tools we can benefit from the AROS contribs package and vice verca (there are so many things). We need to organize this better and benefit all from it. That's why such a new site can be of important use.
oGALAXYo
machine with solid and secure OpenBSD.
Targhan