My opinion about the status of the current homepage (1 Viewer)

hanoota

Portal Pro
June 7, 2007
81
2
36
Home Country
Germany Germany
Hey,

First I would like to thank the Development-Team for their great work for the software and the updates.
But I have to criticise the status of the homepage ;)

If you click on the headbuttons "Support" or "Contribute" it will open a submenu on the left side of the page. In my opinion this submenu is absolutely unnecessary! It links to "Support" (already reachable via heabutton), "Contribute" (already reachable via heabutton), "MP-manual (Wiki)" (already reachable as "Manual" via heabutton), "Latest Forum Topics" (also reachable by opening the forum) and "Bugtracker" & "WebIRC" (these both are already linked in the content of "Support" and "Contribute"). I hope you understand what I mean. It's only confusing to have a unnecessary submenu if there are not new informations!

The content of "Contribute" is also the out of date... Links of "MediaPortal Changelog" ("You are not authorised to view this resource") , "nUnit testing guide" (invalid forumlink), "Bug reports" (invalid forumlink) are not working.

The content of "Features" should be updated too with new images and maybe more new features that were added in the last time. Just as well as the "Gallery", that contains images of old skins. "Showcase Videos" are good but have to be updated because of the new skin.

The Link "Documentation" in the left menu is unnecessary too, there is already a link ("Manual").

"Recommended HW" contains just two articles (both 2 years old) with recommended hardware. there's definitely
missing a lot. i know the most team member have no time to write about such stuff, but maybe you could add some good user-reviews etc...or the system requirements...
the same with "articles"...all articles are 2-3 years old. only one user review :eek: (maybe you should write a request to the users)

The "Plugins + Extensions" area is also a problem in my opinion! I think you should separate Skins and PlugIns/Extensions. There is a lot of stuff that is outdated or has just a minimal description, so you don't really know what it really is. And the overview of the different categories really confusing (there you should use links in the submenu!). And maybe you should have a top ten downloads or top ten rated downloads and not just a "Newest Download" in that categorie ;)

I really like the software MediaPortal and i love the forum. But I think the page needs a clean-up work! The homepage is representing the software and the status of the current page will only deter you from using MediaPortal!

Thanks for your attention and sorry for my english (i know it's horrible :-D)

/edit: the manual is really great! thumbs up
 

high

Administrator
  • Team MediaPortal
  • August 31, 2004
    5,106
    5,497
    47
    Isselburg/NRW
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    yes, its a known issue and its been worked on. Sadly all devs need to spend their free time to the next release and so the time (and interest...) for rewriting these parts is limited. Is someone has some free hours and is able to provide us some help for these texts..feel free to send me a PM.

    Ich nehm auch deutsche Texte als Basis an ;)
     

    hanoota

    Portal Pro
    June 7, 2007
    81
    2
    36
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    @ high yes i thought the devs are working hard at the moment ;) but it isn't just the content, as i said the submenu is not needed or there are a lot of links and so on that are not working.
    for writing you could use the help of the users i think.

    There is forum:
    Jobs/Tasks @ MediaPortal The team always needs enthusiastic people to push MediaPortal to the next level. Please have a look if some requests match your skills.
    There you should add a section for user reviews and articles that can be published on the homepage.

    Is the plug-in repository a custom setup?
    Remository-Modul

    I think the moduls should be up to date too...
    mXcomment 1.0.5 © 2007-2008 - visualclinic.fr
    current version is v1.0.9 and the author is planning to release 2.0 ;)

    I would help you with cleaning up the remository-section (im not a good writer ;) )
     

    high

    Administrator
  • Team MediaPortal
  • August 31, 2004
    5,106
    5,497
    47
    Isselburg/NRW
    Home Country
    Germany Germany
    The content is the showstopper atm. A renewed page (based on J1.5) with changed layout/structure/menue is mostly done but all that just makes sense with renewed content. Besides texts...we also need screenshots of working installations with different skins/plugins. If you will spend some time..maybe thats something for you ;)

    Not all modules are up2date atm as they are heavily modified to our needs and layout. As the new page is in sight Im not updating the old ones (besides security updates) without special needs. mxcomment for example wont be used in the future as a 1.5-native version isnt anywhere in sight.
     

    moullas

    Portal Pro
    January 15, 2005
    103
    0
    Home Country
    Cyprus Cyprus
    As the conversation went around the downloads, i would like to also say my opinion.

    Since MP plugins and skins are very version specific (many skins break after a version update, and also plugins), maybe it would be good to have some information in the site that all authors should fill in when submitting something so we can have let's say filtering of skins compatible with V1 or 1.01 and so on.

    These fields in my opinion should include:
    Compatible Version (of MP)
    Screenshot
    Description of software (With an actual description, since some authors just post the changelog, assuming that users know what their plugin does just by the name)
    Installation instructions (many plugins or skins need a lot of digging around in the forum, which may be a deterrent for new / novice users of MP)
    and (maybe) Forum Link


    My 0.02c
     

    Users who are viewing this thread

    Top Bottom