It's looking pretty nice. I was kind of expecting the resource discussions to take place inside the resource manager. It kind of feels disconnected the way it is now. I think it would be beneficial to be able to read the posts and the resource description on the same page. I'm thinking somewhere along the lines of how XenPorta does articles, if the forum system must be used for this. Other than that, for a first release, it's looking pretty damn good
I think I was expecting the discussion connected to the resource as well, but thinking on it keeping the discussion separate does reduce the clutter. Not sure whether it's a good thing - sometimes you need to read through the thread to know for sure whether the resource is what you're looking for or not.
In order to reduce clutter, I feel users should be able to create their own support "threads" within the resource. That way, it reduces the clutter and will likely make things easier to find for those who may be searching for a particular solution. As it is now, that one thread for the resource is going to be cluttered with all sorts of different posts.
The XenPorta article setup is what immediately popped in my head too (which I find mildly ironic because, speaking of reading a thread and seeing the feedback, right now there's what appears to be a virtual lynch mob out for Jaxel's head in the old official XenPorta thread because he's gone "AWOL" on support; I shrug and just slog through the thread itself for info and rely on Saeed's lovely FAQ instead, myself. You get what you pay for, and all, right?). One can hope there are plans to bridge it?
I wonder how it will effect those of us that sell commercial resources. It appears to be geared only towards those resources hosted on XF and available for download from there.
I suppose you could upload a fake file and then use the "External Link" field to link to where it actually is.
Not being able to have discussions in the release thread and having to create a separate discussion thread gives a feeling that it's detached somehow from the release. With a discussion thread needing created this defeats the purpose and requires for you to have more forums/threads tied to resources. You may reduce clutter in the resource thread true but you'll be offloading the clutter to the forum with the discussion threads with more space being taken up. You can see the clutter firsthand on xenforo to the point they've had to add a redirect forum to resources. I read before it was released that discussions wern't going to be part of the resource manager so I wasn't getting my hopes up. I'm quite happy using standard threads for resources.
I always wanted to have a "sub-threads" system at vB.org when I was the admin there. The idea was any modification would have its own thread, and support could be carried out in sub-threads with full support for having sticky sub-threads and all the other regular thread functions. We actually had a working "sub-threads" modification. Sub-threads were just regular threads, but they were tied to a parent threadid. With some magic in the php/templates in showthread.php/showthread templates you could effectively make threads in a certain forum have full blown "sub-forums" which contained the "sub-threads". Even the navbar was working correctly. Sadly, we never got a chance to test it out at vB.org. I always thought it was an idea worth attempting though, as larger modifications would have pages upon pages of support questions and got where it was impossible to keep track of everything.
I can see your thinking behind this and indeed i agree it's worth an attempt but when all said and done even with separated threads from the resource it's tied to long threads will still remain long threads there's just no escaping that fact. Now let's play out a little sceanrio - A new member registers ventures off to the discussion thread and asks "can you provide a screenshot?" author/another member links them to the resource submission thread which adds to the clutter in the discussion thread. Now it's likely most people will know where the resource is, alot won't and accumulated over time your going to get these posts within the discussion threads piling up and adding to the clutter. I don't know, I'm not won over by this, I embrace change but the detachment that resources and the support/discussion thread our left with the feeling they are not part of each other and it doesn't entice interaction. Sub-threads, separated threads whatever you want to call them imo isn't working for me (I knew it wouldn't) but I wanted to wait and see the RM in action before I came up with my own conclusion and thoughts about this implementation. I hope they change their minds about this and tie in the discussions in with the release if not worries. Another after thought I had, for those sites that will use the RM will members that have contributed to that site re-post their resources? I know I wouldn't considering the amount of resources I've posted. I just haven't got the time to re-post all the resources I've submitted. Just another thing site owners will have to consider you may re-post all your resources but will the contributors at your site re-post everything? On that note, I hope the RM sells well and people get the use out of it.
Shelley one of the main things that held us back from using it was the fact that we felt it was so....complex. For a simple modification (most modifications are like these) its overkill. It's only useful for those modifications that become really popular (like a portal, or CMS for example) that are supported for many years by the same author/team. So my thinking was, use it for those large modifications, and for the small ones just have a single thread. But again, it goes back to begin complex as by the time a modification already gets that large its going to have a ton of posts in a single thread anyway. I don't know what to think of the RM yet, I'll give it three weeks. After that I'll be able to tell you if I like it or not.
I'll reserve judgement on this for now but after a few minutes of searching for a particular mod I finally found it via the Resource and Add-on Archive forum. So far I've seen a lot of bloat introduced at the expense of functionality i.e. the forum categories have expanded considerably and I couldn't find what I wanted using the Resource Manager. Having to flip between the actual resource and support discussion also seem to be counter productive to me. I think it's too early to pass judgement and I'll assume the set up in addition to the coding is still a work in progress. My first impressions are not particular positive though [EDIT] The more I look at it the more confused I become. For example, under the Resources tab there's a category listing. If I select 'Add-ons: Major Add-ons (10)' from that list I get no results.
That I can't wait till I get my hands on it! After taking a look it though I too would have preferred if it kept the resource in the forums, or at least showed the thread posts on the same, instead of being isolated. Seems others are thinking the same way (ref). I would imagine you can still post in the forums, in particular the "Resource and Add-on Discussion" forum.
I'm growing increasingly concerned over the concept of making various functions separate from the forums. First it's that #$)(*&#$ report center for reported posts, and now we have the Resource Manager. It's something I'm uncomfortable with, and doesn't fit well (IMHO) with making features integrated with the site overall.
... and it looks like they've already created a new forum for Commercial add-ons. http://xenforo.com/community/forums/commercial-resources-and-add-ons.61/
I would prefer a system where the discussions were on the resource page. It means less clutter and users not having to go back and forth as others have already mentioned in this thread. To me it makes no sense to have a downloads/resources section and also a forum for support and discussions. User lose interest fast and having them look at a resource and then have to go to a forum to ask a question is crazy. Let them ask right on the same page.
It's really bad that they chose to exclude the paid add-ons. I guess I am not neutral in this since I have been selling add-ons lately, but it is a little disappointing. I have been pushing to have instead an app-store, not a downloads manager. But this is 2 generations away from that. The killer feature would be a "1-click install on my forums" though that is a lot more difficult and the devs don't seem that engaged with that. Even worse is the fact that the paid add-ons are buried in a commercial forum that is probably not going to be seen by anyone. At least they should have given them representation in the navbar.
For now I was shocked as I saw the huge forum homepage. Also I think discussions should be attached to releases in some way.
Now it's time for built-in collapsable categories. I expected that they would go for paid addons. They have to pay their bills. Furthermore, only they needing it will actually buy it and only them will need support for it. Good choice. Pay once 140 bucks and after every major release another 40 to get all isn't a good business model for XenForo.
