 Notice. New forum software under development. It's going to miss a few functions and look a bit ugly for a while, but I'm working on it full time now as the old forum was too unstable. Couple days, all good. If you notice any issues, please contact me. |
Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : Suggestion: Software Releases Thread
| Author | Message | ||||
Hawk Senior Member  Joined: 15/07/2021 Location: AustraliaPosts: 141 |
I’ve noticed that the existing PicoMiteVGA games thread continues to get longer, and is full of a mixture of announcements, and discussions about various games. I would like to suggest that this forum instigate a system similar to another forum that I’m a member of. Each year there is a thread created where software creators put a single post announcing the release of a piece of software. It can include a brief description of the software, any special requirements, where to get the software, screenshots, etc. They also include a link to a new topic for that software where any discussions related to that software are posted. You end up with a single announcements thread, and a discussion thread for each piece of software. Here is a link to one of the announcement threads on the forum. Vic20 Denial Software Releases For 2023 On this forum, it may also be relevant to have a similar announcement thread for new hardware, as there quite a few hardware developers on here. Hawk |
||||
palcal Guru  Joined: 12/10/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1873 |
I have a lot of trouble searching the forum, maybe I'm doing it wrong, but I'm all for anything that makes searching easier. "It is better to be ignorant and ask a stupid question than to be plain Stupid and not ask at all" |
||||
Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 6798 |
Now all you have to do is to make it work. :) I love this sort of idea. I'm also an admin and super-mod on another forum and I *know* that people are human and rarely keep to such systems voluntarily for long. :) YMMV, of course. Or maybe VIC users were/are a special breed and don't have thread drift? ;) You have to be careful. These systems only really work if the forum users themselves want them to and will use them voluntarily - they have to do their own organizing. It's no use depending on mods to sort them out as (I know from experience) if they were to attempt to they would rarely have time to do anything else - and they do the job voluntarily. It also depends on what facilities the forum software has for moving posts from one thread to another. It can get tiresome sometimes! The PicoMite VGA games thread was actually an attempt to do exactly this, to collect all the games into a single thread. It's not that long (only 4 pages), but not because there have been a lot of games released so *by year* it would still have been about the same length. It only started less than 4 months ago. I can't really see a point in repeating it. Hardware is a bit special and I think the existing scheme of one or two threads dedicated to a particular device is probably fine. If you do a forum search the chances are that you will find them easily enough. The problem comes when you are trying to find small hardware (or software for that matter) ideas that may have been in the middle of other threads. There's rarely a way to find these easily unless you know the context. Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
||||
| Hawk Senior Member Joined: 15/07/2021 Location: AustraliaPosts: 141 |
The Vic20 users are a good bunch. 😉 You can see that they’ve been managing the software releases like that for more than 10 years. It has evolved over time from a simple announcement with a screen shot and a link to the discussion thread, to a point that describes the type of software, the hardware requirements and links to the actual software. My understanding is that this is managed by the users, and would certainly be the preference. The PicoMiteVGA games thread is what made me think of this idea. The announcements of the software releases are lost in amongst discussion posts. It could be a single Software Releases announcement thread and the announcement indicates the platforms that it is compatible with, or there could be a thread for each hardware. I’d be really keen to see this in place. |
||||
Plasmamac Guru Joined: 31/01/2019 Location: GermanyPosts: 554 |
+1 for palcal Plasma |
||||
Martin H. Guru Joined: 04/06/2022 Location: GermanyPosts: 1114 |
hmm, most of the discussions take place there between the developers of the software offered there. So you have to decide whether you want to find it convenient and therefore want to stop these discussions, then fewer programs will appear. JM2C. 'no comment |
||||
| Martin H. Guru Joined: 04/06/2022 Location: GermanyPosts: 1114 |
Look at it positively, this may also be a reason why newbees are rarely deterred with the standard answer in other forums "Use the search function". Edited 2023-08-02 01:36 by Martin H. 'no comment |
||||
| Mixtel90 Guru Joined: 05/10/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 6798 |
Martin has a point. At what stage is a program completed and is worthy of a link to it's "special place"? :) I don't know about you, but I don't think I've ever actually "completed" a program, just got it to a point where I don't feel like doing anything else to it! I know when I've finished with a PCB. I've run out of space. :) Mick Zilog Inside! nascom.info for Nascom & Gemini Preliminary MMBasic docs & my PCB designs |
||||
thwill Guru Joined: 16/09/2019 Location: United KingdomPosts: 4043 |
That's up to the programmer: - When the programmer is ready they write a short post on the "new software thread" with an optional link to a separate "discussion thread". - We agree that nobody ever comments, discusses or rambles within the "new software thread". - If the programmer creates an updated version of the software they can optionally add another short post on the "new software thread". It's a shame that our CMM2 software curator Jiri https://cmm2.fun/ seems to all intents and purposes have dropped out of the shed because his website was really fulfilling this role at least for the CMM2 and I had hopes he would extend it to cover the PicoMite. I'm sure someone will also mention using http://www.fruitoftheshed.com/ but even I can't bring myself to like that wiki, the underlying software is just too awful, sorry  ."Art is never finished, only abandoned." - Leonardo Da Vinci Best wishes, Tom Edited 2023-08-02 02:44 by thwill Game*Mite, CMM2 Welcome Tape, Creaky old text adventures |
||||
 Print this page |
