Why oh why did you !@#$% up the old repository?

I’m thinking there should be a way of letting new users find the most important snippets. For example, you might list the snippets that are useful in setting up a navigation menu (Wayfinder, Ultimate Parent) and so on. It certainly wouldn’t cover every useful snippet there is, but it could direct beginners to a place where they could start. An ’Explore Extras/Repository’ page.

Also, I don’t think that the distinction between MODx Add-Ons and Core Extensions is particularly helpful to newer users.

Quote from: PatrickSamphire at May 20, 2009, 06:27 AM

I’m thinking there should be a way of letting new users find the most important snippets. For example, you might list the snippets that are useful in setting up a navigation menu (Wayfinder, Ultimate Parent) and so on. It certainly wouldn’t cover every useful snippet there is, but it could direct beginners to a place where they could start. An ’Explore Extras/Repository’ page.

How would this be different than showing a highest rated view? Usefulness is likely one of the criteria folks use when clicking the stars, I would think.

Quote from: PatrickSamphire at May 20, 2009, 06:27 AM

Also, I don’t think that the distinction between MODx Add-Ons and Core Extensions is particularly helpful to newer users.

They may not think it is helpful atm, but it is very important for everyone to learn the distinction. The differences include licensing and architecture and will become clearer once a few Core Extensions are actually released and available.

Quote from: OpenGeek at May 20, 2009, 08:45 AM

How would this be different than showing a highest rated view? Usefulness is likely one of the criteria folks use when clicking the stars, I would think.

I’m thinking more of a FAQ about what snippets etc to use. So, if I want to learn how to do navigation, I would able to see a list of snippets that can be used to do core navigation tasks. Right now, if I go to Extras -> MODx Add-Ons -> Navigation, I’m given a list of 107 different add-ons on 11 pages. There’s no obvious way to sort these by relevance, name or rating. If I don’t know I want Wayfinder, for example, the chances of my finding it quickly are fairly minimal.

Obviously, the vast majority of these snippets are relevant to people at some point, but equally clearly, some are much more relevant to everyone. By having those highlighted, you make it much easier for a beginner to find what they want.

I guess I’m suggesting a more extensive ’Featured Packages’ broken down into some of the main categories.

Basically, give somewhere for a beginner to start.

Quote from: OpenGeek at May 20, 2009, 08:45 AM

They may not think it is helpful atm, but it is very important for everyone to learn the distinction. The differences include licensing and architecture and will become clearer once a few Core Extensions are actually released and available.

Fair enough.

markg,

I appreciate you taking the time to comment. We know the search isn’t perfect and that the new site needs work. Much of our attention has been balanced between improving the site (which is exceptionally important to both you and us) and work readying Revolution.

On the old site we know you could find stuff it was bad but at least you could get to it somehow. The new site extras section had to be refactored to be tied to user submission, user account logins, and ReleaseMe which is the new package manager/installer for Revolution that allows people to download and install new addons directly from the manager of revolution.

That being said there are broken elements that need fixing. We are planning an a-z, we will hopefully have the result sets corrected so that searches do result in recent versions instead of the old ones.

We have somewhat fixed the issues of short name addons but it is not an ideal solution.

In any event I will be adding specific feature requests/fixes to the website project and will address it very soon.

Search, and findability are huge usability issues that will be solved.

Thanks again for your passionate assertions.

I certainly also appreciate obvious whoopsies like the install page being missing. (Which we will remedy).

Yes,

you keep teasing us with Revolution, I can’t wait for the RC. Hopefully, it will make a nice Xmas present.

allows people to download and install new addons directly from the manager of revolution.

That would be great, and is even more teasing.

I’d just like to add that the repository search still doesn’t feel too great. I updated to 1.0, and trying to figure out which of the extras I’m using have been updated since the versions I use is not easy.

Plus add me to the list of users intuitively (but unsuccessfully) searching for addons in the main search-box on the upper right.

All classic 096x releases should work with 1.0 for the most part, save for some items like ManagerManager and Manager themes which interact with the Manager markup.

So... For months later, and still the repository doesn´t work properly?
Evo 1.0 is released though, and that´s nice.

Is there any timeframe put on fixing the repo?

Cheers
Amrit

Amrit, have you tried in any non-IE browser?

Some alternative (or conditional CSS) results pages for IE7 would be appreciated.
The footer lay itself inline with the star rating and hide/block everything.

mrhaw @ public work computer w/o permission to install Chrome.
//Now when I want to download things I have to save the page and remove footer div...