Changes To Pandorapress

[gruso]

Pretty soon it'll be time for some changes on Pandorapress. Nothing major, just a bit of a facelift and a few other changes to reflect the next phase of the project (shipping, using, and abusing B) ). I have a few ideas mapped out already, but I thought I'd throw it out on the forums as well to see what people have to say.

The plan so far:

• New category: Software releases
• New category: Software reviews
• New category: Personal projects (eg. VOIP, carputers, VNC/remote apps, custom peripherals, anything "non standard")
• New category: Second batch news
• New header, perhaps a new theme or tweaks to the existing one.
• Complete overhaul of sidebar menu, including easier access to the new categories.

I also want to consolidate the existing categories into a "pre-first batch" or "development" category. This is probably the trickiest part. Does anyone use the category links? Would I be lynched if 14 months worth of posts suddenly fell into one category? Probably. I'd like to draw a clear line between old and new, but I don't want to dumb down the historic archive as it were. Input on this is not just welcomed, but needed! We can move, rename, add, merge or remove categories as we wish - I just want to do it right.

Also, any suggestions about what you'd like to see linked in the sidebar are welcome. Dflemstr's wallpaper repo is high on that list.

 

[Nova]

Maybe a category for Hacks (hardware and software)?

 

[grasshoppir]

just gather tutorials and the regular press stuff and reviews you've been doing. no case mods, they scare ppl off.
less is more

 

[mali]

Cool would be an own category for UMPC/productivity to make it easier for the folks interested in that aspect, imo.

 

[gruso]

just gather tutorials and the regular press stuff and reviews you've been doing. no case mods, they scare ppl off.
less is more

Case mods scare you off. I always await your reaction to those topics.

We're not going to change the mission statement or anything, it's really about reorganising information so people (especially newcomers) can click a tab for new releases, a tab for reviews, etc etc. If someone does a godless case mod that happens to scrub up nice in a photo, I'll blog it (and always would have). But the personal projects category would also cover things like this:

http://www.gp32x.de...esent-you-with/

 

[dflemstr]

We're not going to change the mission statement or anything, it's really about reorganising information so people (especially newcomers) can click a tab for new releases, a tab for reviews, etc etc.

More cowbell, more AJAX/modern web features, and I'm happy. More categories, well, it won't really matter to me, because see below. I'm more for some technological improvements while you're at it.

It would be cool if you tried to do some SEO's so that people would find PandoraPress much higher up in the search results when you searched for Pandora. There are extensions for WP that do this automatically, and by for example not using images for links, but instead icon/text combos or SVG images, would help spiders immensely.

Oh, and I would be very happy if you would optimize PandoraPress for aggregation services like Feedly (Currently looks like this: http://i50.tinypic.com/2m2htew.png). I use Feedly (which is an interface to Google Reader) to gather updates from everywhere at once in an unified format (I get notifications for tweets from twitterix instantly instead of having to wait for a forum post to appear ). Optimizing blog entries is actually quite easy: Always put up an image for the entry, never rely on soft line breaks (aka you have to press *enter* at the end of every paragraph), put tags for the post every time, add links for every other word you type, provide an official tweet stream, etc. Things like these would also rank PandoraPress much higher in blog indexing services.

 

[Butterman]

We should probably have a link to buying a pandora, the amount of comments we get asking "WHERE DO I GET 1" is insane.

 

[Trevsweb]

a nice review catagory and a tutorial catagory would be a great addition.
just as a start. wouldnt want to take on too much just yet as those two should keep you very busy.

tutorials could be ranging from how to spray your cases/ case mods. to how to setup and use mame.
reviews could be the standard reviews on the applications etc

keep them two regularly updated that would interest me.
i think second batch news would be a bit of overkill as its really just news anyway.

in regards to the SEO mod on wordpress among other stuff, try name dropping in ever article keywords. like pandora etc will help alot even if its obvious and abnoxious that you have to say in ever article what the device your using is.
if your not already start tweeting the headlines on a seperate twitter account too with a link

 

[Dave18]

Maybe a section for setting up development environments. It would be nice to have some easy to understand instructions or better still things like Codeblocks templates; maybe including how to create the .pnd formats. It would save people reading through tonnes of technical forum posts and encourage more development.

I guess this is stuff that should maybe be on a wiki but PP should at least link to it.

Cheers

 

[Wrath Of Khan]

A tutorial section would be nice.Like how to set up mame or any linux/pandora stuff.Would be handy for new users,especially people like me who has very little knowledge of operating computers and techical stuff.etc.
Anyhow just a thought.Keep up the good work.

 

[Butterman]

Maybe a section for setting up development environments. It would be nice to have some easy to understand instructions or better still things like Codeblocks templates; maybe including how to create the .pnd formats. It would save people reading through tonnes of technical forum posts and encourage more development.

I guess this is stuff that should maybe be on a wiki but PP should at least link to it.

Cheers

A tutorial section would be nice.Like how to set up mame or any linux/pandora stuff.Would be handy for new users,especially people like me who has very little knowledge of operating computers and techical stuff.etc.
Anyhow just a thought.Keep up the good work.

We're planning on some introduction tutorials to give people a headstart on the Pandora. I don't remember if we ever did get proper code tags on the blog, but some behind the scenes work is going to need to be done if we want to display any technical tutorials on the blog itself.

 

[Consequence_9]

We're planning on some introduction tutorials to give people a headstart on the Pandora. I don't remember if we ever did get proper code tags on the blog, but some behind the scenes work is going to need to be done if we want to display any technical tutorials on the blog itself.

If you guys would like some help with tutorials (linux or otherwise... or anything for that matter) don't hesitate to PM me, I'd be glad to lend a hand =]

 

[Chest Rockwell]

If you want to accomplish both of those goals, why not just put the old blog onto a separate directory for archive purposes and have the new one with a fresh slate?

 

[kingoddball]

I do like the idea of adding a "Hacks" section and the IDE/SDK section (worded better above).

 

[Windy]

Cool would be an own category for UMPC/productivity to make it easier for the folks interested in that aspect, imo.

+1

a productivity or non games category would be good.

Also what about 'alternate OS' Category

 

[danielliu88888]

maybe a section for firmware and OS updates under software releases.

 

[atomicthumbs]

If we're gonna be changing the theme around it might be easier to redo it with Constructor.

 

[Prometheus]

Could I suggest including links to related resources, when particular types of software are being reviewed, or such?

Like, say, if you were reviewing, say, P-UAE, it might be worth pointing to the vast selection of legally-available formerly commercial Amiga software at Back to the Roots, for example. And royalty-free or open source font/artwork resources might be handy to mention with regard to productivity apps of various types, and so on.

To be honest, I'm sure you've already thought of it, but I figured I may as well throw it out there anyway.

 

[gruso]

It is with great pride that I announce our first new feature, "blog not working."

 

[BaDToaD]

Wow you've got it spot on Gruso