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Paul Keith:
I think the blog is kind of useful because it serves as a digest and I read up on it regularly. (Like I missed out on the Wordpress topic) It's just that it doesn't look like your traditional blog that's why no one pays much attention to it and to be honest - it's not as intuitive when on the main page. (You have to go to the blog link just to see a giant orange rss button for example)

Then there's the easy to ignore yellow sidebar which isn't very obvious in saying it's updating software.

This is more a suggestion than a mock-up but I think most of the forum issues can be solved by simply renaming the main page into the DonationCoder Forums. Also a sidebar that shows and explains one random app would be nice.

My main worry about sorting software though is that there's no easy way to do it and it could easily turn out like this:

http://www.portablefreeware.com/all.php

Things like PopUp Wisdom would be easily buried under that sort of structure.

Contrast this with how spacejock.com sorts this:

http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter.html

Unclear, vague and you have to know what the software's name is - on the other hand it works because you want to explore the site.

mouser:
I think it's decided: We are going to have a new front page!

And we might as well unveil it publicly on the first day of the scheduled fundraiser, March 1st.

So now we have to figure out just what it is we want on our front page -- keep the suggestions coming.

One ground rule:

We aren't ready to majorly redo all of the pages, so the rest of the pages on the site (see the links at the very top of the site) are going to stay unchanged, and we aren't going to be moving to a cms (yet).

So, any more thoughts?

Ath:
I think it's decided: We are going to have a new front page!
-mouser (February 13, 2011, 12:39 PM)
--- End quote ---

Yay!

So, any more thoughts?
-mouser (February 13, 2011, 12:39 PM)
--- End quote ---

I'd vote for a group of top 5/top 10's, as suggested above, displaying newest forum messages, DC software updates, completed Coding Snacks, updated NANY entries, Blog posts, etc.

mouser:
Yeah i'm kind of thinking that way too.. though i think we want to try to avoid it being too cluttered.

Edvard:
The one thing that attracted and held me to the site way before I discovered the awesome forums  :-* was the Coding Snacks section.
This was something NOBODY else was offering at the time and NOBODY has matched since; therefore I think the Coding Snacks should be a highlight and gateway/introduction to the many other things DC has to offer.

While the blog has taken center stage since the last revamp, I don't think it needs to go away, because it too is very different from most site's idea of a blog.
Most blogs (like, ~99%) are just a posting of news links or short opinion pieces that folks join in and comment on, but DC's is more like an open invitation to eavesdrop on and even join in with a private conversation amongst a gathering of friends, which is another thing NOBODY else does.

So, IMHO, I think Coding Snacks and the Blog (as it is) are two things that should stay on the front page, but definitely MUCH more love needs to be shown to the Coding Snacks and Software sections.
I say keep the software update section, put Coding Snacks front and center, and downsize but don't eliminate the blog.

Double helping on the Humble part of that opinion... :-[

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