Comments and suggestions concerning the XMPlay Support site

[Rah'Dick]

As I am now in charge of the support site, I want to hear your honest opinion about what you like or dislike at support.xmplay.com. I also want to know what you'd like to see in the new version, which will be implemented using PHP and MySQL.

For example, I'd like to have ratings and comments for downloads and articles.

So what do you think?

[Maserati]

where to start...

I think instead of showing the old default skin, maybe have a collage showing off our best skins.

I don't like the 'XMPv3' logo.  maybe just remove it tottally from the site, dont need to change the files though.

I would like to see a rating and # of download's for each plugin and skin if possible.

Also the buttons on the top for the index, plugins, and add-ons although i like the easy layout, the buttons look kinda cheap. 

Also and perhaps most important is better integration with the main page (un4seen.com).  I only noticed the support page exists after using xmplay for a couple months.  Currently its too hard to find.  Likewise, try to keep the color scheme similiar/same.

[Zarggg]

I would like to see a rating and # of download's for each plugin and skin if possible.

Honestly, this might not be a good idea. I know I have downloaded the same plugins dozens of times myself.

[Brian]

Please encourage all skin authors to make their source files available for download. Of course it's their decision.

[Rah'Dick]

Honestly, this might not be a good idea. I know I have downloaded the same plugins dozens of times myself.

It's for a general impression of popularity, so +/- 20 from the same person doesn't matter that much, I guess.
By the way, I do intend to keep the colour scheme similar, but I'll most probably redo pretty much all of the graphics in order to maintain a consistent visual style.

[SAM]

Hey guys,

I really love this cool little "FREE" player.

I would like to have a plug-in which can do room equalization & another one to make the speaker equalization. I guess, we may use a standard microphone (MIC) attached to the system. By sending the full burst of frequencies from 20-20KHz at constant amplitude & by listening through the microphone, compare the received amplitude for the full range of 20-20KHz. Whatever frequency is lagging, we can add up the juice by adding extra gain for those sluggish frequencies. Also some woofers get saturated very soon & it sounds too boomy & muddy. This automatic room equalization may help those.

BBE sound like enhancer may enhance the listening pleasure, which I really love to have.

Thanks & Keep up the good work !
Sam.

[Tsorovan]

I don't see what that has to do with XMPlay. Why don't you do this "calibration" with say Wavelab and appropriate VST/DX plugins, and then map the resulting room EQ curve to an EQ plugin you're running in XMPlay with the VST wrapper?

http://un4seen.com/forum/?topic=4712.0

[Rah'Dick]

I still want to know what you people want to see in the new site.

By the way - here's a status report:
- layout and graphics are done
- writing & editing news and articles from the admin interface works
- displaying news on the main site works
- some other things work, too, but you'll see that later.

[hekla]

how about a wiki like wikipedia..

[Rah'Dick]

I'm sorry, but I'm not going to code a whole wiki... And I don't want to take existing solutions either, because I think a Wiki just doesn't suit our needs. Thanks for the input, tho. There will be a possibility to post articles and comments.

[Maserati]

yeah i dont think a wiki is a good idea for this either.

One thing I would like to see is full resolution - not scaled down - pictures of the skins and dsp plugins.

[Rah'Dick]

That's not always possible on the main site - but I wanted a kind of a popup or other full-res preview, anyway

[Torkell]

As a thought, how about some sort of bug-reporting system? Nothing fancy, just the abilty to report bugs, comment on them, and for Ian to say "fixed in version foo" or not.

[Rah'Dick]

Good idea!
Now we just have to think about whether the forum isn't already good for this, since it would be yet another place to monitor for spam (and I don't have the time to do that). I often see people posting bugs when they actually just had a usability issue.

[Edit]
I think I should mention that I will update neither the old Support Site nor the XMPlay archive until I'm finished with the new Support Site - which will then contain the archive.
Work on the article system is done. Now comes the interesting part: the File/Download system, including guided setup of freshly-uploaded files for easy maintenance.

[Eek]

I think that it will be good if you add bug post form to the support page

[Rah'Dick]

Ok, here's a little update on the status.

Work on the site is almost done.
The article system works, all files from the old support site have moved to the new one and the file tagging is done, too. Now I still need to move/rewrite the articles, which is quite a task, since Keltic Danor had put much effort into that when he made the first site.

I kicked Download counting in favor of ease of use and direct linking, which is a pain when you have one of these "wait a few seconds while I passively activate the download" sites. And honestly, who's really interested in how many people have downloaded your stuff? There's a commenting/rating function for every file and article. IMO that's enough to give people an impression over the popularity of a certain file or article. If someone writes crap, it can be removed/edited very easily with the admin panel, anyway.

There's no bug reporting system YET, but it can be added afterwards easily.

Thanks for your input, people!

[Maserati]

rating system is more important than download counter.  just look at mozilla update

looking forward to seeing it!

[Ian @ un4seen]

Ok, here's a little update on the status...

It's sounding good. Can't wait to see it

[Rah'Dick]

The release is still some days away I guess.
Handling KD's old texts proved to be more difficult than I thought. Seems like I won't get around rewriting most of it. *sigh*
And then I still have to catch up with the latest plugins etc., so it's still quite some work to do there. I've written a little bug reporting system but that still needs the input form, which will be done in Flash to block out spam bots.

*continues writing the Beginner's Guide*

[Ian @ un4seen]

I don't think you really need to bother with a bug report system, that's what this forum is for

[Rah'Dick]

Alright, if you're able to keep track of everything... Less work for me then!

[Rah'Dick]

The new support site is online!

This thread can be closed now.

[raina]

Nice.

[Ian @ un4seen]

Very nice work! Particularly like the logo

I do have one little suggestion, and that's to separate the native and Winamp input plugins, so that it's clear which are the preferred option.

[Rah'Dick]

You're right. Done.
I removed the CD input plugin as well.

Edit: Yay, my 500th post!