Task:Downloads catalog improvements

The main purpose of this wiki page is to gather ideas about how to improve Downloads.

Contents

[edit] Category reorg

We had long discussions about what packages categories to use. Implementation and deployment is currently blocked by bug #1805. The current catalog still shows a mostly randomly-selected list of categories. It should be reorganized to use the official list of categories agreed on by the community.

Implications:

  • New categories need to be configured.
  • All applications in non-standard categories need to be moved to new categories.
  • Redirect URLs need to be configured for existing category listings.

[edit] OS200x vs Maemo x

In the past Nokia referred to OS releases OS2007, OS2008, etc. The use of OS200x has been deprecated in favor of Maemo x (e.g., Fremantle is Maemo 5). The catalog is currently organized by OS200x, this needs to be changed to the new versioning scheme.

Implications:

  • New icons for OS releases.
  • URLs need to change as OS version is used.
  • Redirection needs to be configured for old URLs.
  • Downloads statistics need to be updated for new names.

[edit] Automatically create entries in Downloads when package in Extras has user/* section

At the moment not all applications which are available in Extras are listed in Downloads. A script could gather basic information for all user applications in Extras and create entries in the catalog. These entries can later be updated by users to give more details about the application.

[edit] Add Application Manager install failures feedback to downloads

There is a plan to integrate install status feedback into the Application Manager. Downloads could use statistics from installation failures to display the "quality" of a package.

[edit] Redesign Downloads front page

Implement current design proposal

[edit] Reporting back comments directly to developer

Currently comments entered for a package at downloads do not automatically get send to the developer (aka user/account that was used to create/modify the downloads entry). I repeately had the problem that comments entered by people that had problems with my software were only accidently detected a while later. Please send all comments for my software to my mail account. Also add a big button "Press here if you have problems" that offers a form to enter a free form message to the developer (bugzilla possible later, too?). Of course my email address should be kept hidden. User:framstag

We can enable mailing for comments, in fact it should be enabled. Will check this. We have a special field in the edit form where you can add the URL of your bugtracker, so people can easily file bugs. --xfade 09:17, 29 January 2009 (UTC)
Please further enhance this feature to cc: the email to someone at Maemo. I have been trying to contact a developer for weeks with no results (their package is embarassingly out of date and misleading to others) --gerritv 22:31, 31 January 2009 (UTC)
Who at Maemo, exactly? and why? Are they responsible for the package somehow? (I find it unlikely, and suspect they'd rather not be bothered by things that don't concern them) Or are you confusing Maemo and maemo.org? —GeneralAntilles 02:31, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Automatically add links to external resources based on package control file (homepage, source)

The package may contain a "homepage" field. If this is a case, automatically add a link to it to the web page of the package. Or is this already the case (have not tested this)? Or do we need a "Maemo-Homepage field" in case of direct port etc...? This could possibly enhanced to directly link to source code (Vcs-*, especially Vcs-Browser), too. However in this case one should add a "detail" rider to do not get the wegpage too crowded by default). Had a user that claimed it was hard to find the sources (in fact he did not find them at all ;-)).