Layout wishlist - About xda-developers.com

After impatiently scrolling all the way to the bottom of the Expanded Index to find the Motorola Droid Razr forum, I thought "god there has to be an easier way..." I found the Compact index and it's a little better, but still takes a lot of scrolling to get thru. Can we have an even more compact index, with only the phone models and not their sub-forums listed? I'm OK with having to click thru to get to the list of sub-forums. I was thinking of just a calendar/grid style layout. It could be a picture gallery, with the model names as the caption, or just text. Anything to reduce the amount of vertical scrolling needed to find a phone model.
And on a slightly related note - I would really love to see an index organized by chipset/phone architecture. Mainly because I'm playing with my Droid4 and want to see what other phones' software I could possibly take advantage of. I've found a lot of interesting items in the Droid Razr forum already, but there's obviously more out there that I haven't discovered yet.
For another example, there were whole series of phones built on the Qualcomm MSM720x chipset, both WinMo and Android. It appears that the XDAndroid builds for HTC Rhodium et al were also useful across non-HTC phones like the Sony Xperia 1.
It would help us, as developers, to know what hardware out there is similar to each other. It would allow us to better leverage all of the software development work that's taking place, and we would all make progress faster.
It could help reduce the clutter in the index page, if forums were divided by phone architecture, not Carrier-branded model names. E.g., I don't really see why the AT&T Captivate / T-Mobile Vibrant / other Galaxy S phones needed separate main forums.
My $0.02, after a few years of working with this stuff...

Mostly good ideas..
highlandsun said:
After impatiently scrolling all the way to the bottom of the Expanded Index to find the Motorola Droid Razr forum, I thought "god there has to be an easier way..." I found the Compact index and it's a little better, but still takes a lot of scrolling to get thru. Can we have an even more compact index, with only the phone models and not their sub-forums listed? I'm OK with having to click thru to get to the list of sub-forums. I was thinking of just a calendar/grid style layout. It could be a picture gallery, with the model names as the caption, or just text. Anything to reduce the amount of vertical scrolling needed to find a phone model.
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Click to collapse
So I agree with you on just about everything you said, that would definitely improve the site. I even agree with the revamping of the index. What I don't understand is why you're complaining about scrolling though. You could either use the provided search bar or even use Ctrl-F while in the index. Either way will get you to a specific phone pretty quickly, no scrolling needed. Unless I completely misunderstood you...

Related

Changes at XDA, Please Read

Hey Everyone,
I’ve been an XDA user (under another name) for a long time, but now I’ve been appointed a new role to work with Flar and the moderators to make the user experience here better. For example, some of you may have noticed that the site has gotten faster in the last several days and that there are fewer 502 gateway errors. This is no fluke—we’ve employed an expert server administrator who has been restructuring the database to allow for quicker access speeds and far fewer errors. There is still a lot of work to be done, but we’re off to a pretty good start.
Beyond improving site speed, number two on our list is to cut down on spam. We’ve already experimented with a few tactics that have had varying levels of success, and we’ll keep at it until we get it right.
We’re also working on a home page redesign (or the “portal” as some of you know it). Our goal is to make it a useful destination for finding the best content in the forums and to make it easy for users to find new information about a particular device without having to scan through dozens of threads. We are recruiting volunteers to help identify and "promote" content to the main page, which requires some writing skills (see the "news" posted to the home page in the past couple of days). If you're interested and serious about helping, send a PM to Flar; she is organizing the effort.
Finally-- and hopefully this doesn't cause a mass uproar-- we are considering the idea of selectively adding non-HTC device forums (focused on Windows Mobile and Android devices). Every day we get requests from users for this, and there's really no good reason why we cannot oblige them. Already the discussion is happening in the general forums. That said, we will only add new forums if: 1. We are confident added traffic won't cause site speed to suffer; 2. We can recruit quality moderators; and 3. The content and discussion is of high quality. The only way to know these things for sure is to try it out. So, within the next 14 days we are going to add two or three non-HTC forums. The delay is to ensure the site continues to operate at a reasonable speed and so we can figure out where to put the new forums (the forum homepage is already absurdly long and cluttered). We are open to suggestions as to deserving devices for our first non-HTC forums, so give us your ideas in this thread.
I look forward to working closely with you to bring about exciting new changes to XDA that will make the experience better for you.
Hi Svetius
I asked a while ago for a forum for the Roadster, HP iPAQ HX4700, unfortunatly i received no more information on the topic since I sent a PM to Flar, if this could be added as a new forum, i would be happy to moderate it
svetius;5335158
The delay is to ensure the site continues to operate at a reasonable speed and so we can figure out where to put the new forums (the forum homepage is already absurdly long and cluttered). We are open to suggestions as to deserving devices for our first non-HTC forums[/QUOTE said:
It's not that bad Just make a Bookmark
Thanks
Badwolve1
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XDA in 2010
Great to know about all this changes and modifications!
XDA is the number one forum on it´s genre
Personally I think adding non HTC devices could add a lot of intensive traffic and may deviate the main objectives and efforts from what this site was created, but I will support and promote any final decision made by Owners & Admin
Count with my help if required.
Just my 2 cents
Long live to XDA!!
It's great to see another Admin aboard XDA, and a very ambitious one at that! These sound like very exciting changes XDA will be going through, and some are much needed, like spam control and an update to the portal. I look forward to watching these take effect
Amen to non-HTC devices!
As a longtime HTC fan, I appreciate the great community we have here at XDA. But I'm looking to branch out, and I recenlty purchased a Toshiba TG01 that is a powerful device and I'd love to see a forum for that if there is enough demand.
The LG Expo is also poised to be a big seller here in the states; already there is work going on with that here at XDA, so perhaps that deserves a forum (it's one of the first WinMo Snapdragon devices after all).
Long live XDA!
PS Maybe a different color scheme would be nice, the yellow has been giving me lots of eye strain recently...
chambo622 said:
Amen to non-HTC devices!
PS Maybe a different color scheme would be nice, the yellow has been giving me lots of eye strain recently...
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If you use Firefox you might want to try this.
Very glad to hear XDA is dropping their completely non-sensical rule of not allowing non-HTC devices (oh, but we will allow Android on a WM-centric site? pfff)
Aside from l3v5y, none of the better known people on XDA I talk to on a regular bases agree with this rule (most think it's a really stupid move), so I'm sure a lot of people will be happy there will be change.
If I might be so bold as to make a couple of device suggestions:
- Samsung Omnia 2 I8000 GSM & I920 CDMA
- Samsung Omnia Pro B7610 & Giorgio Armani II B7620 (pimped pro)
- Toshiba TG-01 (aka T-01A)
- LG Expo (aka IQ, Monaco)
- Acer F1 (aka neoTouch S200)
Of course there are lots of others but most of them are quickly getting old... At least from my perspective these are the most important devices... Then again, what do I know, ey?
Nice to hear that you guys are so busy in making the experience better on XDA.
But I think we should not include those other non-HTC phones.
Personally I hate those Omnia's, they're in my opinion just crappy phones.
Sad to see it happen but you Mods probably know what's best for the community...
Sounds great to me!
It means my SE X2 will have your support!!!
Bravo!
Chainfire:
The main reason I've been opposed to extra forums is because it would impact the rest of the fora here. If the speed of this site is the first priority, and if this site can still achieve what it was made for (it's in the name really, XDA developers) then I can't really disagree.
Also, it would make a significant increase in the workload for the existing moderators, unless we recruit more....
I think it would work well if the devices selected were only ones that pass muster and are as feature rich as their HTC counterparts (e.g. Omnia II, Toshiba TG01 etc).
I'm fairly new to here, but one thing I do like is that this site is heavily slanted towards Windows Mobile. So while I think it would be great to welcome other Windows Phones into the community, I do not think that Android devices outside of HTC phones should be accepted.
This is absolutely awesome, thanks so much. Having the support of Xda-Devs is absolutely a must when buying a phone. until today buying a Samsung-device was completely unimaginable!
Maybe you can add some JS/AJAX to the page, so all device-specific subforums are folded, except the devices the user needs (multiple devices would be nice).
And IMHO you need a really good and catchy logo.
If you want me to help with designing feel free to send me a PM
What a great Decision
I am really happy to hear this. With my second smartphone (TD) i entered the world of xda developers and found answers for every question i ever had. I think it is the best place for discussions about htc devices. When i bought my Samsung Galaxy i was i little bit f***d up because of no more xda developers and it is great to hear this news now.
...hopefuly there will be a section for Galaxy Users?
I was crazy about xda back when I had an Apache/ppc 6700. But I am also a person who likes to try new things and move on to better things. There is no reason we should be penalized for buying a MOTOTOLA DROID or SAMSUNG GALAXY. Show us some love.
Great News Indeed
Wow! Just an awesome news! I think this is a realy good idea and the right way to became thes most important source for ALL Winmo (and Android) devices.
It's not nonsensical to focus on HTC devices on a website that is FOR those devices.
Imagine people asking for help with their Honda's on a Ford Mustang Forum.
As a long time XDA user, I love this website, when I got the Wizard, then the sapphire, I was insanely grateful to have such resources available to me on this site.
Eventually I got the DROID, at which point I had to abandon this forum, and all it's resources, which sucked, but I understand this isn't the place.
With that said, I am excited to see this forum open up for non HTC devices, as I will directly benefit from it. I am worried however that the forum may suffer not just in speed, but in focus. Think about those Chinese food restaurants that sell Italian food, hamburgers, and burritos, they make everything, but they don't make any one thing well. XDA forum is the equivalent of the BEST burger shop in town, so I think it is a very good idea to run a "Trial Period" and I hope for the best!
.... and yes svetius welcome on board mate
This site keeps getting better and better, I appreciate you guys taking time to consider and address suggestions (adding other popular phones-Android and Windows based) to the site. Keep up the good work guys and gals!
samsung galaxy

organize main page

HTC has been releasing a sh!t ton of phones recently, and thats a good thing for us. i have noticed through the years that the main page has become quite crowded. it may even save bandwith if you were to reduce the amount of phones listed on main page. a lot of pictures are loaded for people who wont even look at them. maybe list devices by year released? original os it was released with?
just a thought.
A full forum re-design is in the works, and saving real estate on the home page is part of the spec.
Dave
DaveShaw said:
A full forum re-design is in the works, and saving real estate on the home page is part of the spec.
Dave
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most excellent.

[Suggestion] "Off-brand" Android Phone and Tablet Forums

It seems like there are a dozen new Android phones and tablets coming out every week from unknown manufactures. Most of these are cheap Chinese devices, but they're not all junk, and smaller manufacturers from other countries get thrown into the mix as well. Right now, any discussion of these devices ends up in the Android General forums for lack of a better home. This makes these forums quite crowded with orphaned-device-specific posts, and useful general posts hard to find.
I suggest an new forum section for off-brand or generic devices. This section should have four sub-forums: phone general, tablet general, phone development, and tablet development. This would give these low-volume devices a home and declutter Android General significantly. It may even cut down on the requests for dedicated forums for obscure devices.
Not a bad idea actually. I like it, though not sure what the admin will think. I've suggested your idea to them and linked here, so we'll see what they say
Yea, I'm going to go ahead and throw my support behind this as well. Considering there's a new Android device released every week, it seems prudent to give those few users a spot to call there own.
I also support this, especially since I'm unable to afford larger-brand products, so I own a Coby MID1125 Kyros tablet and would love for there to be space specifically for it.
Thrade said:
I own a Coby MID1125 Kyros tablet and would love for there to be space specifically for it.
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Just to clarify, it would be a space for your Coby and other low-volume devices as well. It should be easier for you to find coby-specific posts there though.
Nice idea. If there were any type of voting going on then I'd be raising my hand straight away. This would surely benefit both the users without specific forums and the general lurkers, like myself.
Sent from my GT-P1000 using Tapatalk
Support cost-effective products
This is a great idea, many "off-brand" or "cost-effective" device development ends up in the Android OS fora scattered randomly.
this would be a great organizational addition for future posts and back-cleaning other forums.
XDA has always been a developers forum. We add devices depending on the amount of development and how good the device is. We don't support Chinese knock devices at all as they are not official devices with official firmware versions. Half the time a Chinese knock off will state it has certain hardware and it really doesn't. Remember only recently have we even added non HTC devices.
Well the admin thought this was a good idea and will be implemented in a day or so

Organize this website !!!

Seriously, this is one of the WORSE forums i've ever seen, when it comes to structure.
The content, on the other hand, is stupendous. Absolutely brilliant.
Back to the structure again. It's mildly unacceptable.
What beautiful mind came up with these 3 tabs ? "ALL DEVICES" "TOP DEVICES" and "NEWEST DEVICES" ??
Are we serious here? It's gruesome. Why do you guys keep them ?
Ok, let's say the answer is "we like them". Fair enough.
Let's try and search the forums. Holy crap, i have to scroll through a 2x2 list to find my device.
I'll have to blink my eyes SO FAST just to catch up a similar word to my device's name. Let it be
Samsung, Sony, Xperia, Nexus, Motorola or whatever you wish.
Guess what ? I did see the option "search subscribed forums" !! Very convenient...if only i could find out how to subscribe to one.
The structure of the forum looks like a tornado came by and put everything out of place.
Let's see...
General discussion (ok)
Marketplace (ok)
Drums rumbliing...
Windows 8
Windows Phone 7
Windows Phone 8
Windows Mobile
Android Developemnt
...
...
Ubuntu
Firefox (wtf ?)
Chef central (i'm a cook btw)
..
The stupidity begins
HTC Leo
Nexus
HTC Legend
Desire
Supersonic
SONY XPERIA X10
Samsung Captivate
blah blah
Motorola Droid 2
HTC Aria
Motorola Droid X
You get the point.
Why not keep 6 forums and make all the other sub-forums ?
In example
General
Marketplace
Windows ---> Inside this forum all the sub-forums
Samsung --> All Samsung stuff
Sony --- > All Sony stuff
Motorola ---> All motorola stuff
blah blah blah
This website LAGS like watching a movie shot at 1 FPS.
Maybe you can COMPILE a kernel for the website so it won't lag and give us a special button
to "Boost MyXDA" with "Browsing Mode" "Patience Mode" and "Quit Mode".
That's all i had to say. I really don't care if it will have any impact on any aspect of the website.
I'm just speaking my mind. It might look like an endless speech of flame but it is for the best.
Great content whatsoever and you are wasting it.
P.S: Excuse my poor English,as they're not my native language.
Thanks for your time.
-end-
I'm guessing you missed the little box that will take you straight to any device or the alternate layouts?
Sent From My Fingers To Your Face......
Well...anywho, maybe not the worst post to make up your 10.
Also, if you like it, take it..if not, then bye bye. It works for me pretty nicely.
K.A. said:
Well...anywho, maybe not the worst post to make up your 10.
Also, if you like it, take it..if not, then bye bye. It works for me pretty nicely.
Click to expand...
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The way he came across may have seemed offensive, however, I consider this as constructive criticism. :angel:
Having designed several successful communities (I know.. every Tom, ****, and Harry think they're a web designer, but hear me out), I have to say I somewhat agree.. On one hand, there are some great features to deal with the organization problems, but on the other, it would take one admin about one day to reorganize the sub-forums without losing any data whatsoever. It's very simple to make your forum more organized, and all forum software I've worked with has that feature.
Nonetheless, as mentioned the forum's highlight is the amazing community, and the amazing content.. The forum works, so why mess with a good thing. *meh*
NFleck said:
The way he came across may have seemed offensive, however, I consider this as constructive criticism. :angel:
Having designed several successful communities (I know.. every Tom, ****, and Harry think they're a web designer, but hear me out), I have to say I somewhat agree.. On one hand, there are some great features to deal with the organization problems, but on the other, it would take one admin about one day to reorganize the sub-forums without losing any data whatsoever. It's very simple to make your forum more organized, and all forum software I've worked with has that feature.
Nonetheless, as mentioned the forum's highlight is the amazing community, and the amazing content.. The forum works, so why mess with a good thing. *meh*
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yeah, I know, but as you said..its working, and has been for years. Agreed it may be a little unorganized but everyone's gotten used to it, so why change it?
Lol i'm still on the 2010 style.
I have to agree with the OP, the forums (layout wise) are an unorganized mess. The Galaxy S2 and S3 devices alone have like 10 different forums. Sure keep them separated but they should be sub-forums under a main S2 or S3 forum, same goes for other devices of course.
Thanks for the constructive criticism all, we welcome it!!
We actually put a ton of thought into the layout of the forum. We used to have it split up per manufacturer. Guess what, it doesn't make it any easier to browse the forum!
Most people look at one forum - and that is the forum for their device. They don't care about any other devices. We split up forums based on development. For example, the Verizon Samsung Galaxy SIII doesn't use the same roms or kernels as the AT&T Samsung Galaxy SIII. Don't blame us or the manufacturers, blame the carriers who make the manufacturers create their own specific versions of their phones.
The best way to find your forum for your device is to use the device search at the top, or the box next to it which will search the entire site. It is pretty good at finding the forum you are looking for when you type in the device name.
I agree that having 2 search boxes is sub-optimal. We have a plan to fix that, but as with most things, its never easy.
Regarding the page load times, a lot of that is out of our hands and caused by the ads. You can switch to the 1024 theme which has fewer ads and loads faster, or contribute enough that we remove the ads for you. We are also considering a paid subscription to remove the ads.
Hope that answers your questions, please keep the feedback coming!
I think what you guys should do is remove all tabs on the front page except General. There's no point in having devices when you have the search box. Also, you can go to the control panel instead of subscribed tab, and compact tab just seems useless to me. Other than the front page I think the site is great.I agreed with this guy on how the front page is. When I first joined here, the site was too busy. Even though I've gotten used to it, it's still looks busy.
New to this forum, can I change the forum home page to have my devices (sgs3 and nexus 7) appear above all the others?
Or whats the easiest way to access those devices forum? I keep scrolling through twenty other phones to find mine and that cannot be the best way..
Thanks
NVM- I found out how to subsribe through use of the app... Awesome app! almost preferable to using the site forums
Narcan Man said:
New to this forum, can I change the forum home page to have my devices (sgs3 and nexus 7) appear above all the others?
Or whats the easiest way to access those devices forum? I keep scrolling through twenty other phones to find mine and that cannot be the best way..
Thanks
NVM- I found out how to subsribe through use of the app... Awesome app! almost preferable to using the site forums
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
if you are on the main page www.xda-developers.com, just click on "forums" then there is a box at the top right. Start to type the name of your device and it will give you only those options that match the name.
for instance, I use the Galaxy Nexus forum a alot, what I do is go to the box and type "Galax..." and I already have it there to select with the other Galaxy Phones, or just type "nexus" etc...
I do the same for harder to find forums like Nexus One (currently using), HP TouchPad, HD2, etc... as well.
Because I frequent so many forums and switch phones on the regular, that search box is really the best way to go.
The thing is this forum supports SO many phones, many of them different only because of SoC (international Note / One X etc.. vs US variants) and they have to be split. if you use an N7000 Odin image on an i717, you are going to have problems. So no matter how they are arranged, it is likely that someone is going to want it changed.
The best advice I can give is to use the search bar I mentioned.
1.Bookmark
2.Subscribe
3.Device Search bar
That's it

[CLOSED] This is not an improvement.

Seriously, this new design of the forums is flawed to me. The old one was just fine.
The Subject line was in a readable font and stretched over the entire width of the page, not skipping lines because it's too large to fit. I could sort the entries in a readable manner. And this is just a truly ugly font I see when I write. Is it Verdana or Tahoma? They both suck, if you ask me. Just use Arial or Helvetica and that would be much better. Or even just Times New Roman.
Either way, I don't like the way this is going, it makes me not want to be here.
And it would be OK if I could just pick XDA Classic as a theme when it would actually look like it did before, but it's NOT xda Classic when I do that.
And how on earth do I perform a Search within a forum? Not the box at the top right, but within sub forum? This is just incredibly un-user-friendly. Sorry, it really is NOT an improvement, but many steps backward.
Oh and notice how my avatar has become a mess? This forum software can't even handle transparency? Never change a winning team.
jult said:
Seriously, this new design of the forums is flawed to me. The old one was just fine.
The Subject line was in a readable font and stretched over the entire width of the page, not skipping lines because it's too large to fit. I could sort the entries in a readable manner. And this is just a truly ugly font I see when I write. Is it Verdana or Tahoma? They both suck, if you ask me. Just use Arial or Helvetica and that would be much better. Or even just Times New Roman.
Either way, I don't like the way this is going, it makes me not want to be here.
And it would be OK if I could just pick XDA Classic as a theme when it would actually look like it did before, but it's NOT xda Classic when I do that.
And how on earth do I perform a Search within a forum? Not the box at the top right, but within sub forum? This is just incredibly un-user-friendly. Sorry, it really is NOT an improvement, but many steps backward.
Oh and notice how my avatar has become a mess? This forum software can't even handle transparency? Never change a winning team.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Here is the thread to use to voice your thoughts/posts. Next time search before posting.
[CLOSED] XenForo 2.2 Upgrade! Post Bugs, Issues and Comments Here
On 3/11/2021 at around 10am New York time, XDA will be upgrading our forum software to XenForo 2.2 which brings a bunch of new improvements, like a new thread preview tool, a Device Inventory tool to show off which phones you use, a most-thanked...
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