Corrections & Suggestions
After clicking through WinWorld I've come up with a short list of suggestions and corrections.
- Space Simulator is under Applications - I'd have considered it as a game?, and says it needs 32 MB RAM. It only needs about 1MB after checking the retail box I have.
- Under User Control Panel > Overview, the Manage Attachments link doesn't work.
- VMWare 2.0 has no links, maybe someone just hasn't got around to publishing it.
- The applications listing is inconsistent, i.e. there's "Microsoft Access", and there's "PowerPoint". If it was changed to "Microsoft PowerPoint" it would be all grouped together more neatly. I've noticed a couple of times I've uploaded software thinking it's not on here, only to find it's somewhere else down the list due to the naming.
- Perhaps instead of having the Applications pages numbered as the listing is getting long, have a page for each letter of the alphabet. I'd think this would be quicker to find Norton Desktop for example by choosing the N page, instead of guessing maybe it's on page 7.
- There's filters by platform and application type which is handy, but how about one for language? I was looking to see if there was Japanese versions of Windows 3.x software for example, as I have a Japanese model of a 486 Toshiba laptop that only has DOS 6.22J and Windows 3.1J installed. Instead of having to go into each app, and check through each version what languages are available, whether to have a filter in place to bring up all software that's available on WinWorld in a specific language?
- Another idea I had was to have either a separate page, or maybe on the home page itself a section for voting of most wanted software that's currently not available on WinWorld. Perhaps have it where only registered users can nominate a specific software title they wish to find, but any user can vote what's been nominated. This may avoid having random anonymous users nominating all sorts of crap if it's restricted that way. It may also gauge more effectively what's in demand from WinWorld users.
- Space Simulator is under Applications - I'd have considered it as a game?, and says it needs 32 MB RAM. It only needs about 1MB after checking the retail box I have.
- Under User Control Panel > Overview, the Manage Attachments link doesn't work.
- VMWare 2.0 has no links, maybe someone just hasn't got around to publishing it.
- The applications listing is inconsistent, i.e. there's "Microsoft Access", and there's "PowerPoint". If it was changed to "Microsoft PowerPoint" it would be all grouped together more neatly. I've noticed a couple of times I've uploaded software thinking it's not on here, only to find it's somewhere else down the list due to the naming.
- Perhaps instead of having the Applications pages numbered as the listing is getting long, have a page for each letter of the alphabet. I'd think this would be quicker to find Norton Desktop for example by choosing the N page, instead of guessing maybe it's on page 7.
- There's filters by platform and application type which is handy, but how about one for language? I was looking to see if there was Japanese versions of Windows 3.x software for example, as I have a Japanese model of a 486 Toshiba laptop that only has DOS 6.22J and Windows 3.1J installed. Instead of having to go into each app, and check through each version what languages are available, whether to have a filter in place to bring up all software that's available on WinWorld in a specific language?
- Another idea I had was to have either a separate page, or maybe on the home page itself a section for voting of most wanted software that's currently not available on WinWorld. Perhaps have it where only registered users can nominate a specific software title they wish to find, but any user can vote what's been nominated. This may avoid having random anonymous users nominating all sorts of crap if it's restricted that way. It may also gauge more effectively what's in demand from WinWorld users.
Comments
Moved
By design as we have the attachments system in phpBB disabled. To be blunt phpBB is not sticking around very much longer
Probably. We'll check into this, it might have been marked bad.
ALL VIPS READING THIS!!! Please take a moment to scrub some vendor titles from product names. We have a separate field for vendor that is not currently shown publicly but can be added in trivially.
This requires a significant reworking of that page and I find my time would be better spent on a search page. The box has an autocomplete that I need to keep tooling but there's no full search page yet. One will come and I think that would be the fastest way to locate what you want.
This is a field that is free-form text and unlike the current filters we can't easily match up to in the DB. If I moved this over to a static set of options to select from we could do that but I did not know how to handle such with oddities such as Windows 3.1 "For east-central Europe" where multiple languages could be included. I'll need to poke the database when I'm not about to fall asleep on a keyboard to see what all we actually are using in that language field at this point.
Again more things for me to code. A nice novelty sure but I have things that take far bigger priority on the plate at the moment.
If you post these library inconsistencies on the board a VIP can make the needed changes. The library is absolutely not perfect at the moment but for just a few months it's come a long way.
I was actually thinking about this recently as well. We could possibly do this as a WinBoards thread for the time being (similar to the "Corrupted Archives" thread where the first post is repeatedly edited with an updated list). Any thoughts on that? I would be happy to maintain such a thread for awhile so we can build a list.
Unfortunately, this is more of an art than a science. First of all some product names, especially those from Microsoft, officially include the vendor as part of the name while others officially do not. (Most vendors wanted the freedom to have another vendor buy out their product) Second of all, many generic names such as "Access", "Word" and "Project" would potentially conflict with other similarly named products. Unfortunately when there is sufficient ambiguity, it is necessary to include the manufacturer or other info. Heck, just the other day I was reading about another 1980s product called "Excel". And may the overlords of database integrity have mercy on us if I ever acquire the early 1980s telecommunications product called "Microsoft Access". :?
My suggestion for the vendor field was to enable easy searching of product releases from specific vendors, regardless if the vendor is part of the name or not, or when the vendor name is not consistent (For example Visio used to be specifically from Visio Corp).
While the vendor field should be visible on the release page, it can not just be stringed together with the product name. Nor is it possible to eliminate all redundancy. (The product "" from "Netscape" won't exactly fit
Having used those elsewhere, those are not quite as useful as you might think. At the moment, the database is about the right size for that, but as the database grows, the entries under each letter would still become increasingly difficult to sift through. And you have to worry about if a name starts with "The", or some other branding prefix you weren't expecting.
For the time being, a Wanted Software topic here on the forums for discussing such things should be acceptable. I've been accumulating a long list of such products myself, and might post some of that eventually.
Everyone would be aware the search box isn't working, so my thoughts was it could have been a workaround until it's operational without having to modify the list from the ground up. In regards to "The", I wouldn't see a problem if was done as "Microsoft Office, The" as long as there's consistency. I do that myself with movies and music on my home server, as there's no shortage of them. In the end, you're right though about it losing appeal as it gets bigger.
http://www.winhistory.de/more/win31int.htm
According to this German website, the European version contains quoting with translation "it provides support for: English, Croatian, Czech, German, Hungarian, Polish, Romanian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian. It can be switched between two keyboard layouts." Countries such as Russia, Spain, Italy, and Turkey etc. get their own version.
If you do decide to go ahead attempting this, might be an idea just to start off with any new uploads first when testing the software.