Kerbal Stuff, an open-source Space Port replacement

[nli2work]

nice! just set myself up. Thanks!

http://beta.kerbalstuff.com/mod/16/Kerdoz_the_Great

[Eisfunke]

Looks really nice! Maybe kommunity will accept this better than Curse. Keep up the good work!

Where do you host this? Is it going to endure the load of the kommunity if it grows bigger?

[SirCmpwn]

Looks really nice! Maybe kommunity will accept this better than Curse. Keep up the good work!

Where do you host this? Is it going to endure the load of the kommunity if it grows bigger?

It's currently hosted by Majiir, on beefy servers that can easily endure the load.

[Justin Kerbice]

@SirCmpwn: a random feature idea I just got => get some kind of counters of mods popularity (main page display count, downloads, followers, others all together, maybe in a weighted average), and display the least popular mods.

Kind of the opposite of the former spaceport feature.

Why you may ask ? Because when there is thousands of mods, some may be ignored for a while and can disappear far "below the ground" before someone finally dig and found them. I lost the count on how many times I've discovered here an "old mod" which is as great as hidden ! I guess I'm not the only one in such situation.

[SirCmpwn]

@SirCmpwn: a random feature idea I just got => get some kind of counters of mods popularity (main page display count, downloads, followers, others all together, maybe in a weighted average), and display the least popular mods.

Kind of the opposite of the former spaceport feature.

Why you may ask ? Because when there is thousands of mods, some may be ignored for a while and can disappear far "below the ground" before someone finally dig and found them. I lost the count on how many times I've discovered here an "old mod" which is as great as hidden ! I guess I'm not the only one in such situation.

I hope to feature cool/new mods on the front page, which would ideally get them some traction. I'm not a huge fan of having a part of the site dedicated to "the worst mods".

[tygoo7]

This is really cool. I like it a lot more than Curse. Are you going to add categories like parts, plugins, engines, science, ect.?

[SirCmpwn]

This is really cool. I like it a lot more than Curse. Are you going to add categories like parts, plugins, engines, science, ect.?

Yes, that's planned.

[Ippo]

You rush this thing together in a few hours? Visually ugly and lacking all around.

If you have any issue or suggestion for the website, go here and open a clear, well formed issue or design suggestion.

If you'd rather be a prat instead, keep up the good work.

Edited June 26, 2014 by sal_vager
Language

[SirCmpwn]

I've heard your feedback on the design, and I sat down with a friend of mine who does design for a living. We went over the site and I heard his suggestions, and I feel more confident about the visual direction I can take this.

I've started working on redesigning it, you can see the progress here: http://beta.kerbalstuff.com/

[mushroomman]

This is amazing of several levels. I really hope this takes off.

And as much as I like the little preview images behind the text, it's pretty non functional unless the images are offset to the right. Which would look pretty great if everyone did it.

I also don't get why the white bar thing with the text on it slides over to the right when you mouse over the mod. Are you planning to have more text appear there?

Great work!

[SirCmpwn]

This is amazing of several levels. I really hope this takes off.

And as much as I like the little preview images behind the text, it's pretty non functional unless the images are offset to the right. Which would look pretty great if everyone did it.

I also don't get why the white bar thing with the text on it slides over to the right when you mouse over the mod. Are you planning to have more text appear there?

Great work!

The animation just adds a little extra interactivity is all. Regarding the "offset to the right", I don't think it's a huge deal. People will learn about it and upload images accordingly.

[Keldaria]

I've heard your feedback on the design, and I sat down with a friend of mine who does design for a living. We went over the site and I heard his suggestions, and I feel more confident about the visual direction I can take this.

I've started working on redesigning it, you can see the progress here: http://beta.kerbalstuff.com/

A few thoughts, these are just my thoughts so take them as they are

1: I like the redesign so far, the biggest change I like is the monochromatic background instead of a screenshot. Perhaps its just me but a busy background tends to distract from the rest of the site, especially if your putting text directly on it. If you like the style of a picture or image based background I'd suggest just having it show on the edges on higher resolutions and leaving the center underlayed with a single color to avoid eyestrain.

2: I like that some images from the mods can be shown in the backgrounds of the mod link on the mod selection screens so you can potentially see what you might be getting in part packs. However this also brings a possible ugly side effect as you probably need to include a way to report a mod that someone might put up with an undesirable picture, or undesirable file. Last thing you really probably want is a XXX picture posted on your front page for god knows how long because someone on the internet thought it would be funny. So an easy way to screen, moderate and remove bad content is something that needs to be considered (which maybe you already have and there is a background moderators functionality that I haven't seen.. I haven't really dug into the code so I would know).

3: The sliding overlays on the mod links from the selection pages seems to be an interesting feature but entirely random in how they are currently working and deciding where the base overlay is vs where it goes when it hovers. Some mods seem to show a full overlay from the start while others start half covered. It would be interesting to see this feature expanded however so when hovering over a mod link it will expand and show a mods summary description for ease of use. (NOTE: this feature seems to have become more consistent since I started typing this post, so I assume your working on this =P )

4: Pictures in the actual mod area's are good, and clicking on the image sends you to the actual image. That isn't bad, but I think it would be a nicer approach if you set them up to enlarge in some type of overlay window. Just seems odd for them to redirect to the actual image file is all. You may also think about making an image gallery tab so users can toggle to it and see what parts and or functions a mod might be making available to them. The way that its setup now is great for a handful of photos mind you but you never know when more than a few would be nice.

5: Mods without images seem a little off on the selection area by appearing as a white box with text. You might try creating a generic image that gets applied if no other images are available. This image could also coordinate with a particular category of mod when those get added. It doesn't have to be anything dramatic, just something to soften the impact on those pages.

6: You've already adjusted the search bar which is great. I was confusing its submit button earlier with a button that would go to a mod submission page, so I'm very happy to see the button relabel to "Search" =). I would have probably still kept it in the menu bar at the top however so that it would always be accessible.

7: I like the fact that your account/profile remains private and not publicly viewable until you say otherwise. Mind you I don't mind it personally if all my stuff is public, but after handling forums and websites for many clans, I do understand that some people just like privacy. The profile itself is very basic yet sufficient enough to serve its purposes, but I always tended to like simple and basic for this sort of stuff. After all, we don't need every website to be a facebook style profile setup do we?

8: The profile page image appears to be the background, while not a terrible idea (I actually like it to be honest), I do feel there should be a slightly transparent overlay box for the text to be placed on for ease of reading. Case in point your profile page has areas where your background makes it harder to read what you've wrote.

9: I found a comment section on your blog section. I do feel that I should point out that if your comment system doesn't make use of your websites login system to post comments then IMO it should probably just be removed. Its just awkward signing into a website and then finding I need to sign in to a different service to comment on something at that website.

----------List of Feature Suggestions -----------

1: allow users to create and share mod lists independent of their follow list. I know for many games that enable mods that I like to check and see what other people are using so that I know what to look at or try. Well why not formalize this by allowing users to create, publish and even vote/rank mod lists. These list should allow both the use of hosted mods from your site and the ability of the list creator to link to off site mods. Such lists would make it infinitely easier for friends to share their favorite mod setups, Make server owners for multiplayer servers easily able to show potential joiners what they need, and would allow for newbies to easily find that amazing mod list that makes things super realistic or find what others are using. These lists should also allow search tags or possibly categories to make them easier to sort and find what your looking for.

2: Its already been suggested that you expand to include ships/vessels. I think this is only a natural extension of a mod repository. You could even allow mod makers to link/post to sample ships to help users get into the mod easier. FAR for example, I found extremely hard to adjust to until I downloaded and experimented with a few ships that were made with Far in mind. It also helps everyone cure the "I wanna fly Apollo 11*" flu that I'm sure we all get from time to time (* replace apollo 11 with whatever ship you always wanted to play with). Ship creators could also link to mod list (if you set that up) so that users will know which mods are needed for the ship to work.

3: Comment system on mod page, it would be nice to have a limited comment system for mod pages. This should be limited, probably twitter style (140 characters) to keep the comments short and sweet and not promote forum style conversations. You goal should be to create a service that compliments the KSP forums and not something that tries to compete (which I'm sure you would agree with).

Thank you for taking your time to look over my feedback, feel free to use or ignore it as you wish, I understand that its simply not possible to please everyone all the time so I take no offense if things get ignored or if you / others disagree with my opinions =)

Nice work so far, I'm really feeling like its coming together. Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Edited June 27, 2014 by Keldaria

[SirCmpwn]

Thanks for the detailed feedback! I'll see if I can respond to all of it.

1: Do you like the background now? I think I've settled on this one.

2: Admins are able to edit/delete mods as if they were the owners of the mods. If this is abused, I might change it. There is partial support for requiring modders to have their first couple of mods manually approved, I might turn that on if need be.

3: This should be consistent now.

4: I kind of like how it behaves now. Nice and simple, no BS.

5: I agree, but I'll sort this out later.

6: The navigation bar is pretty much going away, so I don't think this is entirely relevant any more.

7: The minimalism is indeed something I wanted. The reasoning behind allowing private profiles is so that users could use the site to subscribe to mods and such without showing up publicly.

8: This is totally broken as a side effect of the redesign, I'll fix it soon.

9: You can leave comments anonymously or with just a name. This was just an easy way to get comments for blog posts. Might change it at some point.

Feature suggestions:

1: I think this would be a good application for a third party site to build

2: Still unsure about that, but I am considering it. It seems like many modders are against it and they're the most important ones to please.

3: No, comments are intentionally left out.

[Keldaria]

1: Background is good, slightly textured but it doesn't take away from the rest of the site. Just need to make sure it doesn't blend with any of the text making it hard to read. I know you'll ensure that part later so I'm not to concerned atm if a few area's have a part or 2 thats hard to read like the stuff formally in the banner... mind you its not that bad but you understand what I mean.

2: good to hear, if you can't trust admins then I'm not sure why they would be admins anyways.

3: looks good

4: if that's what you like that's fine, I just felt it might look like a more polished site if clicking on images would blow them up in the window instead of taking to the image file, just a personal preference I think.

5: noted, I figured you'd be sorting a number of the items I mentioned out later anyways.

6: Hmm, not necessarily a choice I would have made, but I always find it difficult to make a website properly function without some sort of common menu bar. I've seen some websites operate pretty well with a minimalist style and functionality, but I just have never been able to make one work well myself, so my opinions here should be taken with a grain of salt I suppose. I guess we both have slightly different opinions on what a community repository should be, I always figured something more robust and more inclusive would be nice, focused on 1 or 2 specifics no doubt but built up with features that compliment those core functions. You seem to be more focused on just the task at hand, not a bad thing, just different strokes and all that jazz =).

7: Minimalist style is something I enjoy too, and when it makes sense, minimalist features to keep the site from getting its true identity confused. Profiles are an excellent example of where sites can go overboard, Vbulletin 4 IMO really went overboard when they almost created a facebook style profile setup for members.

8: Construction dust is just part of the process.

9: It appears to require that you register with Disquis or signin with one of their SSO plugin accounts. However maybe my browser is borked.. not too concerned tho, as I said, I just think the feature should ether be scrapped or merged under your login system if you want to keep it, as I don't like sites with features that are schizophrenic when it comes to using a login. Mind you its not a big or key feature here so this might not be a big deal to most.

Feature Suggestions

1: That's fine, I just felt it was a natural extension of a mod repository as you would already theoretically have a fair share of the mods being hosted there and it would be convenient for users to just make a list by just selecting which mods they want to add to it.

2: Not sure why the modders would be/are against it. However I'll take your word on it. Just seems again like a natural compliment to a mod repository. Ship files typically make mods they use more popular as they might otherwise not get downloaded, so I thought it would have been the opposite. I'm still somewhat new around here tho, so what do I know =P.

3: fair enough, they weren't needed and to some extent would have created additional moderator work if they were to be monitored. So I can see why they would be left out.

[SirCmpwn]

Redesigned the mod listing page: http://beta.kerbalstuff.com/mod/16

[mythic_fci]

My two cents on the new design:

Nice work! The background fits in way better now. Just one thing: could you add the white bar back at the top, where the Kerbal Stuff logo is?

[SirCmpwn]

My two cents on the new design:

Nice work! The background fits in way better now. Just one thing: could you add the white bar back at the top, where the Kerbal Stuff logo is?

Yes, I will probably add that back in (but not immediately).

[Virtualgenius]

I registered before it went open beta will my account still be there or I have to register again I tried the forgot password link but generated the following error

Not Found

The requested URL was not found on the server. If you entered the URL manually please check your spelling and try again.

Rowsdower said he would publish any news on a new community site so I will PM him

Edited June 28, 2014 by Virtualgenius

[SirCmpwn]

I registered before it went open beta will my account still be there or I have to register again I tried the forgot password link but generated the following error

Not Found

The requested URL was not found on the server. If you entered the URL manually please check your spelling and try again.

You will have to register again, there was a database wipe. Thanks for reminding me to implement the forgotten password page, though (whoops).

[Virtualgenius]

My pleasure always happy to help out as i would really love to see this take off, I have re-registered worked perfectly

Edited June 28, 2014 by Virtualgenius

[Justin Kerbice]

I hope to feature cool/new mods on the front page, which would ideally get them some traction. I'm not a huge fan of having a part of the site dedicated to "the worst mods".

Quite a late reply, the idea was not to "promote" worst mods but to avoid mods people don't know too much to disappear deep inside mods catalog.

Some example of good stuffes: SurfaceLights which add lights similar to KSPX abandonned lights, or the WIP/unfinished DoPToOT Aerospace, both are good, but how many people are still aware of them ?

[Thesonicgalaxy]

I already LOVE the idea of this, and I'm loving the site. However, I encountered this and wasn't able to upload my mod.

"Not Found

The requested URL was not found on the server. If you entered the URL manually please check your spelling and try again."

I'll try again in the morning. See if it works then. I am still loving this way more than curse though.

[SirCmpwn]

I already LOVE the idea of this, and I'm loving the site. However, I encountered this and wasn't able to upload my mod.

"Not Found

The requested URL was not found on the server. If you entered the URL manually please check your spelling and try again."

I'll try again in the morning. See if it works then. I am still loving this way more than curse though.

What URL is in your address bar, and at what point did this error occur? I saw someone hit a 404 on "/create", which is the old URL. It's now "/create/mod", but the old URL isn't mentioned anywhere on the site.

[Thesonicgalaxy]

What URL is in your address bar, and at what point did this error occur? I saw someone hit a 404 on "/create", which is the old URL. It's now "/create/mod", but the old URL isn't mentioned anywhere on the site.

It happens as I'm uploading my mod, after a while it takes me there and /create/mod is in the address bar.

[SirCmpwn]

It happens as I'm uploading my mod, after a while it takes me there and /create/mod is in the address bar.

Oh, I see, you hit a somewhat obscure edge case there. You must make your profile public before you can create a mod. Sorry about that, you can do it on your profile page.