Kerbal Stuff, an open-source Space Port replacement

[cpast]

FYI, this mockup is not my work - it's the work of a friend named Chris Burns. More details around its conception will be provided when it's finalized.

I do like the mockup better, though I agree with Garoad about new mods vs. top mods. IMO, the site should target a bit more to frequent visitors than first-timers; new mods should definitely take precedence over static top mods. I might also cut the "Welcome to Kerbal Stuff!" area down a bit in height, because right now that's almost all the screen when I visit, and that will get annoying over time (or, better yet: make it so it shows like that for first-time visitors, but either with user accounts or with cookies or something, make it hideable, or just make it so that there's a separate link to a screen dispensing with it [like kerbalstuff.com/recent]).

[SirCmpwn]

I do like the mockup better, though I agree with Garoad about new mods vs. top mods. IMO, the site should target a bit more to frequent visitors than first-timers; new mods should definitely take precedence over static top mods. I might also cut the "Welcome to Kerbal Stuff!" area down a bit in height, because right now that's almost all the screen when I visit, and that will get annoying over time (or, better yet: make it so it shows like that for first-time visitors, but either with user accounts or with cookies or something, make it hideable, or just make it so that there's a separate link to a screen dispensing with it [like kerbalstuff.com/recent]).

This is how tall it is on the final version:

The ordering is featured, new, top.

[Tiberion]

Curious, did you try it with each mod shrunk so there's 4 across? It'd probably also be small enough so that a 2nd row is visible. Maybe it'd look like junk, but it looks good in my head

[SirCmpwn]

Curious, did you try it with each mod shrunk so there's 4 across? It'd probably also be small enough so that a 2nd row is visible. Maybe it'd look like junk, but it looks good in my head

Yes, but I didn't like how it looked.

[Rich]

The following is only an opinion, so feel free to ignore.

In my opinion having a "Get This Mod" for every listing is a waste of precious front page real estate. I think it would be better to move this text to a mouse over effect.

[Rainbowtrout]

Well, I signed up. It's a good layout, and shows potential.

[Justin Kerbice]

The following is only an opinion, so feel free to ignore.

In my opinion having a "Get This Mod" for every listing is a waste of precious front page real estate. I think it would be better to move this text to a mouse over effect.

Nice, I imagine the download link appear on mouse over picture (just a "download" or "download it"/"get this mod" text/button).

[SirCmpwn]

The following is only an opinion, so feel free to ignore.

In my opinion having a "Get This Mod" for every listing is a waste of precious front page real estate. I think it would be better to move this text to a mouse over effect.

Yeah, I'm not thrilled with it either. There need to be a clear visual cue that it's clickable though. Other suggestions?

[AlphaAsh]

Yeah, I'm not thrilled with it either. There need to be a clear visual cue that it's clickable though. Other suggestions?

A quick visual cue as the mouse runs over the image is enough. Anyone on the internet who doesn't think to move their mouse over an image is not likely to be experienced enough with the internet to be downloading mods. And if that's not idiot-proof enough then a single prompt at the top that says 'hover over image and click' or similar would suffice.

[SirCmpwn]

A quick visual cue as the mouse runs over the image is enough. Anyone on the internet who doesn't think to move their mouse over an image is not likely to be experienced enough with the internet to be downloading mods. And if that's not idiot-proof enough then a single prompt at the top that says 'hover over image and click' or similar would suffice.

No, I definitely think that an explicit visual cue is needed.

Nice, I imagine the download link appear on mouse over picture (just a "download" or "download it"/"get this mod" text/button).

No, I have to have users go to a mod page to download so that the modder has a chance to give them special instructions in the description.

[Alshain]

Well I tried to upload my mod, but it wouldn't work. It kept resetting the form or telling me stuff was missing that wasn't, and all that after I had to e-mail support just to get my account enabled.

Edited August 9, 2014 by Alshain

[SirCmpwn]

Can you tell me exactly what you put into each field during mod creation? It might be best to email [email protected]. How recently did this happen?

[Alshain]

Can you tell me exactly what you put into each field during mod creation? It might be best to email [email protected]. How recently did this happen?

No, it erased it. I typed it out twice, I'm not doing it again. For the most part it was the same info in the thread and in the Curse entry.

[SirCmpwn]

This is a beta, you know. Problems are expected and users are expected to help solve them. I don't see any errors logged, so I need to get some info from you if I'm going to fix it.

[Alshain]

Ok, well forget it then. I don't want to have to re-do that ridiculous markdown again. Suggestion: You should include some editing buttons so you don't have to type it out or use something a little more sensible like WikiCreole.

[SirCmpwn]

Some pics of the redesign to show progress:

https://mediacru.sh/bb96170d311f

[nli2work]

Some pics of the redesign to show progress:

https://mediacru.sh/bb96170d311f

Looks great.

[cpast]

The revised height is much better (it fits a full row of featured mods vertically on my laptop; if there's some way to get window height, that might actually be a good target - one row fits at the bottom of the black text). However, I'm still iffy on the lack of new/updated mods on the first screen - in my experience, after I first start using a site, I've pretty quickly gotten a sense of what's available, and when I check back I'm only interested in what has changed. Featured stuff can work if the featured section is good *new* (or new-ish) stuff, with decent turnover (this is most applicable if new files are added regularly, and if feature-worthy additions are a decent portion of them which also is added to not infrequently), but there should definitely be an easy way to see what's new. Part of that depends on how often new files are added, which I don't actually know, but it definitely should be on the first page (even if it isn't on the first screen for reasons).

Basically, the issue is that the site seems to be mostly about why it is different from other sites -- the most featured thing, on *every* visit, is "why we're special". I have a very strong preference for sites which devote most of their main page to their core functionality, and whose homepages remain useful past the first time I visit the site. Note that the "homepage" of which I speak doesn't have to be at beta.kerbalstuff.com; it works fine if it's a different page, *provided* that a) it's a simple-enough-to-remember URL (for bookmarking/autocompletion), and is an easy link from the page at beta.kerbalstuff.com. Maybe "homepage" is the wrong word; "bookmarked" page, maybe (as it's the thing one would put in a bookmark)? If featured mods has decent churn *and* is not most of the uploaded mods, that can be useful enough, because it won't be infrequent that I visit and see a new mod. If featured mods doesn't update often enough, it should just be newest mods on the bookmark-target-page. But there should definitely be *some* page which is immediately useful to people who have already read the "why-we're-special", have seen the big mods like FAR, and want to see if there's any new thing that looks interesting.

[SirCmpwn]

The revised height is much better (it fits a full row of featured mods vertically on my laptop; if there's some way to get window height, that might actually be a good target - one row fits at the bottom of the black text). However, I'm still iffy on the lack of new/updated mods on the first screen - in my experience, after I first start using a site, I've pretty quickly gotten a sense of what's available, and when I check back I'm only interested in what has changed. Featured stuff can work if the featured section is good *new* (or new-ish) stuff, with decent turnover (this is most applicable if new files are added regularly, and if feature-worthy additions are a decent portion of them which also is added to not infrequently), but there should definitely be an easy way to see what's new. Part of that depends on how often new files are added, which I don't actually know, but it definitely should be on the first page (even if it isn't on the first screen for reasons).

Basically, the issue is that the site seems to be mostly about why it is different from other sites -- the most featured thing, on *every* visit, is "why we're special". I have a very strong preference for sites which devote most of their main page to their core functionality, and whose homepages remain useful past the first time I visit the site. Note that the "homepage" of which I speak doesn't have to be at beta.kerbalstuff.com; it works fine if it's a different page, *provided* that a) it's a simple-enough-to-remember URL (for bookmarking/autocompletion), and is an easy link from the page at beta.kerbalstuff.com. Maybe "homepage" is the wrong word; "bookmarked" page, maybe (as it's the thing one would put in a bookmark)? If featured mods has decent churn *and* is not most of the uploaded mods, that can be useful enough, because it won't be infrequent that I visit and see a new mod. If featured mods doesn't update often enough, it should just be newest mods on the bookmark-target-page. But there should definitely be *some* page which is immediately useful to people who have already read the "why-we're-special", have seen the big mods like FAR, and want to see if there's any new thing that looks interesting.

I didn't take a screenshot of it, but there are three sections - featured, new, and top (in that order).

[Tiberion]

You could expand on the current setup and have these specific pages:

kerbalstuff.com/featured - lists all mods that have been featured, in the order they were featured

kerbalstuff.com/new - lists all mods, newest to oldest

kerbalstuff.com/top - lists all mods according to the current "top" algorithm

Each page would only load the top 9 or 12 mods initially, and then have one of those |v--More--v| buttons to keep pulling new rows for that category. (not sure on the details of preloading that content, if its too hard on the DB to load all of those, or you can't load ahead properly, then you can just load the top 50 of each or whatever.

That could eliminate the Browse page since each of those is just browsing with different filters, of you could swap it to Browse All and do A-Z sorting or something different.

Then on the green menu you'd just Kerbal Stuff (Beta) Featured New Top Browse All

and each page could be bookmarked per preference.

could be a good way to avoid pagination wonkiness.

[Ippo]

Stupid idea: how about a random mod page? You could either have a button that takes you to a random mod, or even add one tile on the main page, possibly in a different color. I think this would be useful to give visibility to mods that are either old or with few downloads, since they would always come out last with the rating algorithm you are using.

[Justin Kerbice]

Stupid idea: how about a random mod page? You could either have a button that takes you to a random mod, or even add one tile on the main page, possibly in a different color. I think this would be useful to give visibility to mods that are either old or with few downloads, since they would always come out last with the rating algorithm you are using.

+1, I have suggested a similar feature for those few downloaded mods before. And I don't think it's a "stupid" idea .

Keep up your good work SirCmpwn.

[Ippo]

I'll open a github issue as with all the other feature requests, you can close it if you don't like it

[Rich]

That Internal Error page is just simply amazing.

[SirCmpwn]

You could expand on the current setup and have these specific pages:

kerbalstuff.com/featured - lists all mods that have been featured, in the order they were featured

kerbalstuff.com/new - lists all mods, newest to oldest

kerbalstuff.com/top - lists all mods according to the current "top" algorithm

Each page would only load the top 9 or 12 mods initially, and then have one of those |v--More--v| buttons to keep pulling new rows for that category. (not sure on the details of preloading that content, if its too hard on the DB to load all of those, or you can't load ahead properly, then you can just load the top 50 of each or whatever.

That could eliminate the Browse page since each of those is just browsing with different filters, of you could swap it to Browse All and do A-Z sorting or something different.

Then on the green menu you'd just Kerbal Stuff (Beta) Featured New Top Browse All

and each page could be bookmarked per preference.

could be a good way to avoid pagination wonkiness.

Yes, I plan on doing something like that.

Stupid idea: how about a random mod page? You could either have a button that takes you to a random mod, or even add one tile on the main page, possibly in a different color. I think this would be useful to give visibility to mods that are either old or with few downloads, since they would always come out last with the rating algorithm you are using.

Good idea, I'll add that.