SourceForge.net Update: 2009-04-30 Edition
Welcome to this month’s SourceForge.net update. Thanks for reading.
Traditionally, we use the sitewide update to talk about what we’ve recently done, and we don’t talk much about what’s in progress. This month, we’re breaking that tradition because some of what we’re planning to do is ambitious enough that we’d like to tell you about it ahead of time.
Next week, we’re launching a revised look-and-feel for the site. I think the look we adopted a while ago certainly got everyone’s attention, and now it’s time to move on to something a little less jarring. Although some of you may miss it’s orange-ness when it’s gone, we suspect that a good number of you will breathe a sigh of relief. One thing is for sure: you’ll certainly notice the new one when it goes live. We hope you find the change refreshing.
Beyond next week, our strategy gets a lot more aggressive than that.
The SourceForge community has two high-level categories of user behavior: open source development and consumption. Developers want an easy-to-use, elegant, functional interface with more data and less fluff; consumers would prefer a visually uncomplicated site with project ratings, comparisons, and a straightforward download process.
Today, we have one site that serves both developers and consumers, even though their needs are vastly different. The end result of our current approach is that it’s very hard to give them both what they want, but we’ve got something in mind that we think will make everyone’s experience a lot better.
We’re going to split what is now the SourceForge.net website into two completely new, separate experiences: one focused on software development and the other focused on consumption. It’s not going to happen immediately, but we want it to happen soon. Most of the details are still being worked out, naturally - but if you’ve got any thoughts, feel free to email me at my address below.
Oh! We also plan to kick off our 2009 Community Choice Awards program next week. In the meantime, start thinking about the projects you think should win!
Until next time,
Ross Turk (ross at sf.net)
Director of Community
Reader Comments
I can’t have Firefox on my office computer since it is a choice of my company to stay 100% Microsoft.
So Sourceforge is much less fun now. 
Good
I was fine with the look and feel a year ago and still am fine with it now 
All I need is easy, uncomplicated access to what I want. That is the case and I’m happy with it 
I must admit that I liked the older design - a majority of black and white on a website just isn’t my thing.
I understand how complex it is to manage site theming - I’ve been trying to figure out a way in my head to make data and layout like each other coherently while staying flexible for a long time now - but I’d love to have multiple theme support so I could switch back to the old design.
At least, being able to specify a 3rd party .css file would be cool, like the Internet Archive do… I wonder what designers would be able to do with that :>
Just my $0.02.
Personally, I find the new look a refreshing and interesting change - most importantly, it makes the site appear less cluttered and just that bit easier to use. (Also, while the orange added a unique personality to the site, the new theme is a little easier on the eyes at the very least :smile:)
like the new design, but there is one big flaw (or maybe I just missed it): when logged in, there is no quickmenu to access the projects of oneself
I really miss the orange-ness , it was refreshing for me, this new black look is depressing and scary, orange is warm and welcoming.
Two things are missing for me, when I find a project I like, I bookmark it in Sourceforge. Once logged in there used to be an easy drop down menu up in the top right by the logout button, there was an easy to access option in that menu to quickly bookmark a project. Where’d it go, now if I want to book mark, I have to go into my account, manually add a bookmark and copy and paste the project URL into it. Please give us an easy way to bookmark, I like the system the Google Code site uses of just clicking a simple star to bookmark, just like Firefox.
Also on the navigation menu bar for each project, there was a way to expand and reduce the menu, I really liked that, it it options I don’t need and that frankly confused me and left me with what I wanted, and if I wanted any of the other options I expand it. It was smooth I liked it.
Actually to be honest I can’t see anything about the new design that I like, what really has changed apart from removing some features and changing the colour.
I do not mind the new look, but what I do miss are the project update news that used to be on the front page. I found out about many interesting projects I did not even know existed all on the home page. I wish they could have left that on the front page instead of posting kinda useless info like how many downloads happened during the week. Do we really need to know that?
Hello,
besides the categories of source development and consumption i hope to learn more about source development in sourceforge.net. Maybe more people have this goal.
Thank you for all your efforts.
I think it would be nice to have an almost ALL black theme. That would look very good IMHO and much less bright-blinding-white looking. But it looks nice the way it is. I just wish I could see my projects and bookmarks and stuff right from the front page still.
I am excited…new site! yay
I personally liked the old format better.
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About the new look-and-feel: is there any way to get a preview? The site definitely needs it (for both end users and developers). This is great news!!