[Scummvm-devel] Fwd: Demos page overhaul

[Filippos Karapetis]

>
> The added icons are shared between multiple game demos, and their images
> aren't unique enough to be able to locate game demos by scanning icon
> images alone. Which makes the icons pointless.
>
>
That is true, we need more icons. We already got 116 distinct game icons,
we can add more. Reverting everything because we lack icons for each and
every game isn't a solution, IMHO. I find that the icons make it easier to
distinguish game demos, but if you feel that we will need a fully textual
layout, perhaps there is another way of distinguishing entries? For
example, perhaps we could make the demo titles bold instead, and keep the
variants non-bold? Though the icons do make the page look a bit more
colorful and easy for the eyes.


> The game demos isn't that bad, users can select the section they want,
> and then scroll down the alphabetical list to the game demo they are
> looking for, or browse through the game demos from a single developer.
> The game demos page is already sorted into sections based on the
> developers, and all game demos are listed alphabetically, with an
> average page length.

(...)

> If the multiple game demo links were to be hidden be default, it should
> be based on the game name. Rather than simply showing the first matching
> demo, and hiding all other game demos by default view. But that still
> leads to requiring more clicks from users, to access the direct links to
> the game demos.


Yes, but the problem here is that it's hard to find out what you want,
cause there are all sorts of different game variants and games with very
similar names.

For example, say that a user wants to download the Windows demo of
Putt-Putt saves the Zoo.
Here's what he sees with the previous layout:
http://s2.postimg.org/thtu17bix/puttput_old.png
and here's what the user sees with the current layout:
http://s29.postimg.org/kbvqq7cqv/puttputt_new.png

IMHO, it's much easier to find what you're looking for when you don't have
to look through entries that have very similar text. With the previous
layout, he had to read through 24 Putt-Putt entries before reaching the
"saves the zoo" episode. And he/she has to go through 6 different demo
variants of "saves the zoo" to find the one he/she wants. By grouping
similar game variants together, it's easier to first find out the game you
want to find, and then its variants. Also, it's easier to see where the
Putt-Putt games start from the icons in front of them (i.e. it's easy to
see where the Pajama Sam games stop, then the Putt-putt games start, and
then the Spy Fox games start).

I agree that we can use the demo name to group the demos together.
Wonderful idea :) We can split the demo names in two: the demo name itself
(e.g. "Freddi Fish 1: The Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds"), and its variant
(e.g. "Windows demo"). We could either split the title in the XML itself,
or do it in Javascript (however this is slower and more error-prone). The
entries have been grouped by target name because it was easier to use the
target name as a unique ID. It should be straightforward to change that
grouping by the target description rather than the target ID, but we'll
probably need to do that in the XML to keep it simple and non error-prone.
That way, we can avoid having the first entry as a recommended download
too, if we want. We can just make a clickable first entry (e.g. "Freddi
Fish 1: The Case of the Missing Kelp Seeds") which will show a
submenu/subfolder with all of its variants.

 > But there is no quick access in that page, if everything is included in

> > there! It's easy to get lost in there, and it's really not usable. It's
> > a big blob of entries, and the only way for someone to find anything is
> > if he/she already knows what to look for! This kind of defeats the point
> > of having a page at all - we can just link to the sf.net <http://sf.net>
> > demos page for that matter, which has everything grouped, and avoid the
> > extra administration burden.
>
> I think you are exaggerating the issue, the game demos page may be
> large, but it is organized, especially compared to the simple directory
> listings on SF.
>

But the point is that it's hard to find entries inside that list because of
multiple entries per demo, for the reasons explained above.
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