XDA Portal (Front Page): What Would You Like to See Improved?

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As you might know, the last couple of months, a lot of changes have taken place to the XDA Portal (also known as the "Front Page"). We have re-vamped the Portal with a new, modern look. We added the vote-to-front page system, the star system, a steady stream of news, plus a lot more. We have been brainstorming on how to improve the Portal to make it even better for XDA users. And while we came up with some nice ideas -- which will be added soon -- we figured it would be great to have your opinion about the Portal!

As the end-user, you can probably tell us exactly what you like, and what you dislike about the Portal. Maybe you get annoyed at certain articles, or certain technical weaknesses of the site.

Or maybe you have ideas on how to improve the content to make the Portal more interesting for you. No matter what, every comment is really appreciated! And please be creative!

We'll consolidate your ideas and have a discussion with our developer and the News Writer team on what is possible and what makes sense to make the Portal more valuable.

- News Writers Team

Originally Posted by orb3000

This Thread is Specially to talk about Front Page/Portal

List of Ideas
This is a list of all ideas and suggestions, including credits to members. It could be possible that we misunderstood something - don't hesitate to post corrections here or PM me. We will keep this post updated as discussion continues.

Updated August 3d, 2010

• 'Blog-Style' Portal: Not only news from XDA, but also from the Android/WM World (keridel, hubie)
• Colours are a bit dull (Alex530) (some other members disagree)
• More posts (20) per Page (corn13read)
• Pagination Buttons bigger (corn13read)
• Option to Bookmark/Flag Certain Posts for Later Review (corn13read, JVH3)
• A more general forum/portal/wiki design (ThaDeanesta)
• An Excerpt of the Latest Articles in One Banner (orb3000)
• Dropdown Menu with all phones, leads to phone-specific news, ROMs and other software (hansmrtn)
• A system where developers can add a page for his/her project, and keep members updated with the latest progression (N!njaDuck) [more ideas about this here, by dor_neue]
• Filter RSS to specific OS (gilamran)
• An enhanced mobile version of the Portal -- after all, it's a website centered around smartphones (creesch, timmywa)
• Rating and Review system per Phone model (hubie)
• Phone comparison (hubie)
• Latest comments/most commented/most popular articles (hubie)
• Directly link without going into the article (Systrs)
• A Web 2.0/Flash Top News view (Dany0)
• Central Software Database: All software uploaded on the site gathered in a searchable database.(flyboyovyick)
• Online communication system that allows to ask questions to people that have general knowledge of WM/Android so newbies will get their answers solved quickly.
• 
  
  

There have been some suggestions for the forums also; however we would like to keep the forums out of discussion.

Okey man!
I'm a bit new to the site as you can see but i've managed to notice some "not so beautiful" things in the site; and since I liked it a lot I’ll list some:

1-The threads should be far far more categorized and managed in a professional way; so i suggest creating sub-folders and even sub-sub-folders etc... if necessary in each folder;
for example "HD2 general discussion" is a very vague folder; you can find in there questions/problems/suggestions/ anything about anything (the screen, the messaging, the call quality, software, etc… thousands of types of posts); so why not create sub folders for each primary kind of post such “messaging”, “power and battery”, “calling”, “applications” or even “messaging problems”, “applications not running” etc… I guess you got my point.
In this matter you will get things more clear. You will lose nothing, in the other hand you will gain a lot!
2-There should be some kind of detailed gallery or library for applications; themes; games…(I don’t know if there is :-p); for example I wanted to install android on the HD2 but I’m very confused; till now I don’t know which version is the last version or which one is the best one; things are a bit messed up and unordered and I don’t want to kill my phone!
3-Maybe some kind of live chat would be gr8! (I know that there’s private messaging but it’s not so practical) Imagine open public channels and other channels discussing a certain matter for example. It would be so nice because ideas will be transferred much faster!

If i remembered anything else, i'll tell you! Cheers!

Welcome to forums

ElCondor is referring to the XDA Portal and not to the forums section

Some points regarding your suggestions:

1: Threads are created exactly as you mention, all you have to do is to look into proper section and all sub forums will appear

2: Once you get used to the forum you´ll see how easy is to identify newest as every developer always includes info regarding supported devices, resolution, latest version of any app/theme/skin, etc. As long as you fully read and follow instructions you won´t mess up your device

3: There is in fact an IRC XDA Channel, again, all you have to do is read and search!

Read, Search, Respect and Enjoy!

ok so more on topic what about a blog style portal as well?

for example i follow you guys on twitter but dont ever get any news about things happening in the world of android or winmo unless it already has appeared on a thread.

lets make xda the one stop shop for all things android and winmo!

the colors are a bit dull imo

Originally Posted by Alex530

the colors are a bit dull imo

Never mind......

More posts

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I want to be able to see more posts say 20 / page.

Also make the pagination buttons bigger.

Also a bookmark post would be a great thing to have.

I would like to see the portal better integrated into the Forum... Keep the forum header, and making "tabs" which wou would click the portal tab, and it takes you to the portal, (with the forum header, and the tab darkened) and the same goes for the new wiki..

Some nice ideas already! Keep them coming guys

Originally Posted by keridel

ok so more on topic what about a blog style portal as well?

for example i follow you guys on twitter but dont ever get any news about things happening in the world of android or winmo unless it already has appeared on a thread.

lets make xda the one stop shop for all things android and winmo!

Totally agreed. I would like to see more general news about smartphone world (with android and winmo), and not only about the develops of the forums. This would generate more feedback from readers, since they virtually don't comment on the portal posts.