To get right to the point, I'm pretty happy with this (though it still has some rough parts):

(Note that some of that data is faked for testing; it's not the same as the real archives.)

The major change here is that it does away with the file/folder structure we currently have, treating directories as categories- viewing any category also shows all files in its subcategories.
This means that you can easily search for programs associated with a given calculator, and drill down to topics if you desire. It also removes the current weird incentive for authors to put their files in the topmost directory that could plausibly apply to a file (because it's more likely to be seen) and instead put it as far down the hierarchy as possible (to continue to appear in the most specific filters). It also means that you get more useful sorting options, since there's no longer a filename to care about.

Other enhancements include the free-text search (which could be ported to the archives without the rest of these improvements, but I'd rather do it all at once) that searches file titles, descriptions, author names and reviews.

I'm posting this now in part just to show off but also to gather input on what I might do with the rough parts or to see if anybody has Opinions on what I'm already happy with. Discuss, complain, or suggest in your responses.

Hey looks really cool and I think this will help users browse programs more easily.

Is there a quick download option without having to go into each files' page?

My initial thought was "oh man what is this?!"- my attention was on the controls and not the content.

After looking at it closer, this is fantastic! I'm not sure if I love how much vertical space the stuff is taking, here's what I would do

Yeah, that blank space was one of the things I wanted to do something about. The subcategory list can be very long so just moving the filter controls won't do much in many cases, so I thought I'd flatten the subcategory list and make it wrap (thus filling the horizontal space), as well as flatten the filter controls to be all in one line (wrapping as necessary). I'd like to keep the filter controls right above the file list, since they're tightly coupled with the list of files.

I hadn't considered this. I also realize it may be unclear right now how to get more information and download, so maybe add a "more information & download" button under the image to address both ideas. Still no fast download directly from this list, but it's easy to find the download button on click-through.

Still thinking about the top of the page, but I'm pretty happy with listing items now.


Files without any screenshots get a placeholder so there isn't a bunch of blank space around the details button, with semi-random subtle color. The background space not otherwise occupied by a screenshot also gains some texture.

On narrow screens the placeholders become shorter to avoid wasting a lot of precious vertical space when the screenshot and description end up stacked instead of side-by-side:

This also illustrates how descriptions are limited in their overall size, to avoid consuming a lot of space in the list.

I would say this is an improvement, but if you already know what you're looking for or are just searching by title, this new design has drastically increased the scrolling required to get to something. Perhaps an open/collapse button that opens and collapses all the previews to save vertical space?

Yeah this would be great if we had a tightly curated list of files, but the sheer number of files makes something like this not 100% practical. Even just decreasing the height by 50% would work wonders, in my opinion.

Yeah, a full size preview of a 240p calculator screen isn't deserved, lol. I'd say have the previews small by default, but individually expandable.

If you already know what you're looking for you can use the free-text search to find it. For browsing I think it's important to have decently-sized images.

That said, I think cutting 25% off the image size (to 240x180) is an improvement. Many files don't have enough description to fill the 240px height on the right side, but reducing that improves utilization of the description area without making the images too small.

Reduced image size also makes me think about adding a lightbox to view images full-size inline, but I'm not sure if I want to bother.

I've reached the point where I can call this useable now! If you navigate to the Downloads section of the site via the header you'll find the new experience. Here's an outline of what's changed.

First, the old experience. It's a huge table of text-only, separately showing subcategories and files. You get a preview of the file description, but there's a lot of data and much of it you don't care about, plus more useful information like the file title is missing (you get a filename, but that can be anything and tends to be unhelpful).

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New shiny:

There are files at the root! And pictures! And ordering by something other than filename!

What happens here is that when viewing any given category (no longer directories!), you see files in that category or any of its subcategories- so at the root you can see every file, and filter down to the calculator (or whatever) you care about. Since lists can be much larger than they might have been previously, it's also paginated.

Doing it this way both gets files in front of users more quickly, and ensures uploaders' incentives are aligned with viewers'. I've noticed many files being given redundant categorizations like "83 plus" as well as "83 plus games," either because uploaders don't understand how it works or because they assume (reasonably!) that users are more likely to see files that are higher in the hierarchy. Now the incentive is to be as precise as possible, to ensure files appear in the most specific relevant filters.

I've also changed how you specify categories for files when uploading them:

You now get an interactive drilldown, where selecting one option gives you another select box containing the subcategories of the selected one, making it easier to see what your options are at any point. The backend is also smart enough to notice if given redundant categories and only keep the most specific ones.

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You can also search for arbitrary text; maybe you want to know if somebody's written a Flappy Bird clone:

While other changes I've made recently have made files much more searchable on your favorite search engine, but it's even more convenient to just type while browsing on-site. Many people won't think to go search for flappy bird site:cemetech.net, after all.

This also subsumes old dedicated views for showing file statistics, since it's not tabular and is paginated. Here we look for unloved files:

It's nice to have a unified browse view for files!

Of course, the new view scales gracefully to phone-sized displays as well, whereas the old one was nearly useless. Old/new:

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I do still want to do something about making hierarchy navigation easier for newbies, as discussed previously. That'll probably involve making changes to how they're currently labelled and adding more descriptive text to explain them better.

Adjustments to the rating system might also be nice, since right now showing the highest-rated files gives you a bunch that are 10/10 in only one rating, which is not very helpful; the best files tend to have many ratings but not 10/10 across the board.