I’ve been meaning to syphon off the scripts and commit them to the github repo… But time! Time is in short supply.
I also sort of wish discourse had tagging in addition to categories, but I also have the feeling that’d get wildly out of control.
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I like where you all are going with a “Hardware” category idea for all of the DIY, hacks, gear, etc. I’ll get that stood up shortly and we can start moving relevant topics into that category.
I do think we should probably consolidate “Critique” and “Showcase” into a more general “Images” category that I don’t have a pithy name for at the moment. Any ideas?
Per @paperdigits suggestion on a different thread, I think I will also release the “Lounge” category to be open to everyone and to serve as a general off-topic/general discussion area for whatever folks would like to talk about. This will also help by exposing those topics to a wider audience for posterity.
So, @Morgan_Hardwood, @Ofnuts, @houz if y’all have any other insights or objections to my proposals above, let me know! I’ll go ahead and set up the “Hardware” category now, and wait a couple of days before combining the others to get any late feedback. Thanks for all the feedback so far everyone!
There is actually tagging available for the forum. I’d be happy to enable it…
Perhaps showcase and critique could be rolled into “the gallery” or “image sharing” or “framing” or “the frame” or “behind the glass.” Just throwing a few out there. 
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If one wanted to show some photos, one would look through all of the available categories and pick the best matching one. If there was no Critique category one would assume one could post images in Showcase to show them and perhaps receive critique. If there was no Showcase category, one would assume one could post images in Critique to show them off. The distinction between the two, what can and what shouldn’t be done, only comes into play when two or more overlapping categories exist - then you try to figure out the difference. Well, maybe then you try to figure out the difference — depends on your character. (Off-topic: I’ve the type of character which looks through all of the options and only makes a choice once I’ve assessed all options. This becomes a big pain in the ass when I for example try to buy a pair of in-ear headphones, or choose a recipe, or…) Others might just choose the first matching option they come across, ignoring the rest, even though there might be a better match farther on. My point is you could call it anything, including one of the old names, it won’t matter if there is only one suitable category.
“Showcase”, “Show and tell”, “Gallery”, “Photos”, “Images”, all good.
I haven’t forgotten this discussion, just been busy. But I’d like to revisit it. After enabling tagging I see that @paperdigits tagged the PlayRaw entries which got me thinking that it might make sense to create a category just for challenges and sharing samples with everyone. Does this make sense?
If so, any ideas on a name? I’m leaning towards something like “Challenges and Samples (Files?)”…
Would this include the collapsing the Showcase and Critique categories?
Yes, though not necessarily collapsing them into the same “Challenges and Samples” category. Perhaps there should be an “Images” category, and a sub-category of “Challenges and Samples”?
Lots of categories could fit under “Images”… Dare I say all the categories? 
I’m back to the “Gallery” idea, something that implies that you’re somewhat finished and want to share, maybe with a subs of “playraw”, “critique”, and “show and tell”?
I do like the idea of the " Show-and-tell" in that it should encourage people to share their techniques instead of just posting images.
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“Samples” doesn’t speak to me, I don’t understand what would go into it. “Gallery” or “Showcase” or “Photos - Show and Tell” speaks more clearly.
If you want to cut down on the number of main categories, I’d put Challenges as a sub-category or tag of “Photos - Show and Tell”.
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I think what I’d like to see is a section for software downloads that has been developed either as testing or stable, which doesn’t have anywhere else to go.
I’m thinking about the likes of @Carmelo_DrRaw’s excellent GIMP appimage. The way it is atm, we have to scroll further down the front page to find it, and goes further down the more people post. But by having these in a separate downloadable section, makes it far easier to locate and browse to.
I guess the only caviet would be that items placed there, for the ease of community members, would be that they would have to be a single-file appimage, snap, deb, rpm, exe, etc… or a link pointing to a ppa or compiling page.
Having such a section may also encourage other developers to show off their work, by creating an appimage, snap and posting it, who may want a much greater exposure (pun not intended) to those of us who get lost in complilng, and thus won’t touch anything that requires such.
Just a thought.
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for proposing a “download links” category.
I agree that grouping the known download links for installable packages that are verified by the community would be of great help.
As for what concerns the gimp appimage, the current solution is only temporary, to allow some initial testing. I think it is now time to give it a more official place… why not here?
Among the packages that would be worth including in the download links category, I would propose:
- @partha’s Win and OSX GIMP builds
- krita appimage
- DT and RT download pages
Do we want a downloads category or a page on the pixels.us site?
I would opt for a page in this case. All links in one place, and only those pointing to the best and/or most up-to-date versions of the various programs.
For users who want to get exactly what they need in less than 5 minutes 
Would this be something that gets wedged into the existing pixls.us/software page in some way? Or would it maybe be a new or sub-page to that?
I feel like the software page is both specific and buldging with content.
I’d be happy to maintain a sticky post in the software category with the links and explanation.
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I started drafting a “Software Downloads Links” page:
Welcome
This post is meant to house links to download software built by the community that does not have a proper distribution place (… or we’ll become the distribution place?). You should have a look at our software page for a large list of software and links to their home pages.
Some of the provided or linked packages provide software in alpha or beta state and are hosted here for the tester’s convenience. If you are uncertain which version to install, please check the software’s original home page or feel free to ask in the forum.
Community-built software
GIMP 2.9.5 with PhotoFlow and G’MIC by @Carmelo_DrRaw
GIMP for Windows and McGimp for Mac (In the site’s sidebar) by @partha
Questions
- What overlap should there be with our software page and why? We don’t want to duplicate links. Should we expand the information available in the software page? maybe using something like https://www.npmjs.com/package/metalsmith-virtual-pages and then storing the data in a json file.
- Is there a fairly easy way we can provide a mirror for some of this software?
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I would issue a warning in the prologue: “Some of the provided or linked packages provide software in aplha or beta state and are hosted here for the tester’s convenience. If you are uncertain which version to install, please check the software’s original home page or feel free to ask on discuss.pixls.us.”
Maybe each of the links could be accompanied by a little text explaining the status and contents of the package.
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Awesome! Thank you for taking the lead on this!
The software page might be better pointing to the “official” pages of the various projects. If we have local builds that we want to make people aware of, we could add some text to each entry with links into the appropriate post here on discuss (your sticky post).
If we really want another page to cover these special builds, @paperdigits and I can look into auto-generating a semi-dynamic page on the main site that can pull it’s content from a post here on discuss. (Like pull the page data from the first post in a topic that is a wiki possibly).
Easy? Possibly. I’ll have a look at the host for the main site at the moment to see if I can get access created easily for folks. Then I can just give access to the project authors and let them upload as needed. I’ll have a look today and test this with @paperdigits or @Carmelo_DrRaw.
I’m available for doing some tests…