New version: Categories!

by Ola Nov 2011

Today we deployed a beta version of AlternativeTo with the new feature categories. We have always been (and will always be) all about finding alternatives to applications you for some reason do not want to use. But we have also found that a lot of users really like to use AlternativeTo just to browse and discover new apps without really looking for an alternative to any specific application. This is why we have built this new system.

The category system is built entirely on our existing tags system. We have specified 20 or so categories and then "attached" a number of tags to that category. Every application that has that tag will be placed in that category. This means that we do not have to go into every single app and specify a category for the app and it also makes it really flexible to modify what apps are in what category.

It also means that you as users can add or remove applications from a category by adding or remove tags from the application.In the future we are also planning on letting you suggest changes to the categories themselves.

We are fully aware that this system is not perfect "out of the box". There is some apps that are in categories they certainly do not belong in and this should be fixed either by removing the tag(s) that put the app in the category from the application or remove the tag from the category.

There is also of course loads and loads of apps that isn't in any category at all and it's the same thing here. Should we add any tags to the category itself or should we add d a new tag to the application.

Beta

As we said, this is beta right now and we will make changes to how this work. What we are working on right now is a new design to include categories in our top menu and other visual changes.

Feedback!

Let us know what you guys think! Please report bugs! And let us know if you have any suggestions about new categoires, changes to existing categories, tags that should be removed or added from categories!

	Ola (Owner) Nov 2011
	I had hoped for some kind of reaction ;)

	Thelle (Administrator) Nov 2011
	It's cool! I really like alternativeto.net/category - This look is more "Fresh" than the look on the main page.. - An idea: Have a box looking like in "/category" and a bottom linking to "/category" saying "show all categories". The sample category on the main page could then rotate, showing a different category at each login.. I think that categories maybe should be more prominent than "Subscribe".. Here is a quick muck-up of the idea: PS: Is probably more a function for new users rather than the old crew guys - hence the slow feedback I guess!

	OmgItsTheSmartGuy (Administrator) Nov 2011
	Sorry that I haven't made any comments on the new categories system in the past week. I wasn't quite sure how to feel about it at first. Now that it has more of a front-end, I'm more confident on my opinion. The whole system looks very slick (especially on the admin pages). However, I have 2 suggestions: Here's a possible suggestion for integrating categories with the main bar: It's not perfect, since you can't see all of the categories, but you get the idea. This way, the categories are more prominent on the homepage; they're accessible from pages besides the homepage, too. On the Edit page for apps, instead of listing every possible category grayed-out, the page should only show the categories that have already been applied to the app. We don't want the edit page to get too long. :P

	Thelle (Administrator) Nov 2011
	I like the idea and layout of Omg's suggestion! And generally agree that the categories should have a more prominent position.

	Ola (Owner) Nov 2011
	I actually said this in the first post :) What we are working on right now is a new design to include categories in our top menu and other visual changes. We just wanted to get this out there so we could work a bit on it. And we realized we had to add it to the "real" site to get some real feedback :) On the Edit page for apps, instead of listing every possible category grayed-out, the page should only show the categories that have already been applied to the app. We don't want the edit page to get too long. :P The this is that we wanted people to see what categories exist so it's easier for people to "find a tag that suits the correct category. If we do not show this it could be hard for people to figure out what category they should aim for?

	Ola (Owner) Nov 2011
	And btw :) Thanks for the feedback!

	OmgItsTheSmartGuy (Administrator) Nov 2011
	Ah, I see the reasoning behind showing all of the categories on the edit page. We should probably keep that.

	hcxangel (Contributor) Nov 2011
	I had not seen the category box, because below the subscribcion box , there is a blank frame. the frame appears in almost every page, except the forum and the categories. http://www.diigo.com/item/image/20wog/1o3n

	Journeyman (Administrator) Dec 2011
	I wont give any specific advise in ways to organize categories but I do think the best way is the simple way.

	Ola (Owner) Dec 2011
	Hi! Sorry for being so slow on the replies here. I have been on a "vacation" in Cambodia (i stay in Bangkok at the moment) and the internet in this country has been terrible so hasn't even been enabled to answer e-mails and stuff ;) hcxange: Yea, we have some issues with some ads that doesn't show up in some countries. But we will move the categories to the menu in our header pretty soon!

	Ola (Owner) Dec 2011
	You guys like the new menu? We will take a new round soon and try to see what we can do to improve the categories even more!

	OmgItsTheSmartGuy (Administrator) Dec 2011
	I like it. However, I feel that a more permanent solution is still needed, since the current design pretty much guarantees that no more categories can ever be added. Additionally, the current design cut out the "System" in "System Utilities", making it a far more vague category.

	Ola (Owner) Jan 2012
	Yeah, maybe. Or we just have to have the discipline to keep and not have to many categories ;) Or we just say that we show the most important categories in the top. And we make people aware that we have categories and then they can browse all the categories if they press the more button and so on. And i added a short name column so that we could fit more stuff in the top bar. I think 99% of our users think System Utilities = Utilities .. what other utilities could it be in the software world? Anyway .. it's not perfect and we need to do some new work in it again soon :)

	OmgItsTheSmartGuy (Administrator) Jan 2012
	Well, the Apple app store is a good example of the vagueness of term "Utilities". In the Mac App Store, the utilities section includes everything from The Unarchiver (a zip file extractor), to Twitter, to a full screen calculator app. None of which are specifically system utilities, of course. :P