I suggest renaming some categories to have this list:
Python Scripting
C++ Coding
Compiling or Editing the Panda3D Source
Asset Pipeline
Installating Panda3D
General Discussions
Code Snippets
Project Showcase
Panda3D Development
I’m sure long-term users have gotten used to the current category names but there’s no reason Python and C++ related questions have categories with completely different names or why assets pipeline is just vaguely called “Pipeline” or Panda3d Installation section is just vaguely called “Installation”, or why “Panda3D development” is redundantly called “Panda Features in Development”.
These may seem nitpicky but things like this combined with the current layout of the homepage and I’m sure other issues I’ll find is what accumulate into forming a final opinion to a newcomer. As a newcomer one might ask, “If they can’t bother to properly categorise and structure the homepage and forum why should I expect anything different from the source code and waste my time checking it out?”
Great, thank you for bringing this up! You’re right, many of us have been looking at the categories for so long that we don’t even think about them any more. It’s worth thinking about how they can be clearer to newcomers. I hope that this thread will invite other suggestions, and I will try to integrate the feedback when renaming the categories.
How about “Creating and Importing Assets”? Panda is sometimes accused of being too focused on developers and not friendly enough to artists, and the fact that we don’t have a section obviously intended to encompass art creation as well might be an example of that.
To add to what I said I think the current order of the categories isn’t a good enough either in terms of the relevance of each. The above may be better.
The suggested renamings and re-orderings–including rdb’s suggestion–look good to me.
The one exception is the case of “Panda3D Development”: I don’t find “Features in Development” to be redundant, and feel that just “Development” alone is a little vague. I’m inclined to argue for keeping the current name in that case.
“Panda3D Features In Development” is about Panda3D development, right? Any features developed eventually become part of the sourcecode so I’m not sure what’s vague about just calling it “Panda3D Development”.
“Panda3D Development”, to my eye, suggests a place that a roadmap could be viewed, or developer updates might be posted; the sort of sub-forum in which only mods can make threads, although others can comment on them.
“Features in Development” places the focus on, well, individual features, which to my mind better suggests that it’s open to suggestions and feature-requests.
I understand your reasoning but this is an open source project.
By your reasoning "Features in Development” isn’t a good name either, in my opinion.
I think this is not something we should be overthinking.
I mean, if we’re not over-thinking it, then the current name seems fine.
I would argue that “Features in Development” better connotes its openness than just “Development”, myself, and is more specific.
As to it being an open-source project, that’s true–but that also doesn’t necessarily mean that suggestions are taken in the forum. They could be taken only via pull-request on GitHub, or something like that.
And I disagree, as I’ve described–but more on that below.
Connotations are a little hard to put into words, but let me try:
“Panda3D Development” just says that the forum discusses, well, the development of Panda3D–it doesn’t indicate in what way it does this. Is it a forum that describes the development of Panda3D, perhaps via developer update-posts? Is it a history of the development of Panda3D?
“Panda Features in Development”, as noted above, places some focus on the features themselves, specifically and perhaps individually. It’s thus not likely a developer-update forum–unless the devs are posting about each feature individually. And, to my mind, a discussion about individual features is more likely to be open to suggested features.
And overall… Even if the above none of it holds, I don’t think that “Features in Development” is any worse than just “Development”, and thus see no real reason to change it. Specifically, I disagree that it’s redundant: it adds specificity to the manner in which development is being discussed.
“Panda3D Development” could be used by any other project, which uses Panda3D as engine. Not just the engine development itselt.
This is like “Unity Developer”, which already means “developer, who uses Unity in his project or have some knowledge of this engine”, and not “engine developer who is part of the Unity development team”.
This could sound wrong, but unfortunately a lot of people are thinking this way already.
I tend to agree that “Panda3D Development” is likely to be misconstrued as including development using Panda3D, and not just development of Panda3D itself. We’re having this issue on Discord too with people occasionally erroneously posting in the #development channel.
All that said, the forum predates the existence of the developer blog and GitHub. Most developer communications is happening on GitHub, and feature announcements are meant for the blog. The category is only useful when we want to encourage the broader community to try a new feature that’s still in development and provide a place to give feedback on it. To that end, I can’t really think of a better name than “Panda Features in Development”.
There is actually a hidden forum category that is only accessible to a certain inner circle of developers, but it has not been used in many years, because we use GitHub instead, which is all out in the open to anyone with a GitHub account. As it should be in an open-source, publicly-funded project.
