Planned upcoming change to resource organization

Posted on 27 February 2012 by Michael

With IP.Board 3.3 right around the corner, like most resource authors, my attention will soon turn to ensuring my existing products are updated for the new version.  In anticipation of this change, I'd like to make a change to the way I list my files which I've been contemplating for a while.

Right now, in both this site and the IPS Marketplace, I have been creating a separate entry in the Downloads system for separate versions of each product.  So if a certain file has one version that works on IP.Board version X, and a second version that works on IP.Board version Y, those would be separate entries in the system.  This has frequently led to confusion among my customers as to which file they need to get.

My proposed solution for this is to merge the files together, so that a given mod only shows up in the Downloads system once, and when you try to download it you can choose the correct version there.  For example:



There are several advantages to this.  It makes it easier for customers to find the file in the Downloads system, or to find the right topic to post their support issue in.  It also makes it so the same basic product has a more visible history, so we can see which are getting the most downloads/views over time rather than just the oldest ones having their stats skewed.

I don't think this will be anything that most folks who use my free products will find at all controversial, but what does have me a bit concerned is that I would also like to do this with my paid files as well.  That will have a pretty big impact, and so I want to discuss that here before I do anything.
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