FlashLib Library Index Features
In An Army of Small Libraries I suggested creating a site that indexes every known bit of reusable Actionscript code in existence. FlashLib.org is up, and I’d like to solicit feedback on the planned features as it progresses. Please look over these and let me know what you think.
FlashLib.org Suggestions Source
Basic Features
Projects
Users will create project pages which contain information about a particular project. A project can be anything from an MVC framework to a simple code sample
Index
Users can see a list of projects sorted by popularity or freshness in any list
Tags
Users can add custom tags to any project. They can see all the projects in a particular category
Search
Users can search by title and tag
Builds
Users can create groups of projects to download all at once from their favorites.
Reputation / Voting
Users build reputation that gives them more rights on the site
Project Page Features
Home Page
Link to project home page or blog post
Similar Projects
Anyone can submit a link to another project in the system. It prominently shows all similar projects ranked by score.
Repo
Optional Link to GitHub or Google Code repo
Access
Page is editable by anyone with enough reputation
Reviews
Anyone can write reviews or link to external reviews of a project
Resources
Anyone can post links to tutorials, documentation, or anything else about the project
FAQ
How can I help?
Make suggestions on UserVoice. Follow me on twitter or subscribe to the blog feed for updates.
Please contact me if you’d like to help code up the site. You can also watch or fork the GitHub Repository. All of the site’s code will be public, so it should be easy to contribute. If you have something to submit, just contact me and I’ll pull from your fork.
What about OSFlash.org?
OSFlash.org only lists major projects. FlashLib will index tiny blog posts as well. FlashLib will also add all the spiffy democratic features
What about RIAForge.org?
RIAForge requires that projects be hosted with them. While they have a lot of good stuff there, they are missing many important things. We will use links to project pages instead of hosting.
What about GitHub?
We will link to GitHub projects. Not only does GitHub not provide all the features we need, but it locks people into git, and many projects are on SVN or just a blog post.
What about Google Code / SVN / Some other Repo thing?
Remember, we’re only linking to projects in other places, so we can link to ALL of them.
I have a great idea, how can I suggest it?
Please visit the UserVoice page and create the suggestion. Vote on others too!
What if two people use the same name or package?
This will generally not be a problem, but a simple email to the project author should be enough to get him to make his package names unique. Project names don’t have to be unique, but moderators can combine them if they are really the same project
Can I download a big library with all my favorite classes?
No. This is a bad idea. It makes more sense to download the swcs for each library separately. However, see the “Build” feature above.
What about dependencies?
First, dependencies are rare across libraries. However, libraries can easily include another library inside them. Flash knows how to handle it already. I assume this question stems from the desire to create an ActionScript library with a bunch of useful stuff inside that builds on itself. People can still create such libraries. They would be indexed as one project in flashlib. They can also split something like that out into several libraries. Either way it will work.
Why not just use Jeffery’s Underware?
Jeffery has created a great tool here, but it concentrates on downloading the latest code, not discovering it. It also is locked in to SVN.
Why not just use a wiki?
Wikis are cool, but they do a poor job filtering and sorting information. This will be much like a wiki, but will have extra features.
