October 22, 2009 10:48 AM

Hi GTG,

I wouldn't say we've "re-purposed" the site entirely. We've always wanted to maintain a focus on developers here since day 1, though with few developers interested in developing for the TouchSmart, user discussion has been far more dominant since the TouchSmart Community launched. We're hoping Windows 7 and the new line of TouchSmarts (with the more powerful TS3 software) is exactly what's needed to spur interest in this platform. The changes are simply to re-enforce that this is a developer focused site, and the new look and feel, and name, should make devs feel right at home.

The end-user forums will stay (though we may re-structure and streamline the user topics a bit in the days/weeks ahead), and we certainly still welcome users who wish to participate here. That's why all member accounts, posts, and threads have remained in this transition. Hopefully, in time, users will use the Dev Zone as a hub for downloading and discussing new TouchSmart applications created by developers.

See you all around the Zone.

Mind Over Matt'er - Technology musings, opinion, and more straight from TechLore's head geek.

October 22, 2009 12:36 PM updated: October 22, 2009 12:37 PM

DaveTN said: I guess the biggest challenge for starting a new site is the vast archive of info on the previous touchsmart community site. I feel like most members will still want to come here for info, especially stuff that has already been discussed an solved. It would behoove the new site operators to port over some of the important infor that we have gathered here in order to help new and current members. David

Nothing from TouchSmart Community has been lost in this transition. All comments, discussions, downloads, posts, ratings, profiles, PMs, bios, articles, blog entries, videos, pictures, galleries, user settings, etc have not gone anywhere. Really, this is the exact same site with a new look and different name. All links externally in internally pointing to items at touchsmart community will be routed to the exact same item on Dev Zone. The only exception is the base domain link for TouchSmart Community, which is routed to a splash page instead of the Dev Zone homepage.

In other words, there's nothing to import. It's all here already.

Mind Over Matt'er - Technology musings, opinion, and more straight from TechLore's head geek.

October 22, 2009 1:05 PM updated: October 22, 2009 1:06 PM

DaveTN said: Correct, but the info is not on the new site, so I guess they'll be starting from scratch. I knew the stuff would still be here and planned to link any answers/topics, etc between the two as I see necessary. david

What you propose is actually quite difficult to do, from several perspectives. When we've done similar things in the past, the end result is that it works much better in theory than in practice. I'm sure we'll be working with the folks over at the Next Bench in various ways going forward, but it will be better in the long run for them to start from scratch. And though we'll encourage end-users to try out the Next Bench, for those who'd rather hang here than there for whatever reason, we won't turn anyone away.

Mind Over Matt'er - Technology musings, opinion, and more straight from TechLore's head geek.