Hello everyone, it’s a pleasure to meet you all and get a chance to experience the new website. I’ve got a few suggestions that I think could be worth discussing:
First, it would be nice to possibly have categories for specific aircraft/liveries to help users keep things organized. It may not need to be as specific as “PMDG 737-600,” “PMDG 737-700,” etc., and something broader like “PMDG 737NG” could probably work well. From there, perhaps more specific variants could be handled through labels or filters rather than creating a separate category for every aircraft variant.
Second, could a different font option potentially be considered? The current text font is usable, but I find it a little awkward to read. I found myself subconsciously noticing the font more than the actual text at times. Something cleaner and more neutral, like Helvetica or a similar sans-serif font, might make longer descriptions easier to read and improve accessibility. Ideally, I shouldn’t really have to “look” at the text to decipher what it says. There also seem to be several different fonts being used across the site at the same time, which can make the overall page feel a little cluttered and less cohesive. Perhaps settling on a consistent sans-serif font family throughout the site could be more conducive to the overall UX and give everything a cleaner appearance.
Third, could we possibly get some of the description-formatting features available on the “other flight sim website”? Things like horizontal divider lines for paragraph breaks, accordions for smaller subsections such as installation instructions, a few text colors for color-coding specific information, and some improvements to the editing behavior would be really useful. For example, when applying something like bold formatting with **, it would be nice if the page stayed at the same scroll position instead of jumping back up. At the moment, having to constantly scroll back down to see and continue editing the section you were working on can become a little cumbersome.
Also, could the thumbnails perhaps be reorganized a little to keep the page layout and sizing more consistent? For example, if an upload has nine images, it would be nice to have a gallery format that doesn’t cause the images to awkwardly fill most of the page or leave large amounts of excess blank space. A more standardized gallery layout could make uploads feel a little cleaner and more consistent regardless of how many screenshots a creator includes.
Lastly, and this is more of a general question that is very much open to interpretation, I don’t necessarily believe a flight sim website needs to do everything.
Personally, I don’t need the website I download liveries and add-ons from to also include news, flight planning, Virtual Airlines, and every other aspect of the hobby. We already have separate websites and applications that specialize in many of those areas and do them quite well. I think this is one of the areas where the “other .to site” began to lose some of its focus over time.
For me, the biggest appeal would simply be having a comprehensive, easy-to-use, well-organized library of files and community-created content. I’m personally not too interested in much beyond that. Of course, other users may feel differently and may enjoy having some of those additional features, so I think there’s definitely room for discussion there. I just think there’s also value in keeping the core purpose of the site focused and doing that exceptionally well.
Thank you so much for all the effort and time you’ve put into the site. I really appreciate it, and I’m excited to see how it develops!
