There should be a place where one can view images of games in development using Java (LWJGL, JOGL, Xith3D, etc). A picture says a thousand words!
When a picture is posted, it should link back to a forum or forum thread so that it can be discussed in context (kinda like the way news postings are done on javalobby.org).
You can already post img tags in threads here. Surely that’s enough?
Cas 
I think Greg is hoping for more front page exposure… a new image buried in a thread is much less likely to be seen than a front page image of the day.
I think it is a good idea.
I agree, there is a major difference between happening upon an image in a thread and seeing one each morning on a main page. For example, Flipcode has their image of the day and I check it each day. It’s interesting to see what others are working on and how things are going. Not to mention that it gives the poster some satisfaction when something he has done is posted and people show interest in it. It’s a great idea.
If you’re interested in just showing off to other Java game developers… then here is fine.
If you want to show off to potential customers… then java.com isn’t the right place anyway - you want a game site. Try gametunnel.com or indiegamer.com to get some news up. Or devimg.net. You need new viewers, not us jaded old cynics.
Cas
I’ve only really noticed one person with a cynical jaded outlook… take a guess. ;D
What I fail to understand is what your problem with the idea is. What could it possibly hurt?
I think this would be a very good idea.
People who are just stopping by to scout java gamedev can see that it’s really possible, and we get some free publicity.
And it adds color.
I agree with posting elsewhere.
Isn’t this a developer forum?
You can post code for us to bust on if you like 
A snapshot shows me frozen art. It can be beautiful, but usually if it is designed to show a particular code feature, it doesn’t look all that hot, my image posts are perfect examples, not something I would want anyone but those in the forums to see :-).
If you want peeps to see you stuff, post on a site like FlipCode, if it’s good enough they’ll post it and all the better when it says “Java” gaming on it.
IMHO this is mainly a nice marketing gimmick. There is (as has been alluded to) a continued problem with people misunderstanding Java and thinking it “not capable of games development”. In fact last week I was horrified to see java described as a scripting language in an otherwise serious article. WTF? Sigh. Even hardcore games devs often have a blind spot w.r.t java’s capabilities, and an equivalent to flipcode would go an awful long way to improve this.
Besides, surely it’s part of JGO’s mandate to promote - and help people who are trying to promote - java as a serious platform for serious games dev?
I know I would very much appreciate having a gallery I could point people to - just a single URL - for “lots of good examples of the AAA quality you can produce with Java AND of the fact that it’s a vibrant development platform” (the latter is especially important now that sun are getting more behind java - lack of STRONG vendor support for a gaming platform is a death sentence for it as far as many pro games devs are concerned).
[quote]I agree with posting elsewhere.
Isn’t this a developer forum?
You can post code for us to bust on if you like
[/quote]
Yup. I agree with this too - this is a dev forum, so IOTD should be something on JGO’s front page instead (or even better a handy url like flipcode.com/iotd : jgo.org/gallery?).
Given that we’ve got game-design forums on here, and other miscellaneous stuff that makes it much more than simply a java-focussed games dev site, it would not be out of keeping to have an IOTD area too.
(except I think “gallery” or similar would be a better name for now - I think it’s likely to be a little while before we could guarantee a good new image every day ;). We could still try to achieve it from day one, but at least no-one would complain if it didn’t change for a few days :))
The more and more subtopics JGO gets the less and less interest I take in following it all. It’s far too diluted and JGO’s email reply thing doesn’t work properly (when it bothers to inform me at all, it doesn’t take me to the last post I read, it takes me uselessly to the first page). I would much rather they were collapsed into a much smaller selection, along the lines of:
Java Game Development & Technical - technical discussions about threads, image loading, networking, encryption, etc.
News & Announcements - Post news about games and gaming and websites. And that’s where you post your screenies.
APIs - quick discussions about Java2D, GAGE, LWJGL, XITH, Java3D, JOGL & friends, GL4Java, Ogre, etc. But I honestly think the more technical it gets the more it should be punted out of JGO and on to the respective forums for those APIs where applicable.
Business - jobs, business questions, cv’s etc.
Advertisements - actual advertisements for games, products, and services. Experimental idea?
Wisdom - where the mods can distil facts and links and post them for easy referral.
General Chat - anything that’s not covered otherwise
I’d much rather JGO became the nexus to getting more detailed information than a sprawling mass of confusion and repeated information. Which means more linking out to the relevant sites and less repetition and noise.
Cas
But aren’t we talking about putting an Image of the Day on the main Java Gaming page, not a sub topic in the forums?
I have to agree with Cas on the current forum organisation, its going to get very unwieldy, very quickly. Although I’m not sure APIs is quite granular enough for my tastes, I think I’d rather see 2D, 3D, Sound, Input and Networking, i.e the different parts of game development.
As to the picture of the day (wow! I’m actually on topic) I don’t think the fact this is a developers site should any effect on it. I read the forums pretty much every day and it would be a nice addition to see a screenshot of something first off. I like pictures they’re easier to read
Cas did raise another interesting point tho, a forum where only moderators can post. I know their was talk of having a group of moderators and having a forum where information can be posted would be a nice touch. As much as I know this should probably be the Wiki I can’t help but think that the Wiki is still not (even with the hard work put in by lots of regulars) reaching the majority of devs/users.
I think I still yearn for that webspace that JGO used to have with the articles posted in normal HTML.
Kev
EDIT: first typo
[quote]But aren’t we talking about putting an Image of the Day on the main Java Gaming page, not a sub topic in the forums?
[/quote]
I hope so. That’s what I voted for, at least.
I don’t think we need another topic in here, and kinda agree with princec that we could collapse the forums a bit. Less forums = more overview.
People could get used to seeing “[jogl] How do I foo?” in the generic graphics programming forum.
But that’s probably offtopic.
[edit: added quote]
Firstly, I think it should be “project/image/game”, so that we can have our daily PIG ;D.
[quote]The more and more subtopics JGO gets the less and less interest I take in following it all.
Java Game Development & Technical - technical discussions about threads, image loading, networking, encryption, etc.
News & Announcements - Post news about games and gaming and websites. And that’s where you post your screenies.
APIs - quick discussions about Java2D, GAGE, LWJGL, XITH, Java3D, JOGL & friends, GL4Java, Ogre, etc. But I honestly think the more technical it gets the more it should be punted out of JGO and on to the respective forums for those APIs where applicable.
Business - jobs, business questions, cv’s etc.
Advertisements - actual advertisements for games, products, and services. Experimental idea?
Wisdom - where the mods can distil facts and links and post them for easy referral.
General Chat - anything that’s not covered otherwise
[/quote]
If it were divided in that kind of way, I’d like to see each of those be a separate forum entirely - I don’t want to keep drilling down an extra layer of indirection each time I come to the site, and several of those I’d just ignore anyway, so I’d prefer not to see them at all. Has the bonus side effect that it’s easy to fit everything in one screen without scrolling (I know this is important to some people; I don’t mind a little scrolling, but since the most recent re-arrangement it’s become too long for me too - long enough that it’s now annoying to browse)
IMHO several of those high-level topics are not suited to being forums anyway. Here’s wishing that JGO gets license from sun to break free of java.net madness sooner rather than later
You ignore some threads because you have no interest in them. if you put everything into apis, you will see a lot of threads you don’t have any interested in. then you have to scroll down all the way to the threads you want to read.
what do you think sucks more? scrolling down and opening all forums you like or scrolling a list of threads you don’t like ?
i think the first one is better
Apologies for carrying on the secondary topic here, but I’m with troggan on this one. As a J2ME/networking programmer, the vast majority of the API topics (and the most active ones) aren’t relevant to me. I’d probably give up following the board if the J2ME threads were swamped with desktop-API threads. And I’d guess that you desktop-API guys wouldn’t be interested in discussing the intricacies of MIDP 2.0.
agreed. in relation to the API’s they should all be seperate.
Maybe there are too many forums. Merging the business/jobs ones or maybe the general game discussions (eg. GameNews/Your Games Here) might be ok, but I strongly think that the Third Party API’s, Java.net projects and most of the “Java Game Development” ones deserve their forums as they already have. It makes it very easy to ignore entire subjects which one has no interest in.
Will.
Having a seperate forum per API is going to be unmaintainable after a short while. Having a forum per area is far more likely to work, not to mention what applies to one 3D api often aplies to another, likewise for 2D, Sound. I think davidp makes a good point, but its only that another forum should exist, “Mobile”.
Kev
My bet is that nothing will change. Chris seems to be happy with the forum organization now, and is resistant to changing anything. Let alone a complete forum-wide reorg.
Yeah, there’s too much here these days to read everything and hold down a full-time job. Currently I read several forums whenever anything new arrives, but forums lower on my priority list I visit every week or so, skim the titles and read anything that catches my eye, then mark all as read at the end. Fine, I’ll miss a few. But I’ll still have a job! ;D
OK…now back to the real topic
Should we create a new site - javagaming for gamers?
Do we need that? Who should maintain that?
troggan