One of our goals for the year has been to better organize all of the development works (ROMs, apps, tools, kernels, etc.) on XDA. We wanted this to be useful but also to have minimal impact on how developers post to XDA and on users who are happy with the current structure of the forums.

We're currently testing a system, we call the Development Database (or DevDB for short) on a handful of forums (Galaxy S II, Xperia Z, Galaxy Note II, Droid DNA, Nexus 4, Nexus 7). You'll note that when you go to the gateway to those forums, such as that for the Xperia Z, you can now see a tab for ROMs. Each ROM is linked to a forum thread-- just as it's always been. But when you click through to these threads, you'll notice that they've become "enhanced" with a shiny new menu bar as shown in the below screenshot. Developers have the option of which features they want to include for each project:

- Feature Requester

- Bug Reporter

- Screenshots

- Downloads (via our own torrent tracker)

- Q&A Thread Linking

- Reviews

ddb (1)

Non-XDA members will be able to post (and upvote) bug reports/feature requests through Google authentication. XDA members will be able to post reviews and "subscribe" to projects for updates on new versions.

Developers can optionally upload multiple versions of their work directly to XDA servers. We're also now operating a torrent tracker to make popular downloads more quickly accessible.

There are many more benefits to having projects stored in a database (rather than unstructured threads), and we have big plans for DevDB in the future. Assuming the beta goes well for these first devices, we will roll out DevDB to many other forums in the near future and allow all Developers to upload their development works.

Please note that we consider DevDB very much "beta" and it's still a work in progress. We're to the point where we'd like to hear thoughts, suggestions, and feedback from the XDA community, so if you have any thoughts or feedback on DevDB, post in this thread.

If you are a developer with a project already posted to the aforementioned test forums and would like access to "import" your work to DevDB, send a PM to bitpushr with subject "Please enable my DevDB".