What's the equivalent of [insert windows app name] on the Mac?


Website idea  

75 members have voted

  1. 1. Do you think it's a good idea ?

    • Yes, I'd use it myself!
      32
    • Yes, I'd show it to other people I know!
      26
    • No, it already exists (please let me know...)
      2
    • No, it seems pointless...
      9
    • I don't know...?
      6


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Hello everyone,

I'm thinking about making a website for the Mac community this summer. I've always wondered "what could seriously help the Mac community a lot?" and I wanted to bring some of my goodness into this community, but never found.

And I think I just had an awesome idea right now... well I find it awesome, but I need your opinions before throwing myself into this project.

So here's the idea briefly :

- You can browse through a list of Windows applications

(i.e. Word 2007, MS Project, AutoCAD, BitComet, Movie Maker, ...)

- If you click on one of those names, you go to a new page where it gives you a list of the alternatives on the Mac, all of them and there might be an icon next to it to be more graphical...

(i.e. you click on Word 2007 and it gives you Word 2008 and Pages '09 and and others if there are others)

- Then you can click on one of these, and it shows a general screenshot of the application to give you an idea of the interface (click to enlarge). Then, if I get a good server, you can browse through a maximum of say, 10 screenshots.

- Below the screenshot, it gives you a non-exhaustive list of the features of the app

- Then it gives general information on the app : The picture of the icon, the release date, Appoximated price (approximated because obviously it's not the *same* price in every store, right?), the developer (i.e. you click to see general informations of the developer, what apps this developper did, its logo, its website...), website of the app/developer (click to go open it in a new window / tab)

I might add a small Register / Login system (not mandatory to browse the website though) for people who are interested into adding *correct* and *clean* information and applications to the website, because doing it alone would require all my time this summer and well... I have other things to do. Yes, in some way the word Wiki is appropriate, but once again, I don't know if I should code the whole website myself or just use a basic wiki sample (i.e. mediawiki).

Obviously I'm looking into making a nice, simple, clean and Mac-ish design for such website, because it's very Mac-oriented. If I remember well, mediawiki's skins are awful to change so I think I'd build the whole website myself for convenience.

The purpose, for those who still wonder, would be to help switchers determine which apps they need once they're on a Mac platform to do the equivalent of what they were doing before on Windows. I've noticed some users seem lost after switching and they're asking everyone what app does this and that. I even myself digging on Google to see which app does the equivalent of MS Project for instance, and I've switched for more than 3 years now...

Ideas? Constructive comments? People who wish to help? You're all welcome.

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i actually would like that a lot and am very surprised if there isn't already something out there for it. knowing myself i would always be running a windows machine next to the mac if i had a mac. and often you hear about a nice application on windows and download it and love it.... but if i had two computer i would definitly want the mac to do some of the same stuff so it be nice to have a quick place to look up these things.

something you want to think about is, where would you find all the information yourself? it seems like it would take months to get a good database going that's actually useful.

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Yeah, that's why I'd like making a wiki... this is the main problem of the idea IMO too.

Sometimes developers put a very quick list of what the app does, we could copy and paste if we want to add an app quickly, but other than that, it'd be possible to say for example that Excel has a Solver and Pages does not.

I'd have to make 2 categories : "What the app does" and "What the app does not"

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Yeah, that's why I'd like making a wiki... this is the main problem of the idea IMO too.

Sometimes developers put a very quick list of what the app does, we could copy and paste if we want to add an app quickly, but other than that, it'd be possible to say for example that Excel has a Solver and Pages does not.

I'd have to make 2 categories : "What the app does" and "What the app does not"

Yes, listing the capabilities and the disadvantages/advantages of each app is a must.

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If you want to have a site, make sure its not bias nor a put down for other mac communities or even microsoft. If your site is mature, you'll be respected.

I would go for a forum also. Spend the $150 for IPB and you can have a nice little community.

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Actually, I don't want people to "review the app" and add subjective things. I just want to say for example that iMovie '09 supports :

- 21 transition effects

- 36 video effects

- 18 text effects (just saying random numbers for the moment :p)

- precision editor

- narration editor

- cropping

- rotating

- imports music from iTunes or the Finder

- import photos from iPhoto or the Finder

- a lot of exporting possibilities

Just to give a very good idea of the app's capabilities. I'm not sure if I want to make it a community or just a site where you can go and get the info you want.

Right now though, I can say a lot of people are getting interested with it. It just has to be well conceived and I have a very clean and simple, yet functional design in head. If more and more people show their interest, I'll just wait until my 2 exams are over at University, then I'll get into this!

Edit : I checked the site up there for Linux, and yes it's exactly this kind of website that I want to make!! Except that I have a completely different design in my head, but I'm not saying this one is bad though!! It's great that I can have something to base myself on, thanks man!!

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I would make it a community. Sure there are already those, but to be honest there are only a few well known ones. There are enough windows based and tech sites. But not many apple communities.

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I think this would be very useful to new adopters of the Mac. I plan on getting a Mac eventually so I can run Mac OS X, Linux and Windows. As I am used to Windows only, I think this website would help me tremendously. Brilliant idea!

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Yeah someone on MacRumors pointed this website called "alternatives to" also... it's pretty much the same idea I have, except it's for Mac people only, and I had a few different concepts in my head, but this website seems really incredible and well conceived, I can't deny it!! Btw yes I started the same thread in Macrumors forums and never thought I'd get more replies and more feedback here on Neowin, it's a better community than what I thought, especially because it's not a website specifically about Macs!

So I concluded the majority of people would like a website like this. Obviously, some people don't, but the statistics so far show that the majority is for the idea.

Well I might investigate the situation this summer then, I've already designed a good part of the database (on paper though!) and I still have ONE last exam left tomorrow. Then I don't know if I want to look for a job or not, money runs out really fast it seems... but anyway the website shouldn't be too hard to get up... I won't give any date yet because I have no idea (in fact I think I'll have a little something ready for June-July, but nothing official) and I don't want to give you guys false hopes, but I promise I'm investigating the situation as soon as I finish this semester at university, and to all those who wish to help me (I'm taking your names on a sticky note in Dashboard lol!), you're all welcome of course :D I'll contact you guys too when I'll have some material to show !

Any other comment, suggestion, people willing to help, anything, don't be shy and give your opinion :p

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When I first went to Mac last year, I was doing the same thing of searching for alternatives to replace a lot of the Windows software that I was used to and desiring. Things like Winamp, Myspace messenger etc... I did find them eventually, but it took a while. A site like this would be awesome.

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All the decent sites have this information already. Having said that there's no harm in doing it.

Whilst there are Mac blogs which do cover this kind of topic, I've never came across a site which caters for this kind of thing exclusively.

I think it's a great idea.

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Whilst there are Mac blogs which do cover this kind of topic, I've never came across a site which caters for this kind of thing exclusively.

I think it's a great idea.

Me too :) I say go for it PsykX :) If done right, this could be a very useful website!

Edited by Calum
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Yep, I started already ! Not much done, but I started.

Now I'm doing a little bit of designing, does anyone know how to copy an icon from Leopard into a picture? For example, I want the Home icon from the folder of my account in Pixelmator... I might add a few of them in the menu to see if it looks nice or not.

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Yep, I started already ! Not much done, but I started.

Now I'm doing a little bit of designing, does anyone know how to copy an icon from Leopard into a picture? For example, I want the Home icon from the folder of my account in Pixelmator... I might add a few of them in the menu to see if it looks nice or not.

Have you settled on a name yet? ;)

As for the icon, CMD+I on the folder and copy the thumbnail from the top left. Then you can paste it into Preview and use the size you require.

Let me know if you need a hand with the design.

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Well I thought about MacTernatives, it seemed great! Oh no wait, I just stole it from you :p

Thanks I'll let you know if I ever need help with designing. Are you better with Photoshop or HTML/CSS, or both?

I'll look into it for the icons, thanks!!

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