It’s been a long time coming, but today xbmc.org gets a new look: the stale useless site has been replaced with one that should be far more active.

It’s still a work in progress, but we’re hoping to make this a portal for all things XBMC. In the past it’s been difficult for our users to keep up with the fast-paced development of XBMC as well as the skins, plugins, and everything else that goes with it. As a result we’ve added some new features to help mitigate some of those problems. Here’s a quick rundown:

• Blog-style layout. We’ve been working hard lately to deliver news on the website, but with the old layout it was hard to see. Now the latest news will be staring you in the face, and there should be lots more of it.
• Skin Galleries.  With any luck this will be a radical change for anyone looking for the latest skins. Find out more below.
• Hall Of Fame. This is a place to show off your HTPC. Some people have a hard time imagining a computer in their living room or media room, help us prove to them how great it can be.
• News Submissions. Because we can’t see everything that goes on, if something slips through the cracks you can let us know.
• Skin Blog. Now the skinners have a platform to deliver their latest updates and ramblings. We will make this more integrated and easier to find very soon.

So what’s going to keep these pages from getting just as stale as the old site? The answer is: the community. The best part about the Skin Galleries and the Skin Blog is that the skinners can maintain them themselves. In the past a skin release, for example, has been a chaotic mess of forum posts, sticky announcements, redundant questions and answers, on and on. Our hope is that now a similar release will work something like this: the skinner updates his gallery (pictures, changelog, faq, etc), posts an announcement on the blog about the new release, then heads to the forum for discussion. Because all relevant information is in one place, there’s no need to ask “where’s the download link?” or “what’s changed?”. Now, if you want to see the latest and greatest, just head to http://xbmc.org and take a look. If you’re looking for a discussion, jump over to the forums. So far most of the skinners are on board with the change, and welcome the organization.

Please enjoy the new site and take advantage of the new features (that goes for the skinners as well) but be aware that a few issues are bound to crop up. Everything should have transfered from the old site with the exception of comments made after the final export. Sorry about those, but they’re gone forever.

Please don’t hammer us with requests for changes or fixes, we’ll take care of any issues as quickly as possible.