Open source devs: please, please add screenshots... : opensource

[-] TCB13@lemmy.world 375 points 2 years ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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[-] IceMan@lemmy.one 73 points 2 years ago

As both user and developer - user CAN contribute but the developer/maintainer SHOULD add the screenshots.

[-] dogebread@lemm.ee 65 points 2 years ago

This mentality explains a lot of open source.

[-] jelloeater85@lemmy.world 26 points 2 years ago

Yeah, and please have EASY setup instructions or complied binaries.

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[-] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 28 points 2 years ago

There's both an ignorance and fear barrier to that.

A lot of people don't know they can, and don't know how. And even the ones that do know, often worry their contributions would be shit.

And there's folks that just don't think the project would accept that kind of submission.

I'm not contradicting your suggestion! It's a great thing to let people know that they can contribute without knowing how to code. Just adding in both an explanation as to why it's so rare, and hopefully allaying some of those worries for passersby.

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[-] KevonLooney@lemm.ee 26 points 2 years ago

If the app sucks, few people will add the screenshots. Therefore, most apps without screenshots will suck. So new apps will need the developer to add screenshots, or people will assume it sucks.

And we're back to square one. The developer has extra responsibility to highlight the features.

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[-] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 133 points 2 years ago

While we're at it, I love that you let me customize the settings via a config, but for the love of god make the default config the best it can possibly be

[-] TheHobbyist@lemmy.zip 59 points 2 years ago

This. It should be the most sane configuration and fit most use cases and lead to an experience working out of the box.

[-] charliespider@lemmy.ca 29 points 2 years ago

I contribute to OS projects and work on one full time. EVERYBODY thinks that their obscure use case is the most common (not saying this is what you are doing).

We get users that are completely flabbergasted that our software doesn't offer some feature that is totally specific to their industry and has never been requested even once by anyone else previously. We'll show them our feature request form on our site where you can also view and upvote other requests, and point out that the feature they want has never been requested. They will literally come up with some bs excuse why that is and then insist that we get on it and build out this custom functionality that they need or else they're going to slander us on social media.

Your app doesn't integrate with "didLr"? OMG any decent app integrates with "didLr"!

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[+] Bookmeat@lemmy.world 122 points 2 years ago

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[-] gazter@aussie.zone 85 points 2 years ago

Grnrrth is a FOSS native qualitivate built with the Jot framework. It comfortably handles 2NUT, xrr, .gif, and any other Banbo hierarchies in a windowed, cross-system integrated module.

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[-] regular_human@lemmy.world 32 points 2 years ago

README.md

TODO

Added a readme, boss

[-] shalva97@lemmy.sdfeu.org 17 points 2 years ago

No, wait, it should be done according to https://github.com/matiassingers/awesome-readme

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[-] CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world 99 points 2 years ago

Me, developing a headless component library:

[-] corytheboyd@kbin.social 40 points 2 years ago

To be that dick, a headless component library is still meant to do something, show an example of it being used!

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[-] herrvogel@lemmy.world 27 points 2 years ago

If you've written a "usage" section that showcases more than one uselessly simple example that doesn't even work in the project's current state, you're already far ahead of the average.

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[-] CoderKat@lemm.ee 17 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Even for a CLI tool, there should be a real world example showing how it works and what the output looks like. Eg, for jq:

$ cat file.json
{"field: "value"}
$ jq '.field' file.json
"value"

And a few other examples.

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[-] noodle@feddit.uk 99 points 2 years ago

Sometimes I'd settled for a simple description of what the tool even is. Sometimes the readme is just straight into compilation steps and I feel like we're rushing into something.

[-] Shadow@lemmy.ca 34 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Foreplay is important! Gotta get me excited for that app.

[-] QuazarOmega@lemy.lol 17 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

🛠️ Building

To build the app install the gamete dependencies and run the following

make child

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[-] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 73 points 2 years ago

Also please begin the Github page or whatever with a description of what the app is actually for or what it does. I know that sounds super obvious, but the number of times I've seen links that are like "I made this app from scratch for fun, let me know what you think!" and then you click through and the app is called Scrooblarr or something and it has no indication of what it actually does is... more than it should be.

[-] charliespider@lemmy.ca 20 points 2 years ago

It scroobles obviously!

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[-] xT1TANx@lemmy.world 48 points 2 years ago

Wait what? I thought the read me file was to put as little info as possible to prove how awesome anyone was who can use the program.

[-] skankhunt42@lemmy.ca 18 points 2 years ago

TODO

[-] shalva97@lemmy.sdfeu.org 18 points 2 years ago

Including the documentation link, which only has incomplete getting started section

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[-] huojtkeg@lemmy.world 44 points 2 years ago

You should open a PR. 🙂

[-] 1984@lemmy.today 43 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

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[-] StudioLE@programming.dev 19 points 2 years ago

I imagine most single developer projects lack any design or UX so the screenshot would do little to encourage users to download.

[-] RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml 20 points 2 years ago

I can only speak for myself and a handful of other people I know who are into FOSS, but for us we care more about it being functional than looking pretty. I just want to see what I'm getting into, a reference for what a successful install looks like, or just check to see if it's got the buttons I want on it.

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[-] gabe@literature.cafe 43 points 2 years ago

Or at least a demo site if it's a web site or self hosted web based app 🥲

[-] FrostySpectacles@lemmy.ml 36 points 2 years ago

As a user, I completely agree. People often make decisions in a few seconds, and you've done all this work developing an app. That little extra step will allow you to make a difference to more people!

As a developer of a Lemmy web UI, I've been thinking about adding screenshots to my README for weeks but still haven't done so 🙈

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[-] mojo@lemm.ee 34 points 2 years ago

Yup, if I don't see screenshots for a desktop applications, I don't bother since the developer clearly doesn't understand what they're doing. It's especially baffling when it's a WM/DE. It's really trivial effort too. If the devs don't get this basic point, it's going to reflect in their poorly designed UX/UI as well.

[-] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 33 points 2 years ago

README is usually a text file. While some platforms can now use markdown, that is nowhere near universal. So it might be better to ask for screenshots to be put on the website / wiki.

[-] FrostySpectacles@lemmy.ml 26 points 2 years ago

GitHub and GitLab both support inserting images into your README.md. Here's the syntax:

![Description of the image](https://path/to/image)

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[-] GlenTheFrog@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 years ago

Not just a text file, a markdown file. And markdown has supported images since forever

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[-] leraje@lemmy.world 30 points 2 years ago

Also, installation instructions that don't assume you're already an expert.

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[-] randint@lemm.ee 26 points 2 years ago

100% agree! I always get so frustrated when there are no screenshots in the README.md or on the site.

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[-] crate_of_mice@lemm.ee 25 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

There's an awful lot of comments in this post from people complaining that developers aren't making their projects attractive and user friendly enough, or the READMEs descriptive enough.

Can I just say, as a developer with some open source projects on github, I don't care; you're not my intended audience.

[-] mbw@feddit.de 16 points 2 years ago

I find this unnecessarily derisive. There are good reasons for a UI or README not being user-friendly, the top-most one being (imo) that it is really, really hard to get right, takes a lot of time and doesn't primarily solve the problem the project was started for.

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[-] gianni@lemmy.ml 25 points 2 years ago

I think this ties in to the grander idea of: please provide information that is helpful on a nontechnical plane of thinking. It goes a very long way

[-] bappity@lemmy.world 17 points 2 years ago

no pics no clicks, as they used to say

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