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savvywolf ,
@savvywolf@pawb.social avatar

TBF, they could probably make the “releases” page more prominent rather than having it buried in all the “code” stuff.

Anamana ,

GitHub has bad UX for people who just wanna download and use the programs

OofShoot ,
@OofShoot@beehaw.org avatar

I’ve bounced off GitHub more than once trying to figure out how to download the .exe file that I assumed must be somewhere. Honestly I still don’t understand the interface and I’ve submitted bug reports for Jeroba on there. I might have even used GitHub for a project once? Every time I look at it it’s overwhelming and confusing and none of it is self-explanatory. But, that’s fairly true for a lot of stuff in programming.

JohnEdwa ,

If there is an exe, it’s under the releases link. On desktop it’s on the right sidebar below “About”. On mobile it’s at the bottom after the readme blurb.

It’s not obvious because the code is the main focus and GitHub would much rather people host their releases somewhere else.

BatmanAoD ,

And even if releases are hosted on github, there should ideally be a download links page somewhere that presents the different binaries or installation files in an easier to understand format, especially if the software is designed for non-developers.

smeg ,

That’s where it is? I’ve been sneaking my way in by clicking tags and then the releases toggle!

r00ty Admin ,
r00ty avatar

I'd agree, but the caveat is that github is primarily about an interface for source control and collaboration between developers for projects. The release page is really just an also-ran in terms of importance.

Anamana ,

Imo they aren’t even trying, because it’s not that hard to make it better. Doesn’t even have to be a compromise. Most people just need a visible download button for the programs, that’s all.

llii ,

If that’s a concern for the project maintainers, they should create a homepage for the project with download links.

ekky ,

Or make a shortcut/link in the readme to the newest release of the most popular OS’s.

A decent release page tends to contain all kinds of files for different OS, so ‘regular’ people who just want the .deb or .exe would likely become confused regardless.

MotoAsh ,

I mean, if you don’t even know what OS you’re on…

Next you’re going to tell me cars need boosters so babies can reach the pedals… At a certain point, it becomes irresponsible to enable ignorance.

Rodeo ,

There is, it’s literally right there on the home page of the project. You can either copy a URL and download it by cloning the git repo, or you can download the whole project as a zip file. Then you just have to compile it!

GitHub is for developers, not end users.

Anamana ,

It’s not a compromise to make another download button for the last release as well. No one looses.

BatmanAoD ,

That’s not a download button for the program. But there is indeed a link to the release page right on the home page of the project, so you’re still correct.

chevy9294 ,

Imagine how many download buttons would be if Github had ads.

Scrollone ,

SourceForge had a better UX for those who just want to download software.

And SF is horrible, so this says a lot.

Malix ,
@Malix@sopuli.xyz avatar

not only the ux, some devs make it absurdly confusing to find a binary.

I don’t want to throw anyone under the bus, but there’s this one niche app.

their github releases at one point were YEARS out of date, they only linked to the current version in seemingly random issue reports’ comments. And the current versions were some daily build artefacts you could find in a navigation tree many clicks deep in some unrelated website. And you’d better be savvy enough to download a successfully built artefact too. And even then the downloaded .zip contained all kinds of fluff unnescessary for using the app.

The app worked fine, sure, but actually obtaining it was fairly tricky, tbh.

Cow2 ,

These build artefacts probably weren’t meant for end users, that’s why they contained the “unnecessary fluff”.

Malix ,
@Malix@sopuli.xyz avatar

absolutely, but they were in general (IIRC) suggesting them for the main downloads, but just not telling anyone outside the comments, which was the weird part

DudeDudenson ,

GitHub has bad UX for a lot of things

infinitepcg ,

The Github UX is amazing if you ever had to use gitlab or bitbucket

TrickDacy ,

It’s not black and white. I actually liked a few things better about bit buckets UI. It’s been too long to remember specifics though I think it was concerning PRs and diffs. I still think GitHubs review UI is too complicated. It took me literally years to fully understand it.

jdeath ,

i really enjoy the lack of dark mode and the way it doesn’t work on a tablet

TrickDacy ,

My bad. It indeed is black and white. There can be no redeeming aspect of bitbucket. Fair point

jdeath ,

thank you! now was that so hard?

TrickDacy ,

Sometimes I just need a reminder

smeg ,

It does actually have a dark mode now! Still not great otherwise.

fury ,

I’m not so sure. I seem to be able to find my way around a GitLab project in much fewer moves than a GitHub project. But maybe I’m biased because I use it all the time at work. I know they change the sidebar a lot, though.

DudeDudenson ,

Comparing bad to bad doesn’t make any of them better lol

I’ve gone nuts trying to download a single file from the git website on my first interactions with it (because somehow adding a download file button when you’re viewing a file on the site is just too much to handle)

Gumbyyy ,

The worst part about Bitbucket is the horrible, godawful, practically useless search

peter ,
@peter@feddit.uk avatar

That’s not really what it’s designed for though

Anamana ,

It doesn’t have to be a compromise imo. Most people just need a visible download button on the front pages. Wouldn’t hurt devs at all. I mean, even devs sometimes struggle with this lol.

BetterDev ,

It doesn’t have to be a compromise

You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it means.

Any change to appease you would be a compromise, you understand this, yes?

originalfrozenbanana ,

Excel has a bad UX for people who want to use it to make art

Anamana ,

Do most people who use Excel also make art with it? Because sometimes devs also just download exe files on GitHub :D

They don’t just always copy code from there.

hemko ,

GitHub, Inc. (/ˈɡɪthʌb/[a]) is a developer platform that allows developers to create, store, manage and share their code

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/GitHub

Yes it has other functions too, but it’s primarily for code.

originalfrozenbanana ,

Do MOST people who use GitHub download .exes? In my experience the VAST majority of people are using it for source and version control, not external releases. The overwhelming majority. FOSS and OSS is a small portion of the overall GitHub user base compared to, say, enterprise companies.

Anamana ,

So you never downloaded a program on GitHub?

No one everever said you need to compromise its focus on developers. There is no compromise to be made. It’s just a stupid button. Stop arguing lol.

suy ,

The github project page is for developers, and Github already gives you tons of ways to make a user website. Don’t ask your users to visit github.com/group/project, make them visit group.github.io/project, like any sane person.

Same with Gitlab, BTW.

And if you don’t like the full static site, use the wiki, or guide your users in the first paragraphs of the README so they find the user information if they must.

originalfrozenbanana ,

We’re talking about how to design one of the biggest platforms on the internet. Of course there is a compromise. No one is advocating for removing the button, but arguing that the UI is somehow deficient for people wanting to download binaries is really missing the purpose of GitHub.

Anamana ,

It’s an additional feature of GitHub that literally everyone uses. Therefore it has purpose. I think it’s ridiculous to argue against it.

Explain to me how developers or the UI would suffer from easier access to releases?

originalfrozenbanana ,

Literally everyone? I’ve been a software engineer for ten years. My company doesn’t use it, and no company I’ve worked for has. I guess they are not part of “literally everyone?”

Explain to me how GitHub working on one product feature (releases) has no impact on how much they can work on others. Apparently in your rich enterprise software career you’ve found that resources and time are limitless? Or maybe you think it’s trivial for a platform like GitHub to change their UI.

This smacks of lots junior software engineers I’ve worked with who think problems are simple and solutions are easy because they’ve never actually DONE anything. I get that you’re very convinced that this is easy and cost less but it’s pretty clear to me you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Anamana ,

Again. I’ve said before that release downloads are an additional feature. But it’s a feature most people use. Neither did I say it was easy, nor it was cheap. Just that it makes sense and that it doesn’t take anything away from the professionals regarding UI quality or focus.

originalfrozenbanana ,

No, what you mean is YOU use it and you’re assuming most people use GitHub the way you do. GitHub is first and foremost a platform for GIT. Git has nothing to do with releases or file downloads per se. Time spent improving the releases UI is time not spent doing other UI improvements. If you need more proof that it’s not worth it to spend time on the release UI, just take note of the fact that GitHub is not spending time on the release UI. If everyone was using it and it was deficient, do you really think that would be the case?

rambaroo ,

It makes sense from a pure UX perspective. But of course the real goal of GitHub is to make money, and their paying customers are mostly corporate entities using it for enterprise development. Unless those companies decide that a download button/better release feature is desirable, it’s not likely to happen.

Most corporations tie GitHub into their own build system so such a feature isn’t likely to be considered useful. They pay for GitHub to reduce development costs, which is why GitHub spends so much effort on analytics and the dev experience instead of open source/public users.

Anamana ,

Thanks for understanding what I was getting at and your well written ‘realistic’ addition to it. There’s not much I can add besides saying you’re absolutely right.

lunarul ,

Why would your company use that? Did they use github for public applications targeted to non-techincal users? Because that’s what that page is for and what a huge chunk of Github users do.

originalfrozenbanana ,

A huge chunk of GitHub users? Citation needed. Sounds like what you mean is you and your communities use it that way.

lunarul ,

I use it both ways. As a software engineer I use it for various packages, which don’t even need a releases page. But also as an end-user of open source software, I use it to download pre-built binaries of said software. Idk if you know, but there’s a lot of open-source software out there. And github is the most popular platform for hosting it. And when I say software, I mean the kind where you don’t expect your users to know how to build it from code themselves.

bermuda ,

If somebody doesn’t have an idea of what they’re talking about (allegedly) then it would be far more productive to explain it than to keep arguing about it without actually solving anything.

originalfrozenbanana ,

I mean I did try. They didn’t really listen, just repeated the same thing over and over again.

bermuda ,

I just don’t see that.

corsicanguppy ,

you never downloaded a program on GitHub

Precompiled binaries?!? Not even once. It’s a security risk akin to picking up gum on the sidewalk for a fun tasty treat.

Anamana ,

Cool, I’m not surprised as we are on Lemmy. Welcome to the 1%.

lunarul ,

So when you just needed software to run on your machinr, you built it yourself. But first read every single line of code to ensure that it’s safe. Did I get that right?

Because if you don’t trust the developer to provide safe binaries then you wouldn’t trust the same developer to provide safe code either.

drathvedro , (edited )

No, you shouldn’t really be downloading exe’s from github. It is widely being used to spread malware and to pretend that the software is open source when it is not. At least look for a link to the store page(including microsoft store), a distro-specific package or build instructions. Those usually have an AV scan or at least harder to fake.

Sir_Fridge ,

Yeah a dude I know got hacked by downloading some random github program, the hacker even started taunting him via discord lol.

But I downloaded plenty of shit from github, like prusaslicer, my 3d printer’s firmware and plugins for octoprint. Always stuff that is verified via another page though. Almost never stuff that comes up during a random search, and if I do, I look it up first to see if it’s safe.

Hamartiogonic ,
@Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz avatar

But if you want to put a some text and pictures in very specific locations and never worry about them suddenly jumping into random places, Excel is actually better than Word. That’s why people tend to use Excel for all sorts of weird purposes like that. Unlike with Word, things actually stay where you put them.

originalfrozenbanana ,

Yes and there are definitely people who use excel for art. Just like there are people who use GitHub for its releases page. It’s just not the primary use of either program.

Hamartiogonic ,
@Hamartiogonic@sopuli.xyz avatar

I’ve seen some of the impressive pixel artworks people have made in Excel. However, I prefer to do Excel art by writing a bunch of wild functions and drawing a stacked line chart from the resulting data. The graph itself is the artwork, while the cells behind it are just a necessary part of the process.

redcalcium ,

I swear they move the link to release page every few months.

Anamana ,

They purposely hide it, because they don’t wanna tend to normies

MonkCanatella ,

I fixed it for them

https://sh.itjust.works/pictrs/image/4027607e-a0ed-4449-8850-95e2c5802888.png

deur ,

What about up by the name of the repo? Your suggestion still looks almost reasonable, I like it!

MonkCanatella ,

Yeah actually that could work as well. Would be a really easy greasemonkey script

Anamana ,

And then just push it to the main branch of GitHub, I’m sure they’ll accept it ;)

epyon22 ,

This is really bad on mobile too. I usually flip to desktop mode to get to releases page quickly.

bappity ,
@bappity@lemmy.world avatar

TRUE. the first time I used GitHub, the releases tab being all the way at the bottom in the mobile view confused me for a good while

Ephera ,

Worst part is that this used to be a separate tab in the repo navigation. I still cannot conceive of a reason why they would move it from there to some random heading in the middle of the screen, except maybe so they can sell more GitHub trainings.

Anamana ,

I think you’re on to something haha

WaterSword ,
@WaterSword@discuss.tchncs.de avatar

I agree. Whenever I link someone I try to make sure to link directly to the release page.

Feathercrown ,

I’ve been using github for what, 10 years now? And I had no idea there even was a releases page.

the_artic_one ,

A lot of projects don’t use it or forget to update it for multiple versions so you probably aren’t missing much.

lunarul ,

If you use it as a developer you don’t care about the releases page. You want to see the code and for latest version you just need the git tags. But I’ve also used it for stuff I just needed to run on my machine as an end-user. And for those you turn to the Releases page. That’s where pre-built binaries go.

But it also depends on the target audience. Some projects, even if meant more as software to run than code to import, still target mainly developers or tech users in general and will not have more than just instructions on how to build them. Others, say a Minecraft launcher, or some console emulator, will target a wider audience and provide a good Releases page with binaries for multiple platforms.

Crow ,
@Crow@lemmy.world avatar

After downloading code from GitHub for years I can still take over a minute finding the file I want to download at times. Now that’s not long, but it’s why I’m there 90% of the time.

MiltownClowns ,

If there isnt a link in the readme.md I could be lost for days.

joyjoy ,

On mobile, they hide the code by default. Though the releases are still hidden underneath the readme.

Artyom ,

Honestly, releases and the readme could be the first page on their own, you can push the code to another tab as long as the clone button is there. There’s at most a 5% chance I’m just gonna raw dog the code straight from the browser anyways.

30p87 ,

That’s the generation that doesn’t understand computers at all. FFS.

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works avatar

Like every generation?

Only a small minority of any actually understand computers.

ZeroCool ,

https://postimg.cc/fVcw14MW

Deebster ,
@Deebster@programming.dev avatar

Apparently UK universities need to teach how directories work to first year Computer Science students. They’ve grown up with polished, closed devices and many only know apps and the basics of using the internet.

burgersc12 ,

Theres a sweet spot before like 2010 where computer skills are still prevalent enough to be taught en masse, but the upcoming generation seem to be learning touchscreen keyboards and app stores long before they ever use a mouse or try to download off a website. The older generation has had time to adjust but a lot still struggle with tech.

mocep ,

I fucking hate zoomers

MrWafflesNBacon ,

As a zoomer myself I can confirm

darkmatternoodlecow ,

The “digital natives” 🙄

ech ,

All this really means is they grew up navigating digital spaces socially. I’ve discovered first hand that the generation at large has little-to-no knowledge of the technical workings of even the computers they use regularly, imo due to the “apple-fication” (one button? Really?) of digital devices. Most exclusively use their cell phone as their digital device, or a chromebook provided by their school, all of which have been streamlined to the extreme to “enhance” the user experience, but have in actuality given them absolutely zero-experience learning how to troubleshoot or incentive to dig into how their devices operate. I’ve had to walk teens through how to navigate the file directories on their laptops.

In the past, the only people to be “techies” (ie people seeking out spaces like the Internet) were ones willing and able to deal with hurdles and issues, and the window is apparently quiet narrow for people who grew up with tech (to an extent) and also had to learn how to handle issues like that. The majority of others are either those described above, or those that never saw tech as important or worth it (though we’re also seeing the consequences of those people finding their way onto the “one-button” internet in meme/conspiracy addicted boomers).

Ethalis ,

Agreed, Big Tech’s quest for UX and frictionless Interfaces has lead to a generation of people who vastly overestimate their tech savviness and are basically only great at navigating walled gardens made specifically to be easy to use.

It’s not really their fault though: in addition to frontends becoming ever easier to use, backends are also becoming increasingly complex. 20 years ago you could learn a bit of HTML and CSS and throw a decent website together, but nowadays you need to master tons of other skills (graphical design, scripting, etc.) to make even so much as a web page that won’t scare people away immediately. It’s hard to get interested in this stuff when the barrier of entry is getting higher and higher, while tons of GAFAM-made alternative are already available for “free”

ech ,

It’s not really their fault though

Definitely not, and to clarify, I am laying any blame there is to be doled out at the feet of companies.

I do wonder if it’s reversible at this point, though. I don’t see any company choosing to reverse course, at least not in a way that would cause a large-scale shift. Incapable users are the best they could hope for - uninterested in seeking out anything other than what they are handed and, if they ever did decide to look around, unable to adapt to “harsher” alternatives. Legislation certainly isn’t going to be expected. No government is going to mandate citizens have a “worse” experience. Perhaps a purposeful cultural shift, but that would take a lot of coordination of people that likely don’t see the issue or simply don’t care. I feel like we’re past the watershed here, as frustrating and concerning as that is.

Adanisi ,
@Adanisi@lemmy.zip avatar

Seriously. It’s infuriating. Everything is so damn dumbed down now it’s ridiculous! People are incapable of doing so much as reading error messages and doing basic troubleshooting, sometimes I wonder where society went wrong. They’re completely helpless with the technology that makes up more and more of our lives, and I hate to see it.

deur ,

20 years ago you could learn a bit of HTML and CSS and throw a decent website together, but nowadays you need to master tons of other skills (graphical design, scripting, etc.) to make even so much as a web page that won’t scare people away immediately

Looking at it this way is what stops people from trying though :(

peter ,
@peter@feddit.uk avatar

Expecting people who grew up after the Internet was mainstream to all be developers is like expecting everyone who grew up in the 60s and 70s to be a mechanic

PlasterAnalyst ,

You can usually find step by step instructions for fixing most cars. My library has a subscription to Chilton online, so I can use it from home and look at repair procedures and wiring diagrams. Just use forums and YouTube to fill in the gaps. I've even diagnosed a car from Amazon reviews since I suspected a certain part was bad and looked at reviews that said the exact symptoms.

peter ,
@peter@feddit.uk avatar

Sure, a lot of people can do that. A lot of people absolutely can’t, too. A lot of people can look up and solve computer issues too, and a lot of people can’t. It’s not a generational thing or specific to computers.

PlasterAnalyst ,

Car enthusiasts are much more welcoming and helpful than computer experts. Just look at stack exchange.

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works avatar

Why are you assuming they’re a zoomer?

I fucking hate douches that rag on younger generations for stupid petty shit like Boomers did.

FMT99 ,

Ragging on older generations though, comedy gold.

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works avatar

The stuff they get ragged on for is earnt at least.

jbk ,

Reddit gold ⁉️⁉️😨😨😨🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰

mocep ,

Zoomer detected

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@sh.itjust.works avatar

I wish, my body wouldn’t hurt as bad as it does for another 10 years.

I’m a millennial who refuses to do the same shit that was done to them.

Or you could say millennials are killing the moaning about younger generations industry.

mocep ,

On second thoughts you’re probably right. It lacks ebonics and other n*ggerspeak so it might not be a zoomer or it may be an extremely rare zoomer that knows some english.

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

Fuck off ya racist piece of shit.

mocep ,

I censored it…

Deceptichum ,
@Deceptichum@kbin.social avatar

Go neck yaself mate, “ugh I censored my racism so its no longer racist” fucking shit for brains.

mocep ,

It’s not even racist it’s just the word used to describe this new language they call “english”. Nothing racist in that.

datavoid ,

Kindergarten level trolling detected

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