141–150 of 161 posts
That Squirrel screenshot is fascinating: what happened to the traffic light controls? https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/as-a-windows-user-its-a-v...
I think that if every app has to explain to the user how to use their own operating system, that operating system is not intuitive. I’ve been using Macs for a long time but I had to look up how to install an app the first time I did it.
Example of this would be the ability to open a can of soda. You can do it because you saw someone else do it. Now give the can to an Amazon tribe that never saw the can nor how to do it before.
Windows uninstallers also do not clean up the system and leave trash everywhere. The registry is often the most litter filed area. Even Microsoft's _cleanmgr.exe_ does not fully clean your Temp folder and a manual removal is needed.
As a user of a number of systems; Mac installation is the cleanest and most simple. Linux's closest would be AppImage packaged applications.
Windows is one of the worst because often they are un-scriptable and require the end user to always interact. Mac and Linux can script their installations with ease. I'm saying this as someone that needs to manage systems which are air-gaped and service by others.
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There's a tiny little arrow in the corner to indicate that it's a shortcut. But this really confused me when I first started using macOS as well. You're just expected to know that the applications folder in the disk image you just downloaded isn't actually inside of the disk image. When I first opened a .dmg, I thought the arrow symbolised some kind of progress bar and waited for a moment to let it do its installatio…
i actually vividly remember when they started introducing that flow... the first time i came across it was a total knee-jerk negative reaction. unrelated to that, i switched to windows a few years later (my old imac wasnt good enough to play world of warcraft)... but when i came back to it 10+ years later, it still felt strange. i mean its neat from a minimalism perspective, but the decision to not ship with a regula…
That's no different than windows or linux. The uninstallers leave configuration bits all over the place be it in the registry or config folders.
I think the most confusing concept in this process for new users is the shortcut inside the disk image because it breaks the isolation metaphor. So, you download a file, and it's something called an "image" which opens in Finder like you'd inserted an external thumb drive. Fine. You open the image, and inside is... Your own Applications folder? Wait, how can the file I downloaded contain all of my apps? This kind of…
Yeah I remember the first time I had to figure this out. Absolutely incomprehensible, depending on the app you get. A lot of open source apps don't bother with a custom background and just have the two icons. Even if there's an arrow it's hardly clear if you're used to saner installation methods. For a company that is supposed to be all about ease of use, this one is absurd. And if you're wondering what Apple should…
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I don’t think less advanced users think that deeply about it. They just see “oh, I drag the app to applications”. The main issue I’ve seen is that people try to run the .app from the disk image, or forget to eject the image after moving the app. Well designed dmg drag-drop style deployments will actually put some background artwork with arrows and text instructions telling the user to drag and drop into Applications.…
> Still, I think .pkg package style installers are the most intuitive process for non-techies, especially those coming from windows where MSI and install wizard style exes are common. Nope. It's an app that is simply the .app bundle, skipping the whole historical footnote of a .dmg completely. Once you first run it, it asks if you want to move it to Applications, and promptly restarts from its new location.
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Not surprising, but at least devs are given a clear way to behave well if they want. I do think all desktop operating systems were overly loose with apps touching files, though.
Also, desktop app devs tend to touch files in a myriad places that you’d never expect. The os can never solve that anyway.
FYI - You don't have to drag the app to the applications folder in the install window. You can drag the app to a different location. I have an entry level mini 8GB/255 GB SSD with 1TB external SSD. Everything goes on the external. There are only a handful of apps that insist on being installed in the system Application folder. Even had xCode running on the external. Uninstalling is supposed to be as simple as moving…
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I don’t think less advanced users think that deeply about it. They just see “oh, I drag the app to applications”. The main issue I’ve seen is that people try to run the .app from the disk image, or forget to eject the image after moving the app. Well designed dmg drag-drop style deployments will actually put some background artwork with arrows and text instructions telling the user to drag and drop into Applications.…
> Still, I think .pkg package style installers are the most intuitive process for non-techies, especially those coming from windows where MSI and install wizard style exes are common. Nope. It's an app that is simply the .app bundle, skipping the whole historical footnote of a .dmg completely. Once you first run it, it asks if you want to move it to Applications, and promptly restarts from its new location.
The disk image could put a background image with instruction visual, decide the visual placement of icons. Applications could include folders with brush packs, example documents, user manuals and such.
The fact that it was a disk image could be seen as confusing if you read that closely, but if you ignore the file type it was simply an icon that you could double click to open a piece of installer UI.
Brew and other MacOS package managers are a testament to this. Package managers crafted with care around the user needs is always going to be the way to go.
This highlights something that's been a creeping issue for at least a decade if not longer: both MacOS and Windows are not built around the user anymore, for different reasons.
Windows is easy to see, it is now an OS as a service where the user is exploited right below the comfort threshold that will make them abandon the system (although for many this threshold was crossed long ago).
For Apple it's not as immediately obvious, but their forced obsolescence through constantly shifting requirements and tooling means that nothing lasts very long in the Mac ecosystem, you always have to upgrade, as a consumer and as a developer, rebuild, refactor, push updates and eventually be forced to replace your hardware. So you are basically caught in a neverending game of catchup and Apple is always a step ahead of you, by design.
Booting up almost any flavor of Linux is just leagues ahead in terms of simply letting you use your computer tending to your needs.