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#51
General Chatter / Re: why are mid sized open sou...
Last post by Exhale - November 04, 2024, 15:08:07Quote from: n0cturn on November 04, 2024, 03:17:01Maybe you should watch the video again and pay attention to which software gets the most plugs, then you will understand the motivation behind the video (or more to the point the money behind it)
Nothing is what it seems on the internet, its just seen as one big advertising opportunity
as for this,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nO-fDAnRcNE
carefully thought out emphasis on design WORKS for larger projects across the board. As I said before, if you are always questioning the source you become blind to the message.
(yes it is a long video, but pretty much any 5 minutes of it will tell you outright that the reason zorin OS is succeeding is because they are constantly obsessed with the first user experience)
#52
General Chatter / Re: why are mid sized open sou...
Last post by manx - November 04, 2024, 14:58:28Do you have anything tangible to propose here, or is this just you rambling around?
There is no razor-sharp distinction between user interface design and programming as you might make it sound. OpenMPT is a very old code base, and a lot of ancient (and arguably bad) user interface design decisions cannot "just be changed" at the blink of an eye, but are baked in deeply into the code structure. At places this requires a lot of programming work (we are talking months here) to even be changeable at all. We are fully aware that there are areas where the user interface can be improved, but it is always a tradeoff between that, and working on other aspects of OpenMPT/libopenmpt (or even other projects). We do not have infinite time.
And frankly, exactly this trap of baked-in interface design decisions can arguably be seen rather well in Photoshop and Premiere, IMHO. They also keep ancient decisions, even if they are objectively bad under some criteria.
In the past ~12 years that I have been working on OpenMPT and libopenmpt, we were only once approached by a designer (and a graphics designer at that, not a user interface designer), who did re-design the OpenMPT logo. As far as I can tell, we neither alienated them, nor any other designers, as you make it sound.
"Just add a huge team of user interface designers" does not "just work". We cannot just conjure them out of thin air; and we also cannot buy them.
There is no razor-sharp distinction between user interface design and programming as you might make it sound. OpenMPT is a very old code base, and a lot of ancient (and arguably bad) user interface design decisions cannot "just be changed" at the blink of an eye, but are baked in deeply into the code structure. At places this requires a lot of programming work (we are talking months here) to even be changeable at all. We are fully aware that there are areas where the user interface can be improved, but it is always a tradeoff between that, and working on other aspects of OpenMPT/libopenmpt (or even other projects). We do not have infinite time.
And frankly, exactly this trap of baked-in interface design decisions can arguably be seen rather well in Photoshop and Premiere, IMHO. They also keep ancient decisions, even if they are objectively bad under some criteria.
In the past ~12 years that I have been working on OpenMPT and libopenmpt, we were only once approached by a designer (and a graphics designer at that, not a user interface designer), who did re-design the OpenMPT logo. As far as I can tell, we neither alienated them, nor any other designers, as you make it sound.
"Just add a huge team of user interface designers" does not "just work". We cannot just conjure them out of thin air; and we also cannot buy them.
#53
General Chatter / Re: why are mid sized open sou...
Last post by Exhale - November 04, 2024, 14:35:41We all forget it, since we are so used to the way ompt works, but it is terribly designed. For a new user it is dauntingly confusing, and always finds a new way to trip up their creative flow. It is a godaweful mess, and we need to own that, accept it, before we can begin to change it.
There are some real positives, the tab system is a strong intuitive one. But the contents of the tabs get in the way of things, presenting options that a person cant even interract with (greyed out options) to overwhelm the mind giving our present system an information overload.
I know when I first started in mpt (before I knew there was an o version, which i think was only a few years old at the time) I was forced to read the help section almost every time I used it, and these days the help isnt even an offline thing, new users have to go to the wiki.
The reason I eventually came to these forums in the first place was to learn things I was sure I could do in ompt but had no help in the help learning about such as Zxx macros and how to take full control of vsts. I had to search the forums here just to properly learn what I was doing because I learn very slowly and always have.
The point is, what a programmer thinks is self explanatory almost never actually is. The things us wizened old users of a bit of software think are logical pretty much never are. And to see that difference and fight to bridge that gap is the power of carefully thought out design... which is what is lacking in the majority of open source projects out there, including this one.
There are some real positives, the tab system is a strong intuitive one. But the contents of the tabs get in the way of things, presenting options that a person cant even interract with (greyed out options) to overwhelm the mind giving our present system an information overload.
I know when I first started in mpt (before I knew there was an o version, which i think was only a few years old at the time) I was forced to read the help section almost every time I used it, and these days the help isnt even an offline thing, new users have to go to the wiki.
The reason I eventually came to these forums in the first place was to learn things I was sure I could do in ompt but had no help in the help learning about such as Zxx macros and how to take full control of vsts. I had to search the forums here just to properly learn what I was doing because I learn very slowly and always have.
The point is, what a programmer thinks is self explanatory almost never actually is. The things us wizened old users of a bit of software think are logical pretty much never are. And to see that difference and fight to bridge that gap is the power of carefully thought out design... which is what is lacking in the majority of open source projects out there, including this one.
#54
General Chatter / Re: why are mid sized open sou...
Last post by Exhale - November 04, 2024, 14:31:34frankly the video is echoing the frustration I see from a lot of people, including myself with the obtuse programmer first, blind to welcoming design dominating the majority of open source projects. Including this one.
With the programmers fawned over none stop like fucking gods, they strut around with swelling heads and think they are so clever that they can design. Design is something people devote their whole lives to, like programming, it isnt something some fool can just pick up and sniff the air to get right.
This perception comes from the propensity for people to keep telling designers and musicians 'oh you are so talented', thinking of it as something innate in people instead of something they have had to work their asses off for.
And thus you get dumbass designs like gimp which actively get in the way of artistic creativity while using the thing. Yes I include krita and inkscape in this, and I include old blender in this.
When blender first came out I was on that thing like crazy, but its old interface was much MUCH worse than the modern thing - which I fear is only being held back from becoming another obtuse mess by the fact that it has an actual design team that is taken seriously and listened to by the programmers who might otherwise think they know better. Blender could go right back down that rabbithole if they decided to start ignoring the designers again, and frankly I dont think they are listening to the designers enough even now.
With the programmers fawned over none stop like fucking gods, they strut around with swelling heads and think they are so clever that they can design. Design is something people devote their whole lives to, like programming, it isnt something some fool can just pick up and sniff the air to get right.
This perception comes from the propensity for people to keep telling designers and musicians 'oh you are so talented', thinking of it as something innate in people instead of something they have had to work their asses off for.
And thus you get dumbass designs like gimp which actively get in the way of artistic creativity while using the thing. Yes I include krita and inkscape in this, and I include old blender in this.
When blender first came out I was on that thing like crazy, but its old interface was much MUCH worse than the modern thing - which I fear is only being held back from becoming another obtuse mess by the fact that it has an actual design team that is taken seriously and listened to by the programmers who might otherwise think they know better. Blender could go right back down that rabbithole if they decided to start ignoring the designers again, and frankly I dont think they are listening to the designers enough even now.
#55
General Chatter / Re: why are mid sized open sou...
Last post by Vojvodinosaurus - November 04, 2024, 13:43:15OMPT is the only tracker I use. Audacity is the audio editor I use the most. LMMS is the DAW i use the most. Inkscape is the vector graphics software I used the most. All this despite using a Windows. Just goes to show that sometimes, FOSS is all you need. Though I'm still hesitant to switch to Linux so I'll prolly use it alongside Windows.
#56
General Chatter / Re: why are mid sized open sou...
Last post by manx - November 04, 2024, 08:26:53The premise of the video appears to be that, in particular, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Premiere have intuitive easy-to-use interfaces. It compares them only to mainly a single open source alternative respectively. It does not even mention other open source alternatives (of which there are plenty), and also completely ignores other closed source alternatives with different user interface approaches.
IMHO the premise is already wrong, which makes discussing anything else rather pointless.
I do not know whether it is actually paid advertising (feels too badly made for that), but it is certainly heavily biased towards Adobe.
IMHO the premise is already wrong, which makes discussing anything else rather pointless.
I do not know whether it is actually paid advertising (feels too badly made for that), but it is certainly heavily biased towards Adobe.
#57
General Chatter / Re: why are mid sized open sou...
Last post by n0cturn - November 04, 2024, 03:17:01Maybe you should watch the video again and pay attention to which software gets the most plugs, then you will understand the motivation behind the video (or more to the point the money behind it)
Nothing is what it seems on the internet, its just seen as one big advertising opportunity
Nothing is what it seems on the internet, its just seen as one big advertising opportunity
#58
General Chatter / Re: why are mid sized open sou...
Last post by Exhale - November 04, 2024, 01:50:35Quote from: n0cturn on November 03, 2024, 22:01:20Don't you just love youtube 'experts'dont you just love people who flippantly disregard a valid opinion to denigrate the source? otherwise known as the ad-hominem fallacy. Try addressing the content instead of denigrating where it came from.
#59
General Chatter / Re: why are mid sized open sou...
Last post by n0cturn - November 03, 2024, 22:01:20Don't you just love youtube 'experts'
#60
General Chatter / why are mid sized open source ...
Last post by Exhale - November 03, 2024, 18:39:00https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHQv4blla7g
because they are run by coders and dont have a balancing QUALIFIED design team (not your half assed approximation that you think is good enough).
because they are run by coders and dont have a balancing QUALIFIED design team (not your half assed approximation that you think is good enough).