this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
1193 points (97.8% liked)

Open Source

31031 readers
939 users here now

All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!

Useful Links

Rules

Related Communities

Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

I beg you, if you are a developer of an open source app or program - add screenshots of your app to the README file. When looking for the perfect app, I had to install dozens of them just to see what the user interface looked like and whether it suits me. This will allow users to decide if the app they choose will suit them... Please, don't think about it, just do it....

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] TCB13@lemmy.world 332 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Dear open source app user: feel free to improve the README file of the projects you come across by adding a few screenshots you believe are relevant.

[–] TCB13@lemmy.world 108 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Although I understand the OP's perspective open-source is a community effort and people should have a more proactive attitude and contribute when they feel things aren't okay. Most open-source developers aren't focused / don't have time for how things look (or at least not on the beginning). If you're a regular user and you can spend an hour taking a bunch of screenshots and improving a readme you'll be making more for the future the project that you might think.

[–] jecxjo@midwest.social 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

When the last big Twitter migration to Mastodon occurred there were a lot new users complaining about things like documentation, bugs, etc. Old users and FLOSS supporters kept pushing the "its open source, write a doc or fill out a bug ticket" and evem included documentation on how to do those tasks.

Most people just continued to complain. /facepalm

[–] OrnateLuna@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)

We just don't live in a world where making the changes you want are encouraged. We have been thought to just accept whatever changes happen or at most file a suggestion that almost noone will listen to. Obviously open source is different but it's still such a tiny minority compared to how the rest of the world functions

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] IceMan@lemmy.one 72 points 1 year ago

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

[–] dogebread@lemm.ee 64 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This mentality explains a lot of open source.

[–] jelloeater85@lemmy.world 24 points 1 year ago (4 children)

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

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 28 points 1 year ago (5 children)

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.

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] KevonLooney@lemm.ee 25 points 1 year 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.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 129 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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 56 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 1 year ago (1 children)

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"!

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] noodle@feddit.uk 98 points 1 year ago (6 children)

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 32 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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

[–] QuazarOmega@lemy.lol 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

🛠️ Building

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

make child
load more comments (5 replies)
[–] CombatWombatEsq@lemmy.world 97 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Me, developing a headless component library:

[–] corytheboyd@kbin.social 37 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] herrvogel@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] CoderKat@lemm.ee 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 72 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] xT1TANx@lemmy.world 47 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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.

[–] shalva97@lemmy.sdfeu.org 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] skankhunt42@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 year ago
[–] gabe@literature.cafe 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

[–] Potatos_are_not_friends@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I wish there was a way to give more props to open-source repos that do this.

I already star the project. But I'd love to say "Thanks for making a demo page it really helped!"

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] 1984@lemmy.today 42 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Agree, I don't know what's so hard about a screenshot.

[–] StudioLE@programming.dev 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

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 1 year 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.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] huojtkeg@lemmy.world 39 points 1 year ago

You should open a PR. 🙂

[–] FrostySpectacles@lemmy.ml 36 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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 🙈

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] mojo@lemm.ee 33 points 1 year 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.

[–] leraje@lemmy.world 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] gianni@lemmy.ml 25 points 1 year 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

[–] randint@lemm.ee 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] emergencyfood@sh.itjust.works 23 points 1 year ago (3 children)

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 1 year ago (3 children)

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

![Description of the image](https://path/to/image)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] GlenTheFrog@lemmy.ml 16 points 1 year ago

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

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] bappity@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

no pics no clicks, as they used to say

load more comments
view more: next ›