On Fri, Oct 31, 2003 at 10:31:58PM -0800, Paul wrote:I see the installation of Freenet and the configuration of Freenet to be an area that needs serious attention.
First, I use Freenet on a Mac, but Mac OS X is not shown anymore as a compatible OS on the Freenet web site download page. It used to be there, but not anymore. I know to use the Linux download and instructions, but the only reason I know that is because the web site used to state this. A new user will likely not realize this.
Second, the install process needs to be easier. Yes, installing Freenet is as simple as copying over a handful of files, but a single-click install program is very nice. The Mac .pkg format is simple and effective, and it allows scripts to be included and run during the installation process.
Care to volunteer? I don't have a Mac to develop a package on.
I had a feeling you might ask that. While I can program, I just do not have the time right now to learn the specifics of how to do this, and then do it. The time investment goes beyond doing this once. I'd have to do it for every single release. And at the rate they are coming these days, that's a huge amount of time.
>Third, configuring Freenet is a major pain. Right now, in order to copy over my few custom .conf file settings, I have to first fake out Freenet into thinking that it is running for the first time so it creates a new .conf file with default settings. Then I bring up both the new .conf file and the old one in a text editor, and go through each setting, line by line, an copy over my custom settings into then new .conf file.
Why can't you just copy over the old .conf file? Any settings that haven't been overridden will be commented out and therefore the node will use the default settings.
Problem with this is that I then have no idea what the new options are. I might want to, or need to, tweak the new options.
>If each new update of Freenet would be able to read in the last version's .conf file, add new options to it, that would be a good start.
There is an option to do this.
Yeah, but it uses the command line which is what I'd like to get away from completely. Command-line = very difficult usability
>An even better improvement would be a nice GUI tool to edit and maintain all of Freenet's configuration options.
We have thought about doing it via the web interface. We don't want actual GUI code in the main Fred tree.
A web interface would be great and be very universal. Is this comming soon?
>Fourth, starting and stopping Freenet is a pain. I have to bring up the Terminal, and type in a command line to start and stop Freenet. This is extremely un-Mac-like and you will loose 99% of your potential users when they see that they HAVE to use the command line to get Freenet to run. A simple double-clickable icon is what people want.
Well, Mac users are probably 5% of our target market (linux about 30% and the rest windows), probably. It would be nice to have a proper package.
Linux and Mac OS X are, at the low-level, the same: UNIX It's just that Apple has put a great set of API extensions on top of it to create the easiest to use OS available. So if usability improvements are made in a universal way that also works under Linux, then both the Mac users and Linux users would benefit. That's 35% of Freenet users.
Is there anything like Fink (http://sourceforge.net/projects/fink/) in the Linux world? With the addition of the GUI tool, Fink Commander, Fink is just usable on the Mac. If there was a compatible tool under Linux, you might be able to unify the Mac OS X and Linux Freenet packge.
Another usability suggestion to help Mac users: Mac OS X does not come with "wget". So the "update-freenet.sh" script will not run. Mac OS X does include "curl" which I think is similar to "wget". Any chance of having the update script use "curl" incase "wget" is not installed?
>All of these could easily be done on the Mac with an Applescript Studio type application. I've seen people write a really good GUI front-end to command line programs in a matter of days with Applescript Studio.
Linux would also benefit from all of the above improvements.
The first impression of Freenet is the install and configuration process. Right now this process gives a new user a distinctly negative impression of Freenet. This impression just gets worse when they run it for the first time and can't load any sites. But that's a whole other discussion...
Paul
-- Matthew J Toseland - [EMAIL PROTECTED] Freenet Project Official Codemonkey - http://freenetproject.org/ ICTHUS - Nothing is impossible. Our Boss says so.
-Paul _______________________________________________ Support mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://dodo.freenetproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support
