Re: Meld "irritants"

[andré <andr55 laposte net>]

Scott Kostyshak a écrit :
> On Sat, Aug 12, 2017 at 12:27 AM, V S Rawat <vsrawat gmail com> wrote:
>
> > overall, meld user interface is totally non-intuitive and so are various
> > options.
>
> There are things that I find non-intuitive, but *overall* I find the
> meld user interface to be very intuitive.
>
> > Hope you would go through the content of what feedback I give and not get
> > purturbed by the tone.
>
> I'm not sure if you're open to feedback or not, but in case you are I
> will give it. Background: I am just a (very happy) meld user and I
> lurk in the shadows a bit on the mailing list. I thought the tone of
> the email was not too bad. The main part that I thought was rude was
> <<It is not a bug or mistake, it is ultimate "lack of consideration"
> on behalf of developers. Seems, You didn't even use Meld yourself in
> real life even once.>>. The rest I thought was not too bad. However, I
> thought that a lot of your considerations could be framed more
> positively. Instead of the approach of "why does Meld do this? It is a
> stupid approach", you would be amazed how more likely your suggestion
> would be taken into consideration if you frame it like "I think it
> would really help users if Meld did this...". Perhaps that's just not
> your style though, and that's fine: There's no point in pretending to
> be nice or to frame something in a positive way if you just don't
> believe it.
>
> Apart from the tone, I thought your email was a fine body of an email.
> What in my opinion is lacking is a more appropriate introduction or
> conclusion. In your email, you make a few suggestions along the lines
> that the developer(s) of Meld simply do not care about their users
> (otherwise they would have implemented the interface you suggest). I
> guess if you truly believe this, then your email is as it should be
> because it reflects your opinions. If the meld developer(s) really
> don't care about their users, then yeah you should be upset. But I
> urge you to think very hard before attacking the intentions of the
> developers. Why do you think they spend so much of their free time on
> Meld, if not for the users? This is why I would suggest an
> introduction or conclusion along the lines of "Thank you very much for
> your effort on Meld. I really appreciate the time you spend on it."
> Again, if that's not true, then I certainly would not recommend you to
> put it. But if it is true, it is good to put. Note that in the phrase
> that I suggest you would not be saying anything about whether Meld is
> good software. Maybe you think it's bad software with a horrible
> interface. But you at least recognize that the developer(s) are trying
> and have good intentions and you appreciate the time that they put
> into at least *trying* to produce a good software.
>
> I've seen a lot of open source projects, and in my opinion Meld is
> *the* most impressive one-person development projects. I know it is
> not completely one person, but it is mostly one person. I'm amazed by
> what the developer(s) have managed to accomplish, by their
> documentation, their bug fixes, their effort at supporting multiple
> platforms, their dealing with different GTK versions, their
> participation on the mailing list, and perhaps most of all by the
> quality of the software. They do it all. Much respect to them!
>
> Let me conclude this email by saying that I really appreciate that you
> (Rawat) put in the time and effort to write some detailed suggestions.
> Although I do not agree with the tone (as expressed above), I am glad
> that you gave some specific suggestions. As a developer, and also as a
> teacher, what hurts the most is when someone says a vague negative
> statement without giving any specifics. Thank you for not doing that.
>
> Best regards to all,
>
> Scott
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Noting that I agree with the comments on the _tone_ of the original message,
I would also like to point out some difficulties I have with the current incarnation of meld.
1) In a directory comparison, it is no longer possible to _hide_ selected files being compared.
This is a feature I find very useful in most of my comparisons, which causes me to use a very old version of 
meld (1.6.1)

2) It is no longer possible to edit and/or copy the path of a comparison.
This feature I find useful almost all the time, but if point 1 doesn't apply, I sometimes use the current 
version of meld.

3) The layout of the comparison fields used to be vertical, instead of side-by-side.
This gives more space for the paths being compared.
Since I usually use very long paths, the former layout is a definite plus, but not enought to cause me to 
avoid using the current version.

I would also like to note that there have been some improvements, such as comparing directories by only the 
name and file size, instead of also byte-by-byte.
In many contexts this is adequate, and results in (often much) faster comparisons.

I realise that the transition from gtk2 to gtk3 is a factor in (at least some of) the changes, but would 
still appreciate the former features returning.
In the meantime, I keep the older version as well as the current.

My 2¢

--
André