Quote:
Originally Posted by zauriel
Thanks for the informative post, Saurik. However, you point out exactly what I was saying -- that for most users, this behind-the-scenes stuff is no concern of ours. We see the product, the face of it, the features and what's available. And, I'm sorry, while you seem to indicate that Cydia offers more apps, I have never really found that to be true ... that is, speaking solely of actual applications that are user-driven (games, multimedia, mainly apps with icons on the springboard, etc.) rather than back-end (developer apps, codes or tools that most users would have no idea what to do with). With maybe one or two exceptions, I have always found what I needed on Installer. But there are hundreds of apps out there and of course I've never sat down and gone through them all (it's really subjective anyway as you could add sources from a number of places to access more apps).
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There are fewer apps available, period, anywhere, because people are using Installer and also not using Cydia. Using both isn't a problem if everyone were using both and not forcing developers to support Installer by ignoring Cydia then we wouldn't have a problem; options are good, competition is amazing. The issue is that by only ever using Installer users are pretty much demanding that it be supported, which means that the costs of constructing applications is higher, which means fewer applications. Put another way: you won't find more applications in Cydia because we (the developers) are wasting our time trying to support Installer (and especially BSD Subsystem) because we have to to get users, in turn because you demand it.
In essence, what you are doing here is ignoring second order effects.
We don't have J2ME, for example, support anywhere because I had to waste my time writing Cydia because NullRiver stopped working on Installer sometime around October (and only started up again due to competition by Cydia, and only just long enough to add a search feature). Installer still doesn't work well enough to package something that complicated reasonably correctly, so when and if it is ready you still won't get it via Installer. In turn, the fact that you won't see it as you believe the same packages should be available by either solution means that there's even less incentive to do it, because no one will ever use it.
If you don't believe me on these points, you really have to try packaging for Installer. You find yourself continually saying things like: "its taking me days to make an Installer package, and users don't have this other package installed? *sigh*, fine, let's figure out a way to compile that into my program; and that doesn't work?!? why isn't anyone fixing that... that's weird". You are requiring me (yes, because if I want my software to be seen I have to support the tool you are using) to use a tool that doesn't work. Installer and Cydia aren't just different interfaces to the same thing: they are entirely different package managers with very different features that change what I can do for you. When you are using Installer, my options are very limited, and when you insist that you use installer I might as well not even try.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zauriel
Glad to hear of the improvements, and I'm sure those will go a long way to improving Cydia's user base. The "Expert" mode hiding the non-user-friendly packages is especially intriguing. Do that, add a source editor (which for the record I don't see yet :) ), and make the interface more user-friendly (I'm sorry to say it, but copy Installer), and you just might have a convert.
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The source editor was released in a version a few days ago, not certain if it was before or after your post. The turnaround time from submitting a source to me and getting a source package out on the repository, though, is under 12 hours, so the source editor is kind of pointless: its a million times easier to just add a package to get more sources than to type in some crazy URL. That just isn't intuitive. Why do people want to type URLs in, when all the Cydia sources that are known are available in Cydia as easily installed packages?
Really, the problem with adding sources is that everyone thinks they can add Installer sources to Cydia. They see a page with 25 sources out there and think "why can't I add those to Cydia?". Even worse, many of those same people are trying to add 1.x sources to Cydia on 2.x, are wondering why that doesn't work, and seem to actually be holding out for Installer so they can add those sources, not realizing that those sources /still/ won't work as 1.x software doesn't work on 2.x. The Add Sources argument is a red herring.
Also, I find the idea of having to think through the order of installation (something you have to do all the time on Installer as it has no dependencies, and even though 2.x will have dependencies it won't have the ability to conflict with another package or to replace it or anything like that) very unintuitive and /un/friendly. I'm not certain, therefore, why everyone thinks Installer is more "user friendly".
The steps for installing a package are the same, the steps for uninstalling a package are only one greater (but is along the same path and lets you "reinstall" or "uninstall", something many Installer users find confusing in that you only get either/or there, so its intuitive why you have the extra step and actually helpful). The new version adds one more step to uninstallation, but its again for a purpose that actually adds clarity to the process and provides a good place to put the add sources area. Its not like you even do much more with the interface anyway... what is more difficult?
Really, the only interface thing about Installer that seems at all better is that the lists scroll faster. It has a broken version of Recent Packages (Cydia's Changes works a lot better), it has no FAQs or HowTos (which you can find on Cydia now), the web browser doesn't function nearly as well (and even looks painful when it does transitions to packages and confuses people because the back button usually doesn't work, Cydia handles this beautifully, letting you go back forth with standard swipe transitions as if the browser were part of the interface).... The only argument I've so far seen that held much water was "too many confusing packages", a problem that is now fixed in the latest version of Cydia.
Please, please, give me /constructive/ criticism on the interface. I can put together a long laundry list of things Installer is doing wrong on their interface design and bugs in their product (the previous paragraph is just a drop in the bucket). So far, though, all the specific issues people have listed in this thread aren't even issues in Cydia anymore.
The main thing I currently think needs to be improved is the screen that pops up when you are installing a package: that black screen with the white text needs to be improved. But it isn't really a UI problem as it doesn't actually do anything different than Installer did: both are showing a progress bar at the bottom, both are waiting while you install, etc..
Installer 4.x is actually getting an interesting feature here, because it is developed by an entirely different group of people by entirely different people than it was on 1.1.x (RiPDev bought the name so he could get all of your good will, has thrown away most of the code and is starting from scratch), and these people, while also being of the "I don't answer my e-mail" variety, are actually pretty good at coding. Instead of just showing a progress bar they are going to have a queue of packages that are installing in the background. Unfortunately, this interface paradigm means that we are going to have the same issues with packages that conflict with each other (as that has interesting ramifications on a queue of packages that are currently being installed). I am not certain yet what my answer to this is going to be.
Quote:
Originally Posted by zauriel
Again with smear 'n' fear tactics ::sigh:: What is it with the Cydia crowd? Lobbing grenades like this doesn't bolster your case, Saurik. I certainly hope you don't start calling for the elimination of Installer as others on this board have. Stick to working on Cydia; I'm sure everyone, Installer and Cydia users alike, would appreciate that more.
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I'm sorry, but what I'm saying there is true and it's sad. There are tens of thousands of phones out there running SSH with a default password because Installer refused to get on board with Telesphoreo. The "fear" /I/ have to deal with on a day to day basis is one caused by NullRiver: they tell everyone that passwd doesn't work. I /still/ have people coming to me saying "can I really run passwd if I got it from Cydia?". This is insane. I fixed it in January and told everyone how to fix it: nothing I've done is proprietary. BSD Subsystem, however, still isn't fixed, and isn't ever going to be, as NullRiver doesn't seem to care about their users (end users, packagers, or developers). :( Maybe RiPDev will be better, only time will tell.
07-30-2008, 06:56 PM
((its so ugly this black screen, and all my friends r away without my precious fring...
))
Linear Mode
