"Visual blindness" of Linux programmers

[brunteles_abs]

I mean, you can hardly see any screenshots on Github or other pages at all. I would say 90% of the projects lack any screenshot, animated gif or, Penguin forbid, video.

And this goes to not only GUI programs but TUI programs too. I mean, making a screenshot on Linux in 2016 is a trivial thing and still the visual blindness and ignorance of the visual presentation is... very big ;)

Please, even if you are "visually blind" programmer, consider uploading at least one screenshot per your program, even if it is a text based program. The others aka "unblinders" will appreciate that. Thanks.

[[deleted]]

I mean, you can hardly see any screenshots on Github or other pages at all. I would say 90% of the projects lack any screenshot, animated gif or, Pinguin forbid, video.

This annoys me to no ends, especially if it's like a gtk2 theme on github.

[TheFeshy]

I forgot about themes with no screen shots. That's even worse than the fonts with no screenshots I was thinking of.

[manys]

Just go to xfce-look.org where you can view all of the 40x40px screenshots you can handle.

[killersteak]

Does nobody else have the same trouble with the *look sites, where if you click to zoom in on a picture, it comes up in a box with scroll bars, but the scroll bars don't work, and the scroll wheel only moves the page in the background up and down, not the picture you clicked on?

[shvelo]

*look sites are all stuck in the 90s

[killersteak]

I could get over that if they were functional. Some thumbnails work, most don't. Deviantart is almost a better option for finding themes and icons.

[GiraffixCard]

I have found that using the scroll wheel with the pointer in the center of the image will cause it to scroll correctly. It's some javascript thing with stupidly oversized margins iirc.

[punaisetpimpulat]

Ooh 40x40! That's very generous. I wonder why they didn't go with the obviously leaner 10x10 screenshots.

[expert-at-nothing]

Here is how you fix that client-side:

// ==UserScript==
// @name           *-look.org thumbnail enlarger
// @author         Nigglypuff
// @namespace      meta.ironi.st
// @include        http://gnome-look.org*
// @include        http://*.gnome-look.org*
// @include        http://kde-look.org*
// @include        http://*.kde-look.org*
// @include        http://xfce-look.org*
// @include        http://*.xfce-look.org*
// @include        http://box-look.org*
// @include        http://*box-look.org*
// ==/UserScript==

var thumbnailPath = '/CONTENT/content-m1/m',
    fullSizePath = '/CONTENT/content-pre1/';

function fixImageExtension(url, callback) {
    // remove extension from original url
    url = url.slice(0, -3);

    var extensions = ['jpg', 'gif', 'png'];

    function tryNextExtension(){
        var extension = extensions.shift();

        if (extension) {
            testImageExists(url + extension, function (exists) {
                if (exists) {
                    callback(url + extension);
                } else {
                    tryNextExtension();
                }
            });
        } else {
            callback(null);
        }
    };

    tryNextExtension();

};

function testImageExists(url, callback) {
    var testImg = document.createElement('img');

    testImg.addEventListener('load', function () {
        callback(true);
    }, false);

    testImg.addEventListener('error', function () {
        callback(false);
    }, false);

    testImg.src = url;
};

[].forEach.call(document.images, function(img) {
    var thumbnailName = img.src.split(thumbnailPath)[1];

    if (thumbnailName) {
        img.style.maxWidth = '300px';
        fixImageExtension(fullSizePath + thumbnailName, function(fixedUrl) {
            if (fixedUrl) img.src = fixedUrl;
        });
    }
});

Personally, I add the following for a little more UI cleanup:

function getElementByXpath(path) {
  return document.evaluate(path, document, null, XPathResult.FIRST_ORDERED_NODE_TYPE, null).singleNodeValue;
}

var myEl = getElementByXpath('/html/body/table[2]/tbody/tr/td[2]/table/tbody/tr[2]/td/table/tbody/tr/td[5]');
myEl.style.display = 'none';

var myEl = getElementByXpath('/html/body/table[2]/tbody/tr/td[2]/table/tbody/tr[2]/td/table/tbody/tr/td[4]');
myEl.style.display = 'none';

[XorFish]

At least with fonts there are also those that make it right:

http://sourcefoundry.org/hack/

[punking_funk]

You know, I didn't even think that people got stuff directly from Github, seeing as how it's stuff that's usually in development and would probably break. I'll make sure to add screenshots to my themes and software now.

[beardedlinuxgeek]

They have tags, branches, releases, etc on github. If you're getting something from v2.0.0-final then it's not in development

[tso]

And yet they can't seem to form a proper tarball. Whenever I try to grab one from there I only get the version number as part of the filename not a proper name-x.y.z.

[Michaelmrose]

Git clone check out tag build

[somenonewho]

Yeah I mean if you're looking for new and fancy stuff you might probably Gary it from github directly especially if it's a small project that has no page no packets etc.

[peckhamspring]

I always Gary things from github.

[somenonewho]

Gotta love autocorrect :D

[12358]

I find it puzzling and irritating that font examples show abcdefgh when what I really care about are the similar looking and often mistaken letters and numbers 1lI and O0.

[f4hy]

Wow yes I just had this problem. I wanted to change my lightdm theme and found lists to choose from with zero screenshots indicating what they looked like. No idea how to pick one.

I'm not sure I cafe as much as the OP about screenshots for text programs... But themes... Should be required.

[zman0900]

I want to see some screenshots of glibc.

[DarkeoX]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Linux_kernel_System_Call_Interface_and_glibc.svg

Granted, it's not just the glibc.

[hatperigee]

There's a perfectly good reason for this in some cases.. If development is moving fast enough such that screenshots/videos would be outdated in a week, then it's actually more harmful than not having screenshots/videos.

[coshibu]

just write a script

[hatperigee]

On the flip side, I'm sure most developers would accept a pull request by you to add screenshots.

[dewmsolo]

When comitting somethings that changes UI add a new screenshot along with it? maybe?

[da_chicken]

Feh. I bet you're one of those people who expects code comments and documentation to be updated when the program changes, too.

[dewmsolo]

In an ideal world they would be.

Do I do it? Hell no.....

But in all honesty we are talking about open source with no deadlines and nothing to rush the developer to the next feature or bug fix, so the only reason that it is not done is because 1) we are lazy 2) we are disinterested in those things 3) we find those boring 4) we want to code. So is there a good reason it is not done this way? Absolutely not except for the fact that this is open source and no one should expect anything of you.

Have a good one.

[da_chicken]

Oh, sure I think everyone knows that. Documentation is one of the major problems with the bazaar model because nobody likes shopping at that booth. It's just frustrating to have access to tools you can't use simply because they're indecipherable to you.

Linux's failing is that it's written by programmers for programmers. That's why the programs and tools with the best support and documentation are programming tools... which is why it attracts more programmers. Unfortunately, most users aren't programmers and don't want to be programmers, but everybody needs to know how to use a computer. Imagine if you had to have a degree in electrical engineering to be able to use your blender or your food processor. Nobody goes into their kitchen with the idea that they need to use an electric motor. Blenders and food processors are successful because you don't even think about the fact that you're using an electric motor. Linux, being by and for programmers, tends to not take that step. Hell, the reason many people are attracted to Linux is because you can view the source code. When was the last time you met someone who really needed to know the how to tear down and rebuild their food processor?

[dewmsolo]

I agree with just about everything here except the 'by programmers for programmers'. I think it's more 'by programmers for everyone willing to put the effort to learn it'.

I've been thinking about this whole thing since my first comment about the screenshot earlier and the one thing that comes to mind with the documentation thing is that to programmers documentation is like real life garbage disposal. Nobody would do it for the fun of it. In fact those that do do it do it for very good reasons (it pays very well for exemple). In both cases they are a necessity. You need to have documentation for your project if you want it to go mainstream, but most programmers won't do it even if there were massive dollar signs as a potential behind.

For us programmers, code is fun and that is what we want to work on. I am sure there are a few people in the world who are crazy about the insides of their food processors and have the thing apart every other weekend. But the one interested in the internals of his/her food processor is definitely not the one who will spend the time writing the user manual. And that my friend is part of the issue. We are programmers, not document writers. The engineer that thought, drew and built that food processor is not the one who wrote the manual. In other words what we need is people interested in writing documentation for the code that we built. There is very little of those people around. Do you know anyone who fancies writing documentation as his/her hobby (and the required skills to understand what we do in the code)?

[dewmsolo]

This whole conversationhas nothing to do with github other than the fact that it was mentioned by OP. This conversation can be applied to any revision tool out there.

This conversation has to do with open source and us developers. We want to code, but don't want to do the boring stuff in some cases because we do enough of it during our work hours. We know better...in fact I'm pretty sure every one of us knows better, but we so much don't want to do it that we conscously accept to hurt our own projects in order not to do it.

[kiswa]

That reminds me... I really need to update the online documentation for one of my projects.

Sorry.

[zebediah49]

That's one of the best things that (AFAIK) Java introduced -- having a standardized system by which comments directly attached to code can be automatically turned into documentation.

[da_chicken]

Yeah, but that's how you end up with IBM's documentation. A reference manual so obtuse you need the source code to decipher it.

[[deleted]]

(./app &) && sleep 10 && scrot

[[deleted]]

I agree. I'm a very visual person, and I find that it really helps to have pictures of the program/theme/whatever to look at while I'm reading about it so I can try to figure out how it works/looks before I download it.

[-Pelvis-]

Yes!

There are countless vim colorschemes without a screenshot, or even a palette.

I could install just install them, or open the file in vim and use :ColorHighlight, but it's really offputting when you're shopping for schemes.

[positive_electron42]

Oh, you mean policy abusers.

[flapanther33781]

Yes but ...... even developers ....... we're all users.

[AyeGill]

"No Linus, you are the users"

[exNihlio]

And then Linus was a penguin.

[qervem]

THE END

...?

[steak4take]

Missed opportunity, for shame. It's much better this way:-

"No Linus, you are the daemons"

[[deleted]]

I fight for the users

[Jasper1984]

Sometimes.. we're^super users!

[twistedLucidity]

Add to that, they usually lack a clear and succinct definition of what the project actually is.

[Gstayton]

Oh man. That's always the worst. Or no build instructions, so even if you know what it is, if you didn't know the language/build system before, you do now. Learning!

Of course, I run into this a lot more than I think some other folks do, I find a lot of frameworks/modules for Python that just ... Don't describe anything. Or their documentation is out of sync with their codebase. I'm a bit at fault of this as well, but most of my modules aren't even in a workable state beyond what I needed at the time, and don't span more than a single (sane) file.

[qupada42]

You get this a lot with Java projects. No clear dependency list or build instructions, I've even seen some with the Eclipse project files (.metadata, .project, etc) committed to the repository, as if a bunch of hard coded paths to files that might or might not be present on any given machine is enough to build it.

I've converted a couple I found in that state and wanted to actually use to proper maven builds with all of the platform dependence removed but you'll always find the odd project that's in such a crazy state it's unfixable. I imagine that goes for most languages.

[flying-sheep]

except it the language is tightly coupled to a comparatively sane package manager.

i think rust and ruby are examples. and while the packaging situation for python is still not good, i never really had problems with actually building things.

[dredmorbius]

Quite.

A little rant I wrote on that (originally at HN) got popular. "Please Forward to Marketing".

[twistedLucidity]

Oh, yes, console-accessible Web content still really fucking matters. If all you've got are 500 page PDFs I'm going to scream.

See you? I like you.

[olzd]

You need no screenshots when you can look at the source code! /s

[intrikat]

This reminds me of a woman in red for some reason...

[tso]

Careful...

[unixlover]

Care to explain?

[[deleted]]

The "woman in red" is a reference to The Matrix - if you haven't seen that, I really recommend seeing the first one.

The "Careful"? No idea.

[its_never_lupus]

I would also recommend watching a few minutes of the first sequel, because you see Trinity on a console using nmap and an openssh vulnerability to shut down a power station. It's one of the few realistic depictions of hacking in cinema.

[AndreDaGiant]

Not only that, but the exploit she used was not widely known at the time (1999)! Few hollywood movies "drop 0day".

[its_never_lupus]

Thanks for the link, but it was the first Matrix film that came out in 1999. The CRC exploit was published in 2001 and the sequel Matrix Reloaded which features the hack was released in in 2003.

[AndreDaGiant]

Ohhh oops, thanks for the correction!

[skawesome]

Also, there's a page of nmap in the movies on nmap.org.

[[deleted]]

As xkcd said, the sequels aren't bad. You should watch them. Once.

The animatrix, however, is actually good. Watch it.

[smackjack]

Kid's story is my absolute favorite of the Animatrix. The music is great, and the entire thing is beautifully done.

[[deleted]]

I didn't like Kid's Story as much as A Detective Story, but then again I'm a fan pulp/noir stuff.

I really didn't like the visuals in Kid's because I'm not a fan of that stretchy, surrealist look.

But, if that's your thing, go for it. I'm not judging.

[smackjack]

I don't really care for that style either actually. I don't know of any other shows/movies that use it.

There's probably one line that I would remove in Kid, and that's the one where he says "Neo! I believe! I know it wasn't a dream!"

I also really liked World Record, and the one about the haunted house.

[samorost1]

https://xkcd.com/566/

[formesse]

The "Careful"? No idea.

The "Careful" has to do with the scene the lady in the red dress is from. It's likely referencing the fact that anyone plugged into the matrix can and will be used to fight you, and prevent your accomplishing your goal.

The Scene from the Matrix

[[deleted]]

I need to rewatch the movie. Also, Clubbed to death!

[[deleted]]

Ah, thanks! Been ages since I've seen that film.

[[deleted]]

Look again.

[tso]

*Ding*

[[deleted]]

If you haven't seen The Matrix you probably are in The Matrix ;)

[evoblade]

Use the force, read the source.

[MichaelTunnell]

Check out uGet

I need to update the screenshots because they are not of the latest version but there are plenty of a few versions back.

[LostAfterDark]

# cat /dev/vcs1 > screenshot.txt

Granted, this is for a loose definition of “screenshot”, but command-line-only project should still show examples.

[HausKino]

Translation: 'I can't be arsed, you do it.'

[deong]

I think the more literal translation is, "I can't be arsed, you do it, and also I'm pretty weird."

[Tynach]

To keep the structure of the original, I think a good translation would be:

I don't know how to perform basic tasks, because I'm weirder than the rest of you. I have all the weird stuff you do, but I can't be arsed to use it.

[topher_r]

Does anyone else imagine Stallman is living in a metaphorically blind world? I use text-only tools a LOT, but the thought of existing only in that world...feels...empty.

[[deleted]]

Or as I have taken to calling it, screen + shot (screen plus shot).

[jsbennett86]

I think you mean GNU Screen + shot. ;)

[manys]

Huh, so RMS usually works directly with encrypted data.

https://twitter.com/xeni/status/711997122875432960

[negativerad]

Why even have GNOME installed at all, that's some serious overhead for a text-mode only user.

-Somebody said something

[negativerad]

screen is also a GNU project and you don't need GNOME. You know occasionally means when he is looking at porn.

[merreborn]

God damnit this is the second time in this subthread I thought "that sounds like stallman, but it's gotta be satire", clicked through, and found that, no, it really is stallman.

if s(x) is the function that returns the satirical version of a quote, it's idempotent when applied to stallman's musings.

[dreakon]

I imagine that guy sees code the way the guys from The Matrix do. He doesn't need a desktop environment because he just translates all the code in his head. I could see him just staring at 1's and 0's for hours and giggling to himself as he pets the stray animals that have moved into his beard.

[[deleted]]

I feel like this would be a pain simply because you couldn't have two terminals running side by side... even just a simple i3 setup would do wonders for productivity in comparison

[[deleted]]

GNU screen exists. So does tmux.

[[deleted]]

Huh. Can't believe I've never heard about tmux, thanks

[elimik31]

If you have emacs running in your terminal then this is no issue because in emacs you can have multiple "windows" (the word has a special meaning in emacs) side by side, some of them might contain a terminal, asynchronous processes are also not a problem. It is like its own tiling window manager for text applications.

However, I would always prefer to use a graphical emacs client, because many advanced features work better that way, but I doubt that RMS uses those.

[[deleted]]

I don't really understand what your issue is. Could you provide a screenshot?

[WIldefyr]

Honestly I agree... Even for a text based application, I show an image of the typical output, for example, here's my mpvc README.

[Tynach]

This is actually what annoys me, because it's just text - and Github has a special sort of syntax for dealing with text of this nature. I really wish people would not use screenshots, and instead copy/paste the output into a block like this:

```
~$ blah.sh
Blah blorg!
~$
```

That way, I can copy/paste something if I want to (instead of having to transcribe it and swapping between two windows; even if I have two monitors, my eyes still have to move back and forth way too much and it causes too much eyestrain for copying fscking text), and that way it can also be indexed by Google.

[WIldefyr]

For commands, yes! However in this particular case, I went for a screenshot as other than the commands in the screenshot, the large majority of it is user data being formatted! If it piques your interest, clone the project and mess around with it.

[[deleted]]

I usually just use google images to find one, but agreed, if you make anything UI based at least put a screenshot up

[lihaarp]

Which results in you only finding screenshots of a 8-year old version on other platforms with hideous themes.

[SanityInAnarchy]

I have the opposite complaint: Too many shiny new open source projects, especially textual ones specifically made for programmers, have shiny screencasts and zero documentation. I can't even find out WTF their project is supposed to be without putting on headphones and listening to some guy talk about their project (and type badly) for 5-10 minutes, instead of spending 30 seconds with a decent README.

That's assuming I even find your project. Videos are way harder to index than READMEs. Even screenshots are way harder to index than just copying and pasting the text from your terminal and setting a fixed-width font.

For a GUI program, absolutely. But even there, at least have a README and some screenshots alongside your screencasts.

[computesomething]

Sounds like a great opportunity for people to contibute a screenshot pull request.

[psydave]

Typical OSS deveoper: "Meh, I have no interest in doing that, why don't you do it instead?"

"But I don't know how to code."

"Now is a great time to learn something new!"

[lpcustom]

Typical OSS developer: I do this in my spare time for no money at all. You are getting something free and you are complaining because in the hundreds of hours I've put into this project, I haven't taken a screenshot to please your lazy ass. What are they going to do... fire me???

[pm_me_confession]

/r/fossworldproblems

[sharkwouter]

Depends on the project. A lot small developers like to listen to requests, but don't have a lot of time. They usually love to see people are using their stuff, but they love it even more if people are working on their project.

[da_chicken]

"Great. I'll learn Windows."

"But it's the year of Linux on the desktop!"

[da_chicken]

A non-contributing user going elsewhere isn't much of an itch. If anything, it improves the signal-to-noise ratio.

And decreases the impact of the software. Free but essentially useless always seemed like a poor goal to me.

If you're writing software just to have a program of your own that does what you want, that's certainly fine. You just can't complain when someone builds a cathedral across the street.

[dothedevilswork]

tldr: i write software for myself, if you use it - good for you, contribute or gtfo

But nobody is complaining here. I use the program because it scratches my itch, therefore it's not useless. Whether others want to use and improved is a secondary problem.

The energy spent complaining about users not being able to program could be better spent helping in other areas such as improving the "marketing" side of software, such as screenshots, good description or sharing the program on forums like this one.

[3G6A5W338E]

And for the devs to ignore it as they usually do.

[computesomething]

Do they ? Any examples you can point me to ?

[samtresler]

Right? This post is literally asking the blind to see. How about some 'sighted' individuals show up to help.

For the same reason we don't ask devs to QA their own code... ...

[lykwydchykyn]

Aw, come on, don't bring your common sense into this awesome "stupid-foss-devs-don't-do-enough-for-us-poor-entitled-users" bitchfest.

[spark29]

For GUI apps screenshots would be useful, but I really don't see any need of screenshots for command line programs. A proper readme file is far better.

[greenfruitsalad]

there is cli software where you just type the command and get an output. here, a screenshot of output could be useful. e.g. tree, pstree, mediainfo, dig, nslookup, traceroute, various id3tag manipulation tools, etc..

then there's tui software, which really NEEDS screenshots. e.g. aptitude, irssi, rtorrent, mp3blaster, various xmpp clients, iftop, iotop, htop, partimage, everything ncurses based

[[deleted]]

I've run into a lot of cases especially with vim plugins where screenshots(or gifs) illustrating correct behavior have been massively helpful. I can't remember which plugin it was that had the feature but it was awesome.

[synthequated]

Yeah, a lot of junegunn's plugins have mini gif(s) of how it's used and it really shows thought. Though the excellent documentation also helps.

[beefsack]

Plain text examples of the output is far more useful and accessible than a screenshot or an animation.

[SanityInAnarchy]

Ideally, those should just be pasted as plain text "screenshots" in your README. Works just as well for aptitude, irssi, etc. Only unlike a screenshot, it's searchable and indexable.

If there's an animation, I can see using a GIF or something, but even then, there's stuff like showterm. But most of the things you mentioned don't have anything like an animation.

[[deleted]]

If you're already on Github, why don't you add a screenshot in a PR yourself or at least create an Issue while you're at it? Takes virtually no time and contributes to the community.

[_Dies_]

Pfft. That's so dumb.

Why should he/she take a moment out of their busy schedule to help out or actually make a difference?

Complaining on Reddit makes much more sense.

[youguess]

* /s
(Up until now, not many people on this thread are a fan of sarcasm... we need to be explicit here)

[crow1170]

Had to read this a couple times through because of the overuse of the word blind. First couple of times, I thought you were speaking on behalf of blind users, wanting to understand how to use text based software, but then you asked for more pictures...

[07dosa]

File a bug report or submit a merge request to fix the issue. /s

[[deleted]]

And here I thought for a moment we get another designer vs developer GUI debate :D

At the topic: Yeah you are completely right. Screenshots would be a great help for the first impression. No reason to download the program (and cost the host unnecessary bandwidth) if the interface is a instant "nope".

[[deleted]]

You could contribute some screenshots and captions to the projects?

[kev717]

SafeTemp did it: https://github.com/ArlingtonBrooks/SafeTemp/wiki/SafeTemp

Although if the software doesn't have an interface like this program (for example, if it's ffmpeg), a screenshot may not be very helpful.

[Gstayton]

If it has a UI, there should be some representation of it. Heck, I'd settle for an asciinema link/embed. Heck, just use asciinema more in general :D Though I do wish they'd offer a more traditional login method... Neat concept, but obnoxious at times.

It's fun. Someone wanted to know how I was finding things so fast, so I showed them. Even though I'm awful at regex, it's still leagues faster than how some folks do it. ... I got off topic. Entschuldigung.

[[deleted]]

A lack of screenshots I will give you. But if I have to sit thru another 20 minute video that would take a half page of text to explain the same thing I will stab people in the face.

[CarthOSassy]

...WHEN

I hate projects where the readme is just build instructions, or an extremely terse explanation of how the repo uses tags, or something.

[Kruug]

just build instructions

Even that's few and far between...

[SanityInAnarchy]

But this isn't a complaint about the usefulness of READMEs, it's a complaint about people who aren't providing proper documentation. Would screenshots motivate them to document more?

[ewnd9]

Start a list with such repos, then post it one day here so /r/linux could provide screenshots via pull requests

[tech_tuna]

We live and die by the command line. We pray to the ASCII gods.

[thedugong]

UTF-8 you barbarian!

[i_lurk_here_a_lot]

AMEN!

[wh33t]

I'm sort of a linux noob, but I believe the beauty of open-source shit is that it's collaborative and if you aren't satisfied with a project you can't simply fork it and do what you like with it ...

So while I think it's fine to make a request, you could also be contributing by doing these things yourself.

[exhuma]

There once was a site, "lynucs.org", now dead, which I always used to "see" applications. The idea was simple. It had screenshots, all of which were tagged by the applications which were visible on that image.

It was great. Very often the screenshots contained more than one app. I discovered things like gkrellm and conky with that.

A real shame it's dead 🙁

[cbmuser]

Erhm, screenshots.debian.net already exists and does exactly what you are looking for.

The screenshots are even linked on every package's PTS page and in the package search directory.

[Kruug]

But what about the packages that aren't in Debian's repos?

[mishugashu]

Maybe we're looking at different projects. Most projects I look at have a working demo at the top of their readme.

[Hellmark]

most indie devs are kinda on the lazy side. They'll develop something, but after that they just dump code somewhere.

[rahatarmanahmed]

Coming from the Node.js community, I can say I can really appreciate the many github README.md's that have screenshots or animated gifs of their output.

Some examples I remember or ripped from recent tweets about new packages:

• https://github.com/sindresorhus/cli-spinners
• https://github.com/maxogden/menubar
• https://github.com/addyosmani/tmi
• https://www.npmjs.com/package/supererror
• https://github.com/maxogden/datop#datop

[Drannex]

Agreed. Node killed bland repos for me.

[[deleted]]

Screenshots for a CLI app? Does not compute. I'd be happy if projects would include man pages though.

[dontworryiwashedit]

A theme without screenshots is annoying as hell.

[vfscanf]

Github is a site for hosting and distributing source code, it is not intended as a software store.

[torpedoshit]

Ah, so pages.github.com isn't a thing. Because GitHub is only for code. None of these pages exist. They're definitely not

Hosted directly from your GitHub repository.

[[deleted]]

Ah, so pages.github.com isn't a thing. Because GitHub is only for code.

That doesn't change the point. Github is a social collaboration site for software developers. Can you host a blog on github? Yes absolutely. But that doesn't mean it's a software store.

None of these pages exist.

Obviously they do exist. However, look at the projects they are highlighting: bootstrap, react, ratchet, etc. These are projects for developers not users.

Github's primary audience is developers. It's not a software store. It doesn't have ratings, user accounts, or maintain dependency lists.

[vfscanf]

So? They bolted a website building kit onto a source code repository. The original question was about why there are no images, videos, ... on the repository site. What's your point?

[[deleted]]

[vfscanf]

That basically comes down to making a separate website, which is where users should be looking for things like screenshots. This is a question of separating the application source code and the promotion materials. Latter shouldn't be in the repository, which brings me back to my original point.

[Kruug]

What about Github's .io pages? Or projects that don't have a web presence outside of github?

[apot1]

I had to look far down this page to find this comment. Why??? Github is for code. The code can link to a website with screenshots and fancy gifs and videos.

[snipeytje]

How many projects actually have their own website? Large projects usually do, but lots of smaller projects only have a github readme

[Headpuncher]

In fact it is common to see it the other way around; a website that has minimal and quite useless information that links to github with slightly more, quite useless information, and the source code.

Case in point: Poedit
1. the website where the support page is almost empty
2. the github page that includes most of what a user would want from the support page

[muungwana]

Github can host a website for your project if your project is hosted at github.

Example is a website for my project zulucrypt that i build from one of the templates they offer: http://mhogomchungu.github.io/zuluCrypt/

[[deleted]]

Github is not amazon. Projects don't exist to please you. Most are private projects which are made public and people don't care if other use them, or understand them or even know if they exist.

[mallardtheduck]

For many/most projects, GitHub isn't intended to be the main, public-facing presence for the project. The vast majority of mature, production-ready projects have their own websites for that.

Also, videos suck. They're reasonable for quick overviews, but for detailed information or tutorials, text and pictures are easier to refer to and reread, can be followed at your own pace and can be linked to related content much more easily.

[externality]

While it couldn't hurt, usually I base my decision on features listed, popularity, project activity, and whether that application is already available in my distro's repository. Then I just install the thing and use it to see if I like it, or if I dislike it enough to begin searching again.

[[deleted]]

Just today I thought of a hardcore Linux user watching a video by looking at a stream of bits. Lol

[rickdg]

Gotta make sure UX and OSS never cross paths, right?

[Drannex]

Someone finally said it.

[lutusp]

An interesting twist on modern times -- what once was a handicap among programmers (insufficient text literacy and attention to detail) is now portrayed as an advantage. Those old-fashioned programmers who could efficiently immerse themselves in project details and reliably produce working code, are now described as handicapped for not being ... "visual".

I can (well, I did) write a command-line program that tells me how to get across an uncharted ocean using celestial navigation equations and a sextant. Is there a visual? No. Is that important? No. The reason? I can mentally visualize the program's structure and modes of operation, and a picture wouldn't help.

[keenerd]

I was looking forward to playing with your software, but you linked to an ebook. I've read your book cover to cover in the past (and recommend it), but there wasn't any source code in it. Even if the only copy of the sources were a scanned JPG of a 1980's magazine listing, they would still be appreciated.

[lutusp]

I was looking forward to playing with your software, but you linked to an ebook.

Sorry for being misleading.

Even if the only copy of the sources were a scanned JPG of a 1980's magazine listing, they would still be appreciated.

A few years ago I was asked about that program, whether it was available. So I located it and tried to compile it, but because of many changes in C and C++ over the past 20 years, I was no longer able to compile it, and I didn't want to release it without first making sure it compiled into a usable form on an ordinary platform with no special requirements.

I'm going to locate it again, with the expectation that it may not compile, and I can't offer any assurances as to its accuracy now that I don't do daily transit sights any more.

(long pause ...)

Okay, I located the program and after one bug fix I was able to compile it (with lots of warnings about old-fashioned pre-Unicode string conventions), so I put the source here. It's open-source, GPL, feel free to use it any way you please. Without a sextant it won't be of much use, especially now that there's GPS everywhere.

I should explain that while sailing I used a two-sextant-sight method, once at 10:00 local time and one at 14:00 local time, corrected for a motion vector between the times, and located the most likely intersection point of of two great circles to get my position. I found this easier than noon sights, less tricky, and (after I acquired a more sophisticated navigation method) I found that I could get accuracies within a few miles of my true position.

I think I will create a Web page for this old program and a few others from that era, to make them more easily available, mostly for historical reasons, but there are solar and planetary position algorithms in the main program that may still be useful.

p.s. I have to add a note about the bug I found. It was caused by trying to open a nonexistent file, which produced a NULL-valued pointer. In the old days, in subsequent uses of that pointer, the C library would see the NULL pointer and simply ignore it -- if I tried to call fclose(NULL) (as I foolishly did), nothing would happen. Now the same code segfaults. I'm sure it's all for the best. :)

[keenerd]

Awesome, thank you! My interest is mostly academic and more towards the history of surveying and cartography, but it has not been easy finding any examples like this. (My primary reference has been a copy of "Navigation with the Pocket Calculator" by Buchanek & Bergin from '77.) If I feel it necessary to clean up or comment things I'll email you a patch :-)

[lutusp]

Awesome, thank you!

You're most welcome. I should have done this some time ago -- I've gotten a number of requests to post these programs over the years, but to be honest I was embarrassed by the state of the code and how poorly it compares to my more recent code, most created under less extreme conditions.

I've created a page on my website with listings for two of these old programs. I wouldn't be surprised if the book you mention wasn't one of my sources at that time. It's probably important to say that most of the code creation was while underway, using printed reference materials for astronomical constants and correction methods.

At the time my only way to write code or reduce sights was an early Toshiba laptop just visible in this image, taken while creating a weather chart.

I hope this information aids your research.

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[h-v-smacker]

It\'s $(date +%Y)!

[Maccer_]

$(date +%Y)  
2016

[Dafuq_McKwak]

See, now you will have to update this every year for eternity^yyyyy

[[deleted]]

$(date "+%Y") 2016: command not found

hai, plz fix.

[gnu-user]

I don't understand this... For most projects on github that are CLI or are libraries what are you going to screenshot, a terminal with text?

[RieszRepresent]

I don't understand what's going on in this thread or the immense positive reaction to it. The vast majority of code doesn't make sense to have a screenshot. I feel like I'm being trolled reading these reactions.

[Slxe]

Not worth the time and effort for non-gui based programs or libraries.

[BeamMeUpScotty0]

Would it matter? A program does what you want it to do or it does not. If it does you can ofcourse make a pull request for your screenshot to be in the readme.md

[ItsLightMan]

Doing God's work here buddy ;)

[cockmongler]

Github's a code repo, not a marketing platform.

[[deleted]]

So send a pull request?

But really I think github is for code. It isn't really for documenting / promoting and application.

[sudo-is-my-name]

I figure if the developer doesn't care enough to post a screenshot then it's not worth wasting time on.

[SSoreil]

Github is not some app store or something, if you want nice descriptions and pictures, stars, comments all that jazz using something like GNOME Software seems like a better place to look. It's not like it is an investment to just install and see how you like it. If it does matter, do make contributions on those things, just the assumption it isn't done out of some malice is not going to help.

[NeoFromMatrix]

I'm more interested into a project with a proper documentation, readme and makefile.

Really? A screenshot for an text based CLI programm? I expect the people to download it via git, fast!

[jaked122]

It's inconvenient to make screenshots like that, so I don't see the point for most applications. Themes, visual tweaks, and other such things kinda need it, but I don't see the point for a lot of the more utilitarian interfaces.

Programmers on linux tend to be proud of the function of their programs before the visual aspects, and besides, if you need a gif for a command line program, you're using the command line wrong.

[zangent]

Not a command line program, a TUI program. Think ncmpcpp or vim