Mail Archives: cygwin/2010/04/05/05:47:48
After using cygwin for years, and having some recent difficulty
installing, I took a look at the installer to actually try and
understand it (a novel concept I know!). Here are my thoughts on the
gui - I think it could be made considerably more user friendly with
some minor cosmetic changes.
The View button is being used to do two separate and unrelated tasks.
- Switch between category and list view
- Choose between partial, up to date, and not installed.
I suggest that additional radio buttons be used to select between
category and list view.
The terms used are not the clearest (and believe me, things are tricky
enough already)
Partial - I suggest change to 'to be be installed' or similar
Up to date - I suggest change to 'already installed' or similar
not installed - this is clear, no changes necessary
The way that (partial, up to date and not installed) is selected, via
clicking on a button multiple times is not very common in gui design.
It doesn't allow you to see all of the available choices at once. I
suggest replacing this button either with a group of radio buttons, or
a drop down list similar to the way that you can change the view in a
windows folder (details, list, icons)
I suggest that a new column be introduced, indicating whether a
package is already installed or not. The installer has this
information - it would be nice if it made it available to the user.
Also, on an unrelated note, it would be very nice, to sort the list of
mirrors in order of latency, or auto select the fastest available
mirror.
Chris
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