[Wine] Re: How can we improve WNE?

[man_in_shack]

James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> KISS is a princple that has to be pounded into some developers.  I'll let you guess which category you are in.  If you can provide a simple, easy to use graphical interface, that is MUCH better for them.


Settings clutter.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> BTW, I work with these people on a daily basis and you would be amazed that they want a PowerPoint presentation, with bullets, or you don't get what you want.


Feel free to create a bunch of PPTs for AppDB instructions and FAQ entries. Obviously, they are NEEDED, because we HAVE TO CATER to the id10ts that use Wine, right?


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> 
> 
> man_in_shack wrote:
> > 
> > How about keep winecfg simple? I like this idea better.
> > 
> 
> I agree,


Resolved. Argument over.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> but in the meantime, while we work through the problems, give the users what they need to get their programs working.
> 


Can't keep winecfg simple *and* add a bunch of settings in the mean time.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> I have to bring forward something that I was told in my marketing class in college:


When did Wine get a marketing department? And when were you appointed its director?

Wine does very well increasing its user base without traditional marketing already, just like other opensource projects.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> continue pissing off users


Because that's exactly what I'm *trying* to do, right?


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> Most of the people here want people to use the product


Which they buy with money, and pay continuing service and support fees, right? Oh wait, Wine doesn't cost money, nor does it cost for support. You have a very business-related viewpoint which I feel is irrelevant to Wine and opensource in general.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> Of course, Windows does not give you the ability to change each and every setting, nor should Wine.


So let's not do it then. Argument over.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> However, settings that fix problems should be easy for users to find and set, with WARNINGS.  This way, when a user comes to us, we can say "We warned you and you did it anyway".


And they can say "WHAT WARNING IT WASN'T BIG ENOUGH I DIDN'T SEE IT WINE SUCKS". It's just harder for them to say it, but remember, these are id10ts, because we only care about id10ts.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> Right now, people are going through the archives, visiting the Applications Database and breaking Wine and then blaming us, rightfully so.
> 


You're an AppDB admin, so fix AppDB.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> 
> man_in_shack wrote:
> > 
> > So delete the pages, or rename it to UselessRegistryKeys. See how many friends you make doing
> > that. Why do the pages exist if it's not for users to look at?
> > 
> 
> We should have this information in the FAQs, where needed, and in the Applications Database.  That is where we should be sending users, not to a page full of registry keys.


This is how it works:
User: "It's broken!"
Supporter: "Did you check AppDB?"
User: "Yes, no help. Here's the error I get: blah blah"
Supporter: "Hmm, try changing this setting with regedit. It's listed in UsefulRegistryKeys. You want this specific option."
User: "Thank you. Wine is awesome and so is everyone who supports it."

or:
User: "AppDB tells me to change this setting but I can't find it."
Supporter: "It's listed in UsefulRegistryKeys. You want this specific option, and you need to edit it with regedit"
User: "Thank you. Wine is awesome and so is everyone who supports it."


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> That is how the average user sees things.  "You told me to go to page XXX in the manual, I followed each instruction with extreme care, your program does not work, fix the xxxxx or give my my money back."


They're welcome to ask WineHQ for their money back. I'm sure everyone involved will be willing to help them reclaim every cent they paid WineHQ for Wine.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> We don't need to fost a partial product on unsuspecting users without a method to help them.


Sorry, but that's what we have to do. Wine *is* by nature an unfinished, unfriendly, partial "product". Even (especially?) stable branch is like that.

BY NATURE, not something that can be fixed by adding a bunch of settings to winecfg ... unless you WANT settings clutter.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> And dealing with graphic problems is what we are here to do.  Users should have a simple way to make changes.


I've worked out what's going on here, see below.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> 
> man_in_shack wrote:
> > 
> > Still sounds a lot like "Click here to break everything" to me. Not everything needs to be
> > configurable through winecfg, or winecfg would already be a complete registry editor.
> > 
> 
> I agree.


Resolved. Argument over.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> What I'm saying is if a user has to change a commonly known setting, it should be available through winecfg.  If it is not well known or deprecated, then it is time to get into regedit and only by knowledgable users.


In that case, we want EVERY SINGLE KEY listed on UsefulRegistryKeys to be editable by nice pretty UI via winecfg. No one is arguing for this though; it's restricted to the Graphics tab. All of the keys on UsefulRegistryKeys are well known and (almost all) are not deprecated, or going to be deprecated any time soon.


> 
> 
> [quote="James Mckenzie"]
> 
> man_in_shack wrote:
> > 
> > "Real fix" is to code.[/quote
> > 
> > I agree that the proper method is to fix the code.
> 
> 
> Resolved. Argument over.
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > man_in_shack wrote:
> > > 
> > > I dislike the idea of allowing users to hack at
> > > settings that should not be hacked at as a quick fix. I dislike the idea of adding settings to
> > > winecfg that we know are going to be removed later on. I dislike the idea of dealing with
> > > disgruntled users who have broken Wine due to ease of breakage with these settings and then blame
> > > us for making it easy to break.
> > > 
> > 
> > I also don't like for users to 'crack' around, but sometimes that is the ONLY solution to the problem that works.  I don't like adding and removing things from a working program, but remember we are dealing with folks who don't even know what the registry is and they really don't care how it works.
> 
> 
> Resolved. Argument over.
> 
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > All they want (as Austin has pointed out) is for their favorite program to work.  Be it Office 2007, WoW, dOOm III, or any other program.  If we make it easy for them to get it running, that is much better.
> 
> 
> Maybe we could do a deal with Microsoft that allows us to subsidise copies of Windows to Wine users, and ship VirtualBox or dual-boot bootloaders instead of Wine.
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > users complain that we hide stuff from them.  Go figure that one out.
> > 
> 
> 
> Then they should be digging around in the source code, the registry, the wiki for the information we're "hiding" from them. We're not hiding anything. Again, the users in question are defective, and we shouldn't have to support them.
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > You have got to visit the unoffical Wine repositories.
> 
> 
> Which are not supported by WineHQ. Awesome argument. Well done. You win the internet.
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > There is a wealth of knowledge about hacking/cracking Wine that is to be gained.  You will see hacks that will NEVER make it into Wine due to AJs controls.  And I am glad they are there.
> 
> 
> So you're also saying it needs to be easy for the average id10t to patch and compile Wine if it will make their app better? Or are you saying that some (or all) of these "unofficial" hacks need to be merged into Wine purely for the reason that they make more apps run?
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > Like I said, there are users that are attempting to use Linux/Wine that have difficulty grasping the concept of what the power button does.
> 
> 
> WineHQ does not support ACPI shutdown states, electrical current control, or the buttons and/or switches used to modify either of these things. If they're struggling to find their power button, they need to do some learning external to Wine and come back later. It makes it easier on *everyone*, not just the supporters.
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > See my comment above.  Take a look at the Ubuntu user support forum.  It's scary how ignorant some users are.
> 
> 
> Agreed.
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > man_in_shack wrote:
> > > 
> > > Fact is that, as much as things have improved, Wine is not user-friendly. I don't think it ever
> > > will be, not because it's "missing" settings in winecfg, but because of the way it works and what
> > > it has to deal with. Will we ever get to the point where we can say "pick a Windows app, any
> > > Windows app, and it will work in Wine without configuration, tweaking, patches, native DLLs etc."?
> > > 
> > 
> > I agree.
> 
> 
> Resolved. Argument over.
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > It would be great to be able to run any application, but that is not going to happen.  We have to pick the most popular and go from there.  The popularity list changes as new games are released and old ones are retired.
> 
> 
> This is what I meant when I said earlier I worked out what's going on. You're confusing Wine with Cedega, and WineHQ with Transgaming. Every single one of your arguments makes sense when applied to Cedega.
> 
> Sorry, but no, Wine does *not* have to support the "most popular" of anything. Wine is intended to be a complete implementation of win32. Wine devs don't generally go about fixing stuff "because it fixes this application", it's about fixing stuff "because this API doesn't work correctly". Maybe the most popular/common applications get "fixed" faster, because it's more obvious to the devs that they are broken. It's easy to download a small demo app or test case that demonstrates brokenness in Wine, not so easy to dig up some obscure title from 15 years ago that never had a freely released trial or shareware version.
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > man_in_shack wrote:
> > > 
> > > Are you prepared to pay the supporters on wine-users, forum and #winehq? If not, don't
> > > expect "professional-level" support.
> > > 
> > 
> > No, but then again, I bought CrossOver for Mac.  And I plan on keeping up support to Jeremy and company.  That is when I can complain about something not working.  
> > 
> 
> 
> Good on you! One snag though, CrossOver is not Wine, and Codeweavers are not WineHQ. I'm fully aware of the work that Codeweavers put into Wine, and very appreciative of it, but purchasing a copy of CrossOver does not give you license to complain about how Wine works. It does give you license to complain to Codeweavers about how CrossOver works, and if you can convince them, they can work on getting Wine changed too.
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > man_in_shack wrote:
> > > 
> > > There is certainly room for improvement, but how much of Wine should be configurable via winecfg
> > > or the Control Panel?
> > > 
> > 
> > The same amount as is in msconfig and Control Panel.  Users should not have to dig through the registry to make known changes.
> > 
> 
> 
> Control Panel and msconfig on Windows do not give you advanced OpenGL or DirectX settings. Depending on what video driver you have installed, you can access advanced OpenGL/DirectX/D3D settings, but it's not something provided by Microsoft.
> 
> Also note that Control Panel has a whole bunch of settings that can't be implemented in Wine, but that's a matter for another discussion.
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > And we have users whining about how to use the regedit.
> 
> 
> And we ONLY care about them, right?
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > For some users, regedit is not scary.  For some users, they have been told, rightfully, never, ever use regedit.  Those are the users we have to have a solution for.  You got one, and it CANNOT include the words, "take this file and run regedit against it".
> 
> 
> Agreed. Would you like to fix up AppDB and remove all the .reg files and similar instructions?
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > If we can say, go to the XX tab on winecfg and click this setting, they will do it.  Of course, we will have to warn them that bad things can and will happen.
> 
> 
> Along the same lines on AppDB, once the settings are fixed in Wine and the settings in winecfg are removed we'll get people complaining that the setting in winecfg doesn't exist any more, and we'll have to do a lot of cleaning out of the AppDB. I assume you're volunteering for this task?
> 
> 
> James Mckenzie wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > man_in_shack wrote:
> > > 
> > > As I see it, developers THINK they know it all, which leads to a mess.
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > Obviously, everything AJ has ever done regarding code quality and correctness at the expense of
> > making things "easy" is wrong.
> > 
> 
> No, he has kept the code CLEAN.  Easy is not his job.  Correct and proper is.  There is a vast difference.


I argue that providing easy access to these settings is not "correct and proper". Of course, we both want word from AJ about it. I'm sure we can both go along with his decision, whether or not it matches our opinion on the issue.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> If you are working with development level programs, you should expect problems.


That's where we're at. Wine is still in heavy development, hence the 1.1.x "development" branch.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> If you are working with release level code, there should be no 'show stopper' bugs, like Office 2003 not installing properly.  Keep this in mind.
> 


This would be 1.0.x "stable" branch. There are already plenty of "show-stopper" bugs like this where the solution is "upgrade to 1.1.x", like Warcraft 3 or WoW not working at all. Keep this in mind.


James Mckenzie wrote:
> 
> One thing I will leave you with:
> The Customer is the reason we are here today.  WE must meet the customers needs and desires.  Failure to do so will mean that we will NEVER see that customer again.  Customers are ALWAYS right.  They may be mis-informed, ignorant, stupid or even stubborn, but they ARE ALWAYS right.


Wine doesn't have customers. Stop treating it like a business venture.