one GUI for all
For new (non-technical) users it may be very difficult to understand what they really need, how to do it and how to use it.
The entry point of an application plus its visible style, the user interface aso. are playing the biggest role for acceptance nowadays.
Therefore there may be the need of a GUI (I imagine one written in XUL, so it runs on all plattforms, easily extensible, aso., we are already using a custom firefox profile so why don't write our own user interface?) that provides all mechanisms that are available throughout the freenet network. File sharing, messaging, flogs, identity management and others.
AncoL
shared this idea
We are working on improving the web interface, and integrating more functionality into it – particularly Freetalk, but also an easy blogging tool. The WoT backend should become a semi-official plugin loadable from the plugins page and auto-updated this week; Artefact2’s blogging tool is working fairly well although doesn’t have comment support yet.
7 comments
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Sören Körper-Puin
commented
Hello.
I have download your programm to install.
And now it is on my laptop.
But I can`t open it.
Pleasehelp me !.... -
Anonymous
commented
I'm so sad that many "anonymous" p2p programs are written in java (Freenet, I2P, OneSwarm). Java apps are more often than not slow and resource-hungry, which is bad. They also require huge downloads (JRE). I wish Freenet was written in C or D and had a real GUI instead of a user-unfriendly web UI.
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Admintoad
(Admin, Freenet Project Inc.)
commented
What is more important than the language (many have started ports to C++, C, or O'Caml, none have ever finished) is the UI. Currently we use a web browser and we are trying to integrate more functionality into the browser-based interface (notably chat and blogging are being worked on). It would be possible to have a standalone window, but web interfaces can be easy to use - how many people actually use a standalone email client nowadays? The having to use a separate browser thing is a pain, hopefully we can fix this with e.g. incognito mode.
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Peter
commented
Is there somebody working on a C++ version of Freenet? Just on program with which gives you all. People just run Freenet083.exe and the thing will work. Surfing freesites should be in there as well! And Blogs and a file manager. Just click, start, surrf and download. Easy as that. No Java needed, no browser needed, no frost needed.
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AncoL
commented
OK, what's with frost? Why is it used by many?
I don't know exactly but it may be that the UI is a lot more responsive. But it has to be started and configured separately. And that is a draw back in my eyes. When there is more than one tool for doing a job the original one doesn't do it good enough. I am not talking about basic functionality, instead I mean usability and flexibility.
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Admintoad
(Admin, Freenet Project Inc.)
commented
That is more or less the current plan: we will have Freetalk with a web GUI as part of the web interface, hopefully Freemail, and hopefully a freesite insert wizard of some kind. We have very basic Thaw index handling already. Anything missing?
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AncoL
commented
I think it would be better to have one unified UI for all additional tools like frost, thaw aso. I think the best way to make freenet more user friendly is to convert the tools into modules for the main freenet UI. At least the UI parts would just be plugins to the main UI. In addition the UI itself would be loaded by the client application and only data is retrieved from the fproxy, except FSs.
