I also think on installation, the user should be presented with a nice GUI interface asking if they want to change settings, with nice simple explanations as to what they do.

Why create more issues than there already are?
If they want to change things, then they should do what everyone has done since computers existed. Make use the help files and documentation.

That's not how decent programs work. Boinc is the only program I know of that still uses ini files. Those went out last century.

The best I can tell, many programs still use such files, but don't give them names ending with .ini.

Most do not.

And nothing should require those pesky config files!

There is no way on the plant you could have a menu system that supports all the things that people want to do with their systems.
The Simple view is for those that want to set things up & then let them do their thing. The Advanced view allows people more options with what BOINC can & can't do and when.
If you want even more than that, the configuration files are the best option.

There is a finite list of things you can do in the config files, those could easily be in a GUI.

If you don't mind an EXTREMELY large GUI, with a new section downloaded whenever you connect to another BOINC project, to handle the settings specific to that project.

Just put all the stuff 95% of users never use in an advanced tab. The GUI for my photo editor is enormous., I'd hate to have to choose the settings in text form.

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That's not how decent programs work. Boinc is the only program I know of that still uses ini files. Those went out last century.

They never went out, they just changed names, or location. The only difference is that most of the settings can be done using a GUI, although in many cases advanced settings still require manually editing a file.
Welcome to computers.

Boinc is the only program I have to edit an ini file for.

There is a finite list of things you can do in the config files, those could easily be in a GUI.

Yeah, just like Microsoft Word (and many other programmes that have been around forever), that have so many features & functions and options that people are still requesting things that Word has supported for years.
They just couldn't find them looking through the now massive menus, and didn't take the time to look at the help file.
It is not a suitable or viable option.

It works fine for me. Are you seriously telling me the Boinc interface is better than a Microsoft one?

Another mess - preferences on the server and preferences on the computer and users forgetting what they set where.

Just because people are forgetfull doesn't make it a mess.
Here you are advocating for things that are orders of magnitude more complicated, yet you consider 2 options- web based & locally based preferences, a mess.
Please make up your mind.

It's not more complicated to change a text file to a GUI with a friendly list of options, with bubbles to tell you what each thing does, and sliders so you know what the sensible limits are. Also in a GUI, if you moved a certain slider higher, it could adjust another, so you can't possibly give Boinc impossible to use conflicting commands.

But it is complicated to set preferences in a project, then others on your computer, then others on another project, and try to work out and remember which things overrides what.

Well what we've got at the moment is forums full of people asking how to change settings in a system that belongs on a 486 in DOS.

Then you obviously can't remember what DOS was like.
There is no comparison.

I know perfectly well what DOS was like. I started in 1982 with a ZX Spectrum. Most of us have moved on.

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I have "leave application in memory while suspended" unticked. Does that screw up the above?

I set it that way due to a shortage of RAM.

Yes, the statement that when it can't complete it keeps it in memory is only true if you have that setting checkmarked.

If a task is kept "in memory", but is not running, it will get paged out to the swap file, so long as swap space is available.

In that case I'll re-tick it. I have plenty swap space, but limited RAM if big tasks from LHC are running.

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[snip]

Just put all the stuff 95% of users never use in an advanced tab. The GUI for my photo editor is enormous., I'd hate to have to choose the settings in text form.

So you expect 95% of the users to agree on what 95% of the users will never use?

[snip]

Just put all the stuff 95% of users never use in an advanced tab. The GUI for my photo editor is enormous., I'd hate to have to choose the settings in text form.

So you expect 95% of the users to agree on what 95% of the users will never use?

That decision has already been made. The often used stuff is in the GUI, the other stuff is in the config files. All I'm asking is to put the config file stuff in an advanced tab.

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[snip]

Just put all the stuff 95% of users never use in an advanced tab. The GUI for my photo editor is enormous., I'd hate to have to choose the settings in text form.

So you expect 95% of the users to agree on what 95% of the users will never use?

That decision has already been made. The often used stuff is in the GUI, the other stuff is in the config files. All I'm asking is to put the config file stuff in an advanced tab.

Wrong forum you need to Dr A and his group

[snip]

Just put all the stuff 95% of users never use in an advanced tab. The GUI for my photo editor is enormous., I'd hate to have to choose the settings in text form.

So you expect 95% of the users to agree on what 95% of the users will never use?

That decision has already been made. The often used stuff is in the GUI, the other stuff is in the config files. All I'm asking is to put the config file stuff in an advanced tab.

Wrong forum you need to Dr A and his group

They don't listen to me, I just get yelled at for having a signature or something equally childish. It's full of OCD geeks with no common sense.

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[snip]

Just put all the stuff 95% of users never use in an advanced tab. The GUI for my photo editor is enormous., I'd hate to have to choose the settings in text form.

So you expect 95% of the users to agree on what 95% of the users will never use?

That decision has already been made. The often used stuff is in the GUI, the other stuff is in the config files. All I'm asking is to put the config file stuff in an advanced tab.

Wrong forum you need to Dr A and his group

They don't listen to me, I just get yelled at for having a signature or something equally childish. It's full of OCD geeks with no common sense.

Yup if they ALL had signatures it could get pretty long, they don't want to have people use them as 'advertising' so just said none.

As for the OCD stuff that's kinda what programmers are as they stick their nose into something and know it inside and out. They also do not take suggestions well as they think someone is suggesting THEY did it 'wrong' the first time. I see suggestions as improvements but am not a programmer so can't judge. TBH I programmed a little bit 40 years ago and then about 10 years ago when I was doing websites manually, but I'm done with all that now. I do maintain a website for my community but hoestly FaceBook is a better site for the day to day stuff.

They don't listen to me, I just get yelled at for having a signature or something equally childish. It's full of OCD geeks with no common sense.

Yup if they ALL had signatures it could get pretty long, they don't want to have people use them as 'advertising' so just said none.

Actually it's ONE thread, in the lounge of all places, with a particularly OCD admin that doesn't like me much. Pretty daft since he was moaning only 6 months ago about some another admin getting him into trouble for something equally petty. No matter how many times I try to educate them, they can't realise that all they need to do is turn off the option for signatures....

As for the OCD stuff that's kinda what programmers are as they stick their nose into something and know it inside and out.

That must explain why the Boinc program works so well then [falls off chair laughing]. I'm forever having to tweak Boinc to get it to function properly. It really annoys me when it leaves chips idle.

They also do not take suggestions well as they think someone is suggesting THEY did it 'wrong' the first time. I see suggestions as improvements but am not a programmer so can't judge. TBH I programmed a little bit 40 years ago and then about 10 years ago when I was doing websites manually, but I'm done with all that now. I do maintain a website for my community but hoestly FaceBook is a better site for the day to day stuff.

I'm the same as you, if someone comes up with a suggestion, I either explain why I think it's a bad idea,or implement it. I think they just lack people skills.

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They don't listen to me, I just get yelled at for having a signature or something equally childish. It's full of OCD geeks with no common sense.

Yup if they ALL had signatures it could get pretty long, they don't want to have people use them as 'advertising' so just said none.

Actually it's ONE thread, in the lounge of all places, with a particularly OCD admin that doesn't like me much. Pretty daft since he was moaning only 6 months ago about some another admin getting him into trouble for something equally petty. No matter how many times I try to educate them, they can't realise that all they need to do is turn off the option for signatures....

As for the OCD stuff that's kinda what programmers are as they stick their nose into something and know it inside and out.

That must explain why the Boinc program works so well then [falls off chair laughing]. I'm forever having to tweak Boinc to get it to function properly. It really annoys me when it leaves chips idle.

The Boinc Programmers think it works just fine and your 'tweaking' is unneccessary from their perspective.

They also do not take suggestions well as they think someone is suggesting THEY did it 'wrong' the first time. I see suggestions as improvements but am not a programmer so can't judge. TBH I programmed a little bit 40 years ago and then about 10 years ago when I was doing websites manually, but I'm done with all that now. I do maintain a website for my community but hoestly FaceBook is a better site for the day to day stuff.

I'm the same as you, if someone comes up with a suggestion, I either explain why I think it's a bad idea,or implement it. I think they just lack people skills.

As I said that's explains most of the Programmers I know.

The Boinc Programmers think it works just fine and your 'tweaking' is unneccessary from their perspective.

Then they ought to test it on a variety of platforms and projects and see for themselves. Without tweaking, the chips are not fully utilized. And they must accept this, or the tweak functions would not be available to us!

As I said that's explains most of the Programmers I know.

It's not just programmers that can't take constructive criticism.

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The Boinc Programmers think it works just fine and your 'tweaking' is unneccessary from their perspective.

Then they ought to test it on a variety of platforms and projects and see for themselves. Without tweaking, the chips are not fully utilized. And they must accept this, or the tweak functions would not be available to us!

As I said that's explains most of the Programmers I know.

It's not just programmers that can't take constructive criticism.

Do you really not see that the amount of work that you are suggesting that they undertake is well beyond the capacity of the number of programmers available to the project.

Do you really not see that the amount of work that you are suggesting that they undertake is well beyond the capacity of the number of programmers available to the project.

And something that would be of use to 1% of users (or less) really is not something that should be worked on where there are many other issues that affect almost everyone.

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Grant
Darwin NT

The Boinc Programmers think it works just fine and your 'tweaking' is unneccessary from their perspective.

Then they ought to test it on a variety of platforms and projects and see for themselves. Without tweaking, the chips are not fully utilized. And they must accept this, or the tweak functions would not be available to us!

As I said that's explains most of the Programmers I know.

It's not just programmers that can't take constructive criticism.

Do you really not see that the amount of work that you are suggesting that they undertake is well beyond the capacity of the number of programmers available to the project.

The odd tweak is hardly much work. And they're common sense things that should have been done correctly in the first place. Why do programmers do a slap dash job then wait for the user to point out their mistakes?

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The Boinc Programmers think it works just fine and your 'tweaking' is unneccessary from their perspective.

Then they ought to test it on a variety of platforms and projects and see for themselves. Without tweaking, the chips are not fully utilized. And they must accept this, or the tweak functions would not be available to us!

As I said that's explains most of the Programmers I know.

It's not just programmers that can't take constructive criticism.

Do you really not see that the amount of work that you are suggesting that they undertake is well beyond the capacity of the number of programmers available to the project.

The odd tweak is hardly much work. And they're common sense things that should have been done correctly in the first place. Why do programmers do a slap dash job then wait for the user to point out their mistakes?

You obviously have never worked in a development environment. Take it from me, your suggestions go well beyond the odd tweak.

The odd tweak is hardly much work. And they're common sense things that should have been done correctly in the first place. Why do programmers do a slap dash job then wait for the user to point out their mistakes?

You obviously have never worked in a development environment. Take it from me, your suggestions go well beyond the odd tweak.

I have, the problem is Boinc is clumsily written. And my suggestions shouldn't be necessary if some thought had been put into the system in the first place. And, if the programmers think it can't be done, all they have to do is say "sorry, because of x, that would take a week's work, and we're working on y just now" instead of their usual "your suggestion is monumentally stupid and you don't know what you're talking about" then go off crying in a hissy fit.

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[snip]

I have, the problem is Boinc is clumsily written. And my suggestions shouldn't be necessary if some thought had been put into the system in the first place. And, if the programmers think it can't be done, all they have to do is say "sorry, because of x, that would take a week's work, and we're working on y just now" instead of their usual "your suggestion is monumentally stupid and you don't know what you're talking about" then go off crying in a hissy fit.

Then why aren't you volunteering to update BOINC with some of your suggestions?

Then why aren't you volunteering to update BOINC with some of your suggestions?

Because I cannot tolerate working with morons.

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Then why aren't you volunteering to update BOINC with some of your suggestions?

Because I cannot tolerate working with morons.

Then you'll need very thorough proof that you aren't accusing them of having a fault that you have.

Then why aren't you volunteering to update BOINC with some of your suggestions?

Because I cannot tolerate working with morons.

Then you'll need very thorough proof that you aren't accusing them of having a fault that you have.

All Boinc does is schedule, it isn't doing the science. There are many far more complex programs out there, written sometimes by one single programmer, on the freeware market. And they work.

And it's not the programming per se that sux, it's the decisions on how it should operate.

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