this post was submitted on 19 Apr 2026
524 points (93.2% liked)

196

6092 readers
2202 users here now

Community Rules

You must post before you leave

Be nice. Assume others have good intent (within reason).

Block or ignore posts, comments, and users that irritate you in some way rather than engaging. Report if they are actually breaking community rules.

Use content warnings and/or mark as NSFW when appropriate. Most posts with content warnings likely need to be marked NSFW.

Most 196 posts are memes, shitposts, cute images, or even just recent things that happened, etc. There is no real theme, but try to avoid posts that are very inflammatory, offensive, very low quality, or very "off topic".

Bigotry is not allowed, this includes (but is not limited to): Homophobia, Transphobia, Racism, Sexism, Abelism, Classism, or discrimination based on things like Ethnicity, Nationality, Language, or Religion.

Avoid shilling for corporations, posting advertisements, or promoting exploitation of workers.

Proselytization, support, or defense of authoritarianism is not welcome. This includes but is not limited to: imperialism, nationalism, genocide denial, ethnic or racial supremacy, fascism, Nazism, Marxism-Leninism, Maoism, etc.

Avoid AI generated content.

Avoid misinformation.

Avoid incomprehensible posts.

No threats or personal attacks.

No spam.

Moderator Guidelines

Moderator Guidelines

  • Don’t be mean to users. Be gentle or neutral.
  • Most moderator actions which have a modlog message should include your username.
  • When in doubt about whether or not a user is problematic, send them a DM.
  • Don’t waste time debating/arguing with problematic users.
  • Assume the best, but don’t tolerate sealioning/just asking questions/concern trolling.
  • Ask another mod to take over cases you struggle with, if you get tired, or when things get personal.
  • Ask the other mods for advice when things get complicated.
  • Share everything you do in the mod matrix, both so several mods aren't unknowingly handling the same issues, but also so you can receive feedback on what you intend to do.
  • Don't rush mod actions. If a case doesn't need to be handled right away, consider taking a short break before getting to it. This is to say, cool down and make room for feedback.
  • Don’t perform too much moderation in the comments, except if you want a verdict to be public or to ask people to dial a convo down/stop. Single comment warnings are okay.
  • Send users concise DMs about verdicts about them, such as bans etc, except in cases where it is clear we don’t want them at all, such as obvious transphobes. No need to notify someone they haven’t been banned of course.
  • Explain to a user why their behavior is problematic and how it is distressing others rather than engage with whatever they are saying. Ask them to avoid this in the future and send them packing if they do not comply.
  • First warn users, then temp ban them, then finally perma ban them when they break the rules or act inappropriately. Skip steps if necessary.
  • Use neutral statements like “this statement can be considered transphobic” rather than “you are being transphobic”.
  • No large decisions or actions without community input (polls or meta posts f.ex.).
  • Large internal decisions (such as ousting a mod) might require a vote, needing more than 50% of the votes to pass. Also consider asking the community for feedback.
  • Remember you are a voluntary moderator. You don’t get paid. Take a break when you need one. Perhaps ask another moderator to step in if necessary.

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

but seriously, look up photopea

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] stickly@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago (2 children)

A lot of people in this thread getting real defensive about objectively shit FOSS UI/UX. It's not just driven by corporate familiarity or laziness, it's a pretty major shortcoming in open source projects that never gets addressed because we constantly downplay it.

Designing for user experience isn't solely Apple's modern consumerist method of dumbing down, hiding complexity and smoothing corners for the largest audience. Human centered design is a deeply researched field going back to (at minimum) the second industrial revolution. Tool ergonomics, assembly line efficiency, poka-yoke design, control panel layouts for nuclear power plants, etc, etc.

I'm not asking for a design masterpiece every time but just glance at some UX guides. Require a UI review process beyond "I like how it looks". And please, God, please condense your settings menus and make them searchable.

As someone who is planning to make software for others to use and have it be as user-friendly as possible, thank you... and I hope I can make something you can thank me for later.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 126 points 4 days ago (2 children)

I see this genre of post going around a lot, and it just reeks of learned helplessness.

Yeah, I get it, sometimes you're stuck in a situation where, for whatever, the alternatives aren't viable or practical. You feel trapped. We all do. But why is the first instinct to gripe at the cool free software for not being quite what you wanted instead of getting mad at the rapidly enshittifying megacorps that put you into this trap you're in to begin with?

[–] Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de 44 points 4 days ago

that, and it reeks of consumerism and a desire to feel superior.
"haha those stupid nerds and their shitty nerd software, i'm much more sensible for using corporate software that actually works (except it doesn't but ignore that)"

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 161 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (25 children)

Honestly I would tell people like this screenshotted poster to suck it up or go fuck themselves, because this is free software that is provided for you as is and for use as you wish. If you think the software isn't "adjusted enough" to meet your needs, then place requests for features in the relevant channels, be patient and try to work with the existing tools on offer, or keep shelling out booku bucks for Adobe's continually enshittifying service.

Accept your fate with the corpos instead of bitching that the community effort options aren't in your Goldilocks zone, shitbag.

God, this is why I hated Apple users at my old IT job. They'd bitch about the continually enshittifying status quo of their software and platform, and in the same statement reject all alternatives for not being "a smooth transition".

Edit: on a more positive note, Kritia, FreeCAD, and Kdenlive are all great and multiplatform.

[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 46 points 4 days ago (2 children)
[–] Rugnjr@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 3 days ago

Inkscape kicks ASS god i love Inkscape

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] queerlilhayseed@piefed.blahaj.zone 38 points 4 days ago (3 children)

I think it's OK to complain about free software on social media. It's also OK to tell people that sometimes, if they want something to be better, they might need to be the ones to roll up their sleeves and make it happen. But not everyone has the time or the technical wherewithal to fix every tool they use. I sure couldn't implement every improvement I ever thought of for free software, I don't have the time.

But I think It's still nice, for maintainers and for people thinking about getting into open source, to get a rolling feel for what gripes a lot of people share about open software. If I have a problem and I know a lot of people share my frustration, I'm much more motivated to try to fix it than if it's something I and no one else care about.

[–] mech@feddit.org 18 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I think it’s OK to complain about free software on social media.

I think it's like complaining about a free product someone made in their own time and then delivered it to your doorstep.
If you don't like it, OK, don't use it. This isn't something you bought. Using the thing doesn't help the dev in any way, unless you also donate or contribute.

We live in a time where private FOSS devs of popular projects get buried under AI slop bug reports from multi-billion-$ corporations who use their work without paying, and death threats on social media if they made an unpopular change to the thing they put out there for free.

I think it's more akin to complaining about the public transit in a city where the public transit funded via donations. Yeah, you could pitch in, and maybe you do, but it's still a massive undertaking that is also massively underfunded, and even if you have an idea of what you want to change, you might not have the skills to fix it yourself, or even to file an actually helpful bug report. Should you learn how to engage with the process of opensource tool maintenance? Yes! It's a cool and fun thing to do. Is it hard for most people who aren't familiar with software development? Also very yes.

To be clear, I don't think maintainers have any obligation to see or think about whatever gets posted to social media. Trying to stay on top of what the internet is saying is an impossible task. But as a user and sometimes contributor, I like reading about what trials other users are going through, and if a complaint resonates with me I like to chat about it, and occasionally I'll pull down the source code for a project and see if I can figure out how to patch whatever it is we're talking about. For most of these cases I'll give up or get distracted before I have anything worthwhile to contribute, but every once in a while I'll get a PR submitted that spawned from a random conversation on the internet.

[–] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 4 days ago

That belongs in a feature request though, not on mainstream social media. I'm not going to comb through feeds to try and figure out what bugfixes or features need priority development.

I would even go as so far to say actually placing the request in the proper place matters more than donations.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] JillyB@beehaw.org 23 points 4 days ago (3 children)

I think this is a needlessly combative stance. If your goal is to get new users to engage with the development side, calling their criticism "bitching" isn't going to do that. Most software users don't have the first clue about software development and wouldn't even know what exactly to say if given a suggestion form. The best feedback a lot of new users can give is "the user experience is clunky and unintuitive".

[–] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

My stance has been forged by the repeated disappointing interactions that I've had with people who I spend painstaking amounts of time illustrating how to solve their problems with these tools and why a certain design quirk is the way it is vs. the proprietary model.

Without fail, the kinds of users like the screenshotted poster will look at me with a blank face or reply in forum chats with the same statement: "But can't they just make it usable like [enshittified software] instead?"

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] starman2112@sh.itjust.works 8 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

This person wasn't saying that software developers are awful for not tailoring FOSS to their specific desires, they're venting about something that frustrates them. People should be able to vent without someone telling them to fuck themselves

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] youcantreadthis@quokk.au 16 points 4 days ago

Seriously fuck the boot lickers.

[–] Skullgrid@lemmy.world 25 points 4 days ago (1 children)

It's not the same, the idea is that you are suggesting things that are not suitable replacements. You can't then say "bUt ItS fReE sOfTwArE" as it that makes it a suitable replacement.

[–] Truscape@lemmy.blahaj.zone 41 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

That's the kicker though. The poster framed it as Adobe was the only game in town that was abusing them, a friend told them about a service that was free and had their entire feature set, but it was rejected due to UI and platform concerns.

Not all free software will reach feature or UI parity with their proprietary competition. That's just reality. However, if you are paying a grand total of $0 for the alternative and have no interest in being constructive either through submitting a feature request or contributing code (donating doesn't have an obligation for anything so in this circumstance that wouldn't factor), then you should just either accept the software "as is" (which is a key component of most licenses), or accept that it's not for you.

Stay with the devil that you know if you disregard positioned alternatives for not being "suitable enough", and if you want to change that, be proactive and open-minded. Not bitch.

[–] accideath@feddit.org 25 points 4 days ago (5 children)

I read it more as a critique on the self-satisfied recommendation for something that just isn’t the drop in replacement they’re making it out to be.

Don’t get me wrong, I love foss software. 3 out of 4 computers in my household run linux and I‘ve converted a handful of people already.

However, I couldn’t and wouldn’t replace photoshop with gimp/krita, premiere or davinci with kdenlive, etc. for the time being. Not because they’re bad but because I use them professionally and cannot take any risks. Adobe is shit but their software is a known quantity.

Privately, I would never pay for Adobe (not paying anyways, my boss does). And for personal use and maybe smaller (somewhat tech savvy) freelancers, I‘d absolutely recommend everyone at least try the FOSS alternatives.

But, I‘d never go „um akhtshually, foss program xy is just as good as adobe program xy“. Because while they might be as powerful in theory, that doesn’t help if they’re a hurdle to use.

load more comments (5 replies)
load more comments (19 replies)
[–] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 25 points 3 days ago (1 children)

More languages should be glyphic.

found the chinese

[–] cybercafe@lemmy.world 24 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I would love to be free of Adobe CC, but unfortunately this is the case. The alternatives are getting better, the gap is closing, but it is still there. Adobe's time will come, but it's not soon enough.

[–] Jentu@lemmy.ml 18 points 3 days ago

I've already learned Resolve and Motion, so I'm just waiting for my current project to be completely picture locked and out the door, then I'm done with Adobe for good! I almost have a countdown timer going I'm so excited haha

[–] wrinkle2409@lemmy.cafe 31 points 4 days ago

If you don't want to face the inconvenience of learning something new to escape the grasp of technofeudalism suffer in silence, serf

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 23 points 4 days ago (4 children)

To be fair, open source apps usually have terrible UI

[–] germanatlas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Hot take: adobe products also have shit UI and are actively being made worse; it’s just that people are used to it (at least until adobe decides to change something again)

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

I’m not thinking of any Adobe competitors, actually.

[–] gmtom@lemmy.world 19 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

At least UIs are standard now, back in my day (and still some today) people would make everything a CLI and then bitch at you when you told them that their very computationally efficient video trimming tool is cool and all, but editing video from the terminal is worse than CBT.

[–] captcha_incorrect@lemmy.world 15 points 3 days ago

would make everything a CLI

What do you mean? There is nothing wrong with a CLI tool.

editing video from the terminal

Okay, I can get behind that.

[–] mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Yeah, there are lots of FOSS projects that have very obviously never had input from an artist or UI designer. The Venn diagram of “people who have the programming skills to make good FOSS” and “people who know how to design a good UI” consists of two almost entirely separate circles.

[–] Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago (3 children)

There’s also the attitude that you’re seeing in this thread, where if people had a problem with UX the response from the devs is basically “skill issue, git gud”

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] germanatlas@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 3 days ago

Also the next hbomberguy video will be delayed for another 3 months

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 58 points 4 days ago (10 children)

The great free software that works on windows and I have personally tried (some are only free for personal use, but others are completely free):

Have not tried

load more comments (10 replies)
[–] JayDee@lemmy.world 30 points 4 days ago (4 children)

This reads like someone who just isn't willing to learn whatever new workflow the software requires. If that's the issue, then that person will never leave their enshittified walled gardens. There is no workflow that matches or imitates the one you learned, it's probably copyrighted, you're best bet is to jump ship and learn a new paradigm.

Also, have yet to run into an alternative that's actively recommended which doesn't at least have a windows build. LibreOffice, Krita, Blender, Darktable, GIMP, Audacity, Inkscape, and Openshot - the most common recs as alternatives to apps, all have windows as an option.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 23 points 4 days ago (6 children)

Ngl learning new UI is pretty easy.

[–] OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

That's a young man's game

load more comments (5 replies)
[–] cybervseas@lemmy.world 40 points 4 days ago (7 children)

Linux only? Yes please. Do you know your distro waifu/catgirl/catboy? It rules.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 28 points 4 days ago

Oh no slight inconvenience, how will he ever deal with it

[–] hesh@quokk.au 28 points 4 days ago

Skill issue

[–] SethTaylor@lemmy.world 9 points 4 days ago

Swapped Adobe Audition for Reaper. No regrets

[–] adam_y@lemmy.world 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

I see Resolve has just moved to challenge Lightroom too, which is kinda of amazing.

Between the affinity apps, reaper and Resolve there's a fairly competent replacement set for Adobe apps on windows.

I wish Linux was as good.

My main gripe is the lack of professional typesetting software. Scribus just doesn't cut it.

[–] yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca 7 points 4 days ago (2 children)

My main gripe is the lack of professional typesetting software. Scribus just doesn't cut it.

LaTeX /s/s/s

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›