5 ms·

WingetUI – A better UI for package managers

60 points by t0bia_s 3y ago

rspoerri 3y ago
I think this tool is amazing. I am used to automatic updates on OSX for most applications and i am missing this on windows.
alexvoda 3y ago
I am using it and it is great so far. One of the things I wish was improved was the UI for viewing the details of a package. Something better than right cliking and opening an unmovable modal popup. Maybe a vertical side panel that opens up on click and can be closed like in KDE Discover or like the preview panel in File Explorer on Windows. Selecting a different package would refresh the panel. It would also be nice to be able to customize the columns in the gridview of packages and filter on them. I would like to be able to filter by source (show only Choco for example) or by licence (show only GPL packages for example) or sort by date last updated.
- orra 3y ago
  This app looks promising. Seeing as you're using it, how's the update process? Does it auto update apps, or can you at least click one notification to upgrade everything? Because it's way too easy to install apps with winget or scoop, etc, but never update them.
  - alexvoda 3y ago
    It can be configured to notify(default), check manually or update automatically. I prefer the default. I only used it with winget, MS Store and Chocolately. In my experience however, it had some issues (I believe they are actually due to winget) with some packages like Postgresql. Overall I am happy with it and I prefer getting gui notifications for updates instead of manually running winget.
nesarkvechnep 3y ago
Even the website feels similar to Windows, it lags when I scroll.
- PTOB 3y ago
  Works fine on my 12-core Xeon with 96GB RAM. </s>
danpalmer 3y ago
What a weird site and product. Why is text selection broken on what should be such a simple page? Why does the cookie banner say "we partner with Google", that's a weird way of describing using GA. Why would a developer link to their Softpedia page when they have their own download, mirrors like that seem to have been unnecessary for a decade or more. The copy is all just a bit weird, way too much "personality", and not in a charming or endearing way. As for the actual product, it's not really a combination of features that I could see wanting as a developer. For installing system software... perhaps... but I don't tend to get that from PyPI or NPM, and in those cases I'd need to know it's not going to mess up the development environments for those ecosystems, and there's nothing of that mentioned on the page. This strikes me as a labour of love from an individual that has received or taken in little to no feedback throughout the process – another piece of software that comes to mind for being in a similar position is Calibre, although in that case it seems to be strong resistance to feedback rather than lack of it. This sort of development process can produce great technical achievements, but in my experience, rarely results in good products.
- johannes1234321 3y ago
  > Why does the cookie banner say "we partner with Google", that's a weird way of describing using GA. That seems to be a common way to describe such usage to make it sound more positive. The truth of "we are exposing your data to Google to gain a bunch of mostly useless statistics while helping them to surveil all your online activity" doesn't sound so good.
  - danpalmer 3y ago
    "This site uses Google Analytics to inform service improvements" is quite positive. It's the "partner" bit that I thought was particularly strange. I don't partner with my local coffee shop each morning. It comes across as bigging-up what's actually happening so far beyond reality that it's somewhat comical.
- heavyset_go 3y ago
  I looked at the website and product and cannot relate to this post at all. Seems like a run of the mill landing page for an app, and the app looks pretty decent. I find it hard to complain about any of it beyond how text selection is broken, which is bad.
throwaway2990 3y ago
Site is completely unusable on iOS safari. It’s in a constant state of refresh so you can’t scroll.
- vultour 3y ago
  Interestingly it works fine for me on iOS, but it's completely unusable on Windows. Super laggy on both Chrome and Firefox, although very slightly smoother with Chrome.
Squeeze2664 3y ago
Couldn't get it to work on my first try so I uninstalled it. I configured it to only use chocolatey, which I already use, and it showed two identical entries for "Chocolatey" under installed packages, instead of listing the packages that were already installed through chocolatey. Going into the settings and ticking "use system chocolatey" resulted in only one of the aforementioned entries showing up, but nothing else. I guess I'll keep using the CLI.
- OJFord 3y ago
  I don't use it even when I rarely use Windows - but I think chocolatey has a first-party GUI, if that's all you wanted to configure anyway?
Kichererbsen 3y ago
I got super excited about this, but... there's no `choco install wingetui` or `scoop install wingetui` listed on the page... that made me mad enough to not bother at all and come here to complain instead...
- alexvoda 3y ago
  It is available on winget and scoop according to: https://github.com/marticliment/WingetUI/#installation https://github.com/marticliment/WingetUI/#installation Maybe soon on Chocolately too.
blondin 3y ago
i hope that fly-out menu with 432 packages has filtering capabilities. otherwise that's a big UX nightmare right there.
oneplane 3y ago
I wouldn't call a 4 to 6 rows of buttons before you get content a 'better UI'... It seems cluttered at best. Even the not-exactly-amazing Mac AppStore has a small partition for navigation and a large partition for content and that's it.
Solvency 3y ago
This has to be the least usable/performant site I've ever seen.... and it looks like it's from 1995. I'm honestly terrified to inspect the markup/implementation. Based entirely on this alone, I wouldn't touch this thing with a ten foot pole. UPDATE: Holy shit, I inspected the page. This madman is using calc functions inline on every single element to handle scrolling. Because we can't trust the browser to vertically scroll through this basic web 1.0 layout. And that's the very LEAST of what's going on in there. This has to be an April Fool's joke, right? Some kind of elaborate Andy Kaufman-esque prank?
- lpghatguy 3y ago
  There's nothing on this site using calc as part of scrolling the content. It looks like the background image is fixed in place with some JS, which is probably the source of the performance issues. The questionable stuff is definitely that everything is a table and that the links on the bottom of the page are divs with onclick handlers... and that selection is turned off?
  - Solvency 3y ago
    Utterly untrue. https://www.marticliment.com/#start https://www.marticliment.com/#start Inspect: https://imgur.com/a/ljJl0nr https://imgur.com/a/ljJl0nr
    - lpghatguy 3y ago
      This has nothing to do with scrolling. They're fixed CSS rules. They remind me of the tricks we used to have to use for vertically centering things. It seems like these rules are from the site's page load animation. You can see it if you refresh the page part way down. It's not a great way to achieve that effect.

60 points by t0bia_s 3y ago

I think this tool is amazing. I am used to automatic updates on OSX for most applications and i am missing this on windows.

alexvoda 3y ago

I am using it and it is great so far. One of the things I wish was improved was the UI for viewing the details of a package. Something better than right cliking and opening an unmovable modal popup. Maybe a vertical side panel that opens up on click and can be closed like in KDE Discover or like the preview panel in File Explorer on Windows. Selecting a different package would refresh the panel. It would also be nice to be able to customize the columns in the gridview of packages and filter on them. I would like to be able to filter by source (show only Choco for example) or by licence (show only GPL packages for example) or sort by date last updated.

orra 3y ago
This app looks promising. Seeing as you're using it, how's the update process? Does it auto update apps, or can you at least click one notification to upgrade everything? Because it's way too easy to install apps with winget or scoop, etc, but never update them.
- alexvoda 3y ago
  It can be configured to notify(default), check manually or update automatically. I prefer the default. I only used it with winget, MS Store and Chocolately. In my experience however, it had some issues (I believe they are actually due to winget) with some packages like Postgresql. Overall I am happy with it and I prefer getting gui notifications for updates instead of manually running winget.

nesarkvechnep 3y ago

Even the website feels similar to Windows, it lags when I scroll.

PTOB 3y ago
Works fine on my 12-core Xeon with 96GB RAM. </s>

danpalmer 3y ago

What a weird site and product. Why is text selection broken on what should be such a simple page? Why does the cookie banner say "we partner with Google", that's a weird way of describing using GA. Why would a developer link to their Softpedia page when they have their own download, mirrors like that seem to have been unnecessary for a decade or more. The copy is all just a bit weird, way too much "personality", and not in a charming or endearing way. As for the actual product, it's not really a combination of features that I could see wanting as a developer. For installing system software... perhaps... but I don't tend to get that from PyPI or NPM, and in those cases I'd need to know it's not going to mess up the development environments for those ecosystems, and there's nothing of that mentioned on the page. This strikes me as a labour of love from an individual that has received or taken in little to no feedback throughout the process – another piece of software that comes to mind for being in a similar position is Calibre, although in that case it seems to be strong resistance to feedback rather than lack of it. This sort of development process can produce great technical achievements, but in my experience, rarely results in good products.

johannes1234321 3y ago
> Why does the cookie banner say "we partner with Google", that's a weird way of describing using GA. That seems to be a common way to describe such usage to make it sound more positive. The truth of "we are exposing your data to Google to gain a bunch of mostly useless statistics while helping them to surveil all your online activity" doesn't sound so good.
- danpalmer 3y ago
  "This site uses Google Analytics to inform service improvements" is quite positive. It's the "partner" bit that I thought was particularly strange. I don't partner with my local coffee shop each morning. It comes across as bigging-up what's actually happening so far beyond reality that it's somewhat comical.
heavyset_go 3y ago
I looked at the website and product and cannot relate to this post at all. Seems like a run of the mill landing page for an app, and the app looks pretty decent. I find it hard to complain about any of it beyond how text selection is broken, which is bad.

throwaway2990 3y ago

Site is completely unusable on iOS safari. It’s in a constant state of refresh so you can’t scroll.

vultour 3y ago
Interestingly it works fine for me on iOS, but it's completely unusable on Windows. Super laggy on both Chrome and Firefox, although very slightly smoother with Chrome.

Squeeze2664 3y ago

Couldn't get it to work on my first try so I uninstalled it. I configured it to only use chocolatey, which I already use, and it showed two identical entries for "Chocolatey" under installed packages, instead of listing the packages that were already installed through chocolatey. Going into the settings and ticking "use system chocolatey" resulted in only one of the aforementioned entries showing up, but nothing else. I guess I'll keep using the CLI.

OJFord 3y ago
I don't use it even when I rarely use Windows - but I think chocolatey has a first-party GUI, if that's all you wanted to configure anyway?

Kichererbsen 3y ago

I got super excited about this, but... there's no `choco install wingetui` or `scoop install wingetui` listed on the page... that made me mad enough to not bother at all and come here to complain instead...

alexvoda 3y ago
It is available on winget and scoop according to: https://github.com/marticliment/WingetUI/#installation https://github.com/marticliment/WingetUI/#installation Maybe soon on Chocolately too.

blondin 3y ago

i hope that fly-out menu with 432 packages has filtering capabilities. otherwise that's a big UX nightmare right there.

oneplane 3y ago

I wouldn't call a 4 to 6 rows of buttons before you get content a 'better UI'... It seems cluttered at best. Even the not-exactly-amazing Mac AppStore has a small partition for navigation and a large partition for content and that's it.

Solvency 3y ago

This has to be the least usable/performant site I've ever seen.... and it looks like it's from 1995. I'm honestly terrified to inspect the markup/implementation. Based entirely on this alone, I wouldn't touch this thing with a ten foot pole. UPDATE: Holy shit, I inspected the page. This madman is using calc functions inline on every single element to handle scrolling. Because we can't trust the browser to vertically scroll through this basic web 1.0 layout. And that's the very LEAST of what's going on in there. This has to be an April Fool's joke, right? Some kind of elaborate Andy Kaufman-esque prank?

lpghatguy 3y ago
There's nothing on this site using calc as part of scrolling the content. It looks like the background image is fixed in place with some JS, which is probably the source of the performance issues. The questionable stuff is definitely that everything is a table and that the links on the bottom of the page are divs with onclick handlers... and that selection is turned off?
- Solvency 3y ago
  Utterly untrue. https://www.marticliment.com/#start https://www.marticliment.com/#start Inspect: https://imgur.com/a/ljJl0nr https://imgur.com/a/ljJl0nr
  - lpghatguy 3y ago
    This has nothing to do with scrolling. They're fixed CSS rules. They remind me of the tricks we used to have to use for vertically centering things. It seems like these rules are from the site's page load animation. You can see it if you refresh the page part way down. It's not a great way to achieve that effect.