GDLauncher
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gorilla-devs
[Complaint] Reset of data path and re-download of files.
I would like to register my intense disappointment with the recent upgrade process.
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I have a very small boot drive and so all my games are installed on a different drive. Now, as part of the upgrade, the launcher is filling up my boot drive again, shoving it in the one-folder-corrupt-all appdata. It's taking its sweet time about it too which just irritates me even more because I'll have to waste more time moving everything back to my game drive and cleaning up boot.
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I have 8.5 gig of instances and over 1000 mods in my GDL folder and now as part of the upgrade, it's maxing out my ethernet connection downloading everything afresh. Perhaps you live in a country where the internet is free but many countries, including mine, have data caps.
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A fundamental concept of UX/HCI is to keep things consistent. To launch a program, you double-click it. That's the paradigm that's been around since the beginning of GUIs. If something appears greyed-out, single-clicking it will select it, brighten the image and usually provide additional option. A single-click to launch a greyed-out icon is foolish. It breaks the training and also provides no protection against mis-clicks.
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What's the point of having a system tray icon in addition to the task bar icon? The launcher isn't a TSR so the tray icon provides no value and just takes up more limited screen space.
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YOU ARE NOT TWITCH! You're not a portal, you're not social media. You do NOT need scrolling images constantly flickering in peripheral vision. (Yes, I've found the bit to turn it off, thanks for putting that in. My point stands though. Please don't try to compete with Twitch. There's a reason people come looking to you for an alternative.)
I'm annoyed about wasted data and I'm just plain pissed off about having to spend an hour or more getting all my stuff back where I want it. I am astounded by the terrible UI changes (ironically billed as minor UI improvements). Not only is it ugly and irritating but it's harder to use than the old one.
MultiMC has taken itself out of the race by digging its heels in over the forge issue. GDL provided an alternative that seemed to "just work". I feel you really need to spend some time on basic UX principles and do more user-acceptance testing than it seems you have.
An upgrade should:
- Not make ANY changes to user config or file location.
- Not waste disk space or bandwidth.
- Clean up after itself. I now have a 6.5 gig "appdata/gdlauncher" folder and a 8.5G "appdata/gdlauncher_next" and the 8.5G games/gdlauncher folder on my G drive where I had put it.
I apologise for my tone; I know I can go f'off back to twitch. I've just spent several hours swapping out mods trying to isolate a conflict. I saw there was an update available and it's not only wasted 30 mins of my time only to give me a worse user experience, but now I need to figure out how to get stuff back to G:, spend time doing that and probably spend even more time backing up my troubleshooting so that stuff doesn't get stuffed up.
I hope that these UI changes are rolled back and the upgrade process is improved. Thanks for listening.
I definitely agree. This latest update is terrible. I do not have many of the issues you talk about, such as slow internet or data caps, in fact, I am privileged to have basically no data cap, as well as some of the fastest internet in the world. Yet it is still frustrating for me, because everything is now so convoluted. I install all my games and programs on a separate SSD, because my boot drive is a small NVMe drive. Plus, if Windows breaks and I have to reinstall it, then the programs are unaffected. I have my Minecraft launcher installed on this separate SSD, and use a shortcut to launch it with the workDir argument, so that even my .minecraft folder is relocated onto the SSD. I used to have a similar setup with GDLauncher, where all my data was with my other games, but now with this new update, it is impossible to do so. The launcher forcefully installs itself into LocalAppData, and even if I put the instances elsewhere, it was still really annoying to sit through redownloading and reinstalling everything, then after that, having to again move the data all off onto my game drive.
The installer should never determine where your files will be. It's common practice for an installer to ask you where you want your files, as it is your computer after all. Also, if it is such a major upgrade that a total reinstall is necessary, whatever. But at least, again, don't make decisions for the user. There can always be "simple" and "advanced" installer modes, or just give the option of choosing a directory, but have it pre-filled with the default, suggested directory. This is standard practice, and I'm really frustrated by all the time wasted by this update.
Do you idiot's do realize the portable verison solves your space issues right? Or are you just gonna ignore its use?
I didn't even know there was a portable version and the existence of one doesn't change that deleting user settings (file locations, java settings and whatnot) and downloading 10G of data that already exists is just plain terrible practice.
The launcher went from 0.1 to 1.0 it was treated, as it was, a complete rewrite. The fact it even moves old installs over at all was added last minute. It was a major under the hood reworking and it would have been more work to convert everything over. Welcome to major verisons upgrades
Well then, please enlighten me and explain to me where you find the portable download from this page? https://gdevs.io/ Because you can scroll up and down the page all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that the only 3 download links are for installers for the various OSes... And it's not like the website is abandoned. The homepage was just updated for the new release of the launcher.
Sure, there is a portable release on the Github releases page, but that is not a solution. If the downloads on the website linked to the Github releases page and showed you all of the options, then people will see it. If the downloads on the website displayed all of the options, then again, people will see it. But if there is fragmentation and inconsistency between the website and the actual downloads, of course people are not going to know about a portable version. Nobody is going to go around searching all over the place, for something they don't even know exists...
That does not change the fact that making assumptions for the user is bad practice. Assuming that I want to download everything and assuming that I want to make such a major change is not okay. As I already said, the installers should ask you what you want. I didn't even download the installer, I just clicked on the "Update Launcher" button, and suddenly it tried to do everything for me. That is where I believe the problem lies.
Like I already said, sometimes a complete reinstall is necessary, but there should be a warning to the user, telling them beforehand of the changes that will take place. The user should always be informed on what programs are doing to their computer. It is their computer after all, not for the development team of some software to do what they please with, and making sure that the user knows what is happening and what will happen is very important.
Edit: This would also greatly reduce the number of complaints here on Github about the same issue, notably #495 and somewhat #493 plus #472 all show the importance of letting the user know what is going on...
You choose to update from 0.1 to 1.0, if a user is dumb enough to not know that it is a massive leap or bother to read changelogs, then it's a failure of the user. There is plenty of areas in between the website, github or discord. It is not the launchers fault, that users like yourself are too fucking stupid to research something before just clicking something. Next time, do your fucking research and not look like a dumbass.
Who's more stupid? The person who expected decent practices from developers, or the person who can't make a point without making personal insults and using foul language?
It should not have been possible to one-click upgrade from 0.1 to 1.0. It should've linked to a page that said, "Hey, we've really changed things around and it's not possible to cleanly transition you to the new launcher. Rather than blowing up your entire setup, you'll want to take a look at this document..."
Also, the portable version you said I was an idiot for not knowing about, isn't even on the launcher website! I had to google it and find it on the github. An absurd decision for a team who, by their own admission, is targeting the mostly non-technical Twitch market.
Huge agree on some of these points. I don't have a 2nd drive so I can't comment on the moving problems but there definitely needs to be improvements. Things could be a lot better.
Sure, there is a portable release on the Github releases page, but that is not a solution. If the downloads on the website linked to the Github releases page and showed you all of the options, then people will see it. If the downloads on the website displayed all of the options, then again, people will see it. But if there is fragmentation and inconsistency between the website and the actual downloads, of course people are not going to know about a portable version. Nobody is going to go around searching all over the place, for something they don't even know exists...
This right here. Massive agree. If it wasnt for this section of buddies comment, I wouldve had no clue there was a portable version on the git release. I am having all the same issues OP is having and honestly. Having just some simple html templating to have the site list all files from the latest git tag, is really not hard, and would increase visibility of alternate install options a lot more than a paragraph in the middle of a comment, three replies into an issue that i had only searched for because duplicate issues are wack. Abysmal user experience.
