What are some FOSS programs that you think are a far better user experience than their counterparts?

cujo@sh.itjust.works to Open Source@lemmy.ml – 1052 points –

I used Plex for my home media for almost a year, then it stopped playing nice for reasons I gave up on diagnosing. While looking at alternatives, I found Jellyfin which is much more responsive, IMO, and the UI is much nicer as well.

It gets relegated to playing Fraggle Rock and Bluey on repeat for my kiddo these days, but I am absolutely in love with the software.

What are some other FOSS gems that are a better experience UX/UI-wise than their proprietary counterparts?

EDIT: Autocorrect turned something into "smaller" instead of what I meant it to be when I wrote this post, and I can't remember what I meant for it to say so it got axed instead.

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All the Linux file managers I've tried are nicer to use and more stable than the Windows File Explorer.

Protip: KDE's Dolphin is available for Windows.

The Windows integration isn't perfect, but it's very useful nonetheless. Multiple tabs and the Ctrl+I filter alone makes it worthwhile.

On a related note: KDE's Kate text editor is also available on Windows and it works GREAT! So great that KDE eV has published it on the Windows store, making it easy to install

To be fair, the Windows File Explorer has multiple tabs too now, which is a big improvement. I have no idea what the problem is with the Windows Explorer search function though - how does it manage to take so long, no matter what you search for? (Why is Windows so slow to search, slow to delete files, slow to update? You'd think these would be core, priority features.)

I do enjoy using Dolphin on Tumbleweed, though I had to turn off the one-click file opening thing, which was terrible when trying to open context menus with a trackpad. Maybe I'll try it on Windows.

The best part about windows’ slow ass file search is the fact that windows keeps a file index that third party programs can use to search multiple terrabytes of spinning rust in seconds, and then doesn’t use it

For Kate, any idea why build targets are disappearing for me randomly after a while? This has happened twice for me, oddly nothing else seems to be lost. (on Linux, also it may have been fixed since I last updated but I can't find any info, though I think I did update it after the first time I had this happen)

What are build targets in the context of Kate? Kate itself is "just" a text editor. Related to a plugin maybe?

Yes, I do believe it is a (default) plugin. It allows compiling code via custom commands, I don't know about "just" a text editor as I'm pretty sure Kate handles a bunch of other code stuff like indentations and code folding etc.

If you don't use Kate as a code editor (assuming you use one at all), is there something else lightweight that you'd recommend?

I meant "just a text editor" in the sense that it's not a full IDE with compilers and build system, versioning, project management etc. But now with plugins Kate does these things too

I use Kate mostly for config files or interpreted code like python, bash etc, and just launch the code from the terminal (or Kate's built-in terminal 🙂 )

For compiled code I like KDevelop, if that can be considered lightweight. Vscode / vscodium is nice too but not exactly lightweight by many people's standards (though I haven't tried it with compiled code)

It's absurd how long it took windows to have something that worked half as well as tabbed file browsers on linux.

I wonder how many people actually use tabs. I find having a split file browser much more important for moving files.

Yes, but I'm still waiting for mac style column browse mode in nautilus 😒

Columns became the dealbreaker when I was considering switching from macOS to Linux. I need my columns.

ElementOS's file browser has them.

Kind of. They look the same, but don't act the same. Folder don't show their contents until you double click them. They act like any other file in that way. One click to select. Double click to open. I like the more basic one click functionality for browsing.

I got my first Mac when the m1 came out. Id never used them before. The file manager columns just doesn't make sense to my brain.

I was a mac head from the early nineties to the mid two thousands. Column mode is the only thing I truly miss.

And if you are on Windows, you can install Double Commander there. Unfortunately links from other programs will still open in Explorer.

Windows file manager is also so slow compared to Dolphin. With Dolphin it instantly responds and it takes Windows File manager up to 1 whole second to register and process a click.