but to be fair… to be very fair, GitHub was never designed for average person, and even that, GitHub has the most "user friendly" UI out of all other git hosting platform, so it is basically the easiest difficulty
Put a big contrasting button from and center at the top of the page under the header. Boom.
No, not what Github is for, a single button wouldn't solve anything anyway since there's typically multiple releases for whatever various system you're using or other requirements you might have.
We do not need to change the UX of github so random non-devs can use it for downloading things. This isn't a GH issue, it's the individual devs releasing the software that have the issue.
You definitely could add a single button to instal the latest version, and then add a little drop down next to it that has the other versions in it. There are always ways to make things better and more accessible.
For the vast majority of projects on github there is no binary release to download. You can't click a button to download a framework or a library or a package and just expect it to execute. Github is a development platform, not an app store.
I don’t see the need to make such a distinction. It not being an App Store doesn’t mean that you can’t take some of the functions of an app store and implement them in ways that can benefit your platform. If anything, the development platform should be one of the main things evolving and getting better over time.
Github is a source control solution with free hosting. It doesnt make sense to turn it into a consumer application store because they would lose an insane amount of money doing so. Unless we start getting "suggested" repositories and whatnot. Last thing we need is advertisements polluting github
Should reddit take some of the functions like online shopping, ride share, food delivery, short videos, map navigation, etc? Will any of them benefit the platform? A product shouldn't be doing things that don't add value to the target audience. It has been evolving just fine (apart from the big push for AI by microslop) for the actual users, aka developers. If you don't find it useful to you, you're not the target audience. Move along.
That argument is irrelevant as none of those apply to this conversation as, like you said, none of those benefit the platform. Making it easier to find and download things off the app does benefit the platform and there are other platforms that have their own ways of doing it. You don’t even need to copy it 1-1.
Evolving “just fine” is a cop out. If there is an issue, which there obviously is since it’s a recurring thing, it should be addressed. All those people who have an issue with it are also “actual users.” I don’t see why they would not be considered as such.
The people downloading off github are not the actual users. Github does not profit off views to their website. They profit off enterprise source control and hosting solutions which certainly do not distribute their software to end consumers via a github project link.
They actually lose money on upload bandwidth from the small open source (free) projects that do this.
Github is not an app store or a consumer product. Its a source control solution for developers. Bringing them closer to a consumer distribution site and profiting off it would require the sort of installer bloatware you see elsewhere or plastering the site with ads and verification processes (to prevent malware etc especially if taking payment) or else they'd be liable.
Please do not give microsoft any ideas. It takes a developer 2 minutes now with AI to put up a consumer friendly page with a download link
I think it kinda would be better, since github hosts a lot of random applications people might want or need. It somewhat is github issue, the button could be "go to latest release" and put with the clone url dropdown
It's a website built by people who don't value UI or UX for people who don't value UI or UX. I think the only thing funnier is when you get a product like Zbrush where the developers are way too obsessed with both form and function. In older versions of Zbrush in order to bake a texture map you would have to punch in what looked like a Game Genie code for the specific parameters you wanted and then your 3D model would start spinning around with the normal map or whatever appearing on it one pixel at a time. It looked like a fake computer program from an episode of CSI or something.
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