This is the error message you decided to go with? Wait a minute, THIS IS AN ERROR!?



  • Wow. Where to even begin on this one... first of all, the dialog box lies-- it's not designed to be open "all the time" obviously. Secondly, if the log window is so important then why is it even close-able? Windows has a style for windows with no close box (or it could dim the close box, like this very dialog does.) Thirdly, why is this even a separate window if it's so important? Why isn't it part of the main window? Fourthly, why the fuck is the log window so important in the first place? It's not telling me anything important right now. It's a DVD burning program. You put in an ISO and out comes a DVD. Why does that require any more reporting than a single progress bar? Fifth, why does it confirm closing a window I could easily re-open? Sixth, if the error/status messages the window displays are so important, why are they displayed in a window that can be closed? Seventh, why does the dialog box insult me for trying to close it?

    Who the fuck wrote this piece of shit? Who the fuck sat with his finger on the "release this product to the public" trigger and nodded to himself and said, "yes. Yes this is the quality level we want to ship. This product is done."



  • Hey the guy spent a lot of time figuring out how to have icons in the log window, so of course he will strongly advise to keep it open. Now I have to go and install this masterpiece because I have to know what lies under the Tools menu in the log window.



  • @Speakerphone Dude said:

    Hey the guy spent a lot of time figuring out how to have icons in the log window, so of course he will strongly advise to keep it open. Now I have to go and install this masterpiece because I have to know what lies under the Tools menu in the log window.

    Which raises the question of why all the menus in the log window appear to be grayed out/disabled.



  • I've been using ImgBurn for quite a while and I'm perfectly happy with it. It is reasonably small, stable, and "just works". Its interface can a little confusing to those who are not familiar with burning CDs and DVDs, but the basics are there if you just want to burn and ISO or burn file folders directly to a writable media -- the user can ignore the advanced obtions, just click the "write folders" or "write image" button and there are even, hm, progress bars in a window and the work is done. It just works. (the only functionality I actually really miss is a simple copy button, I am forced to create an image of the disc I want to copy and then proceed to burn that image. But that as far as mildly serious issues with the software I acknowledge).



    That said, it is a product where functionality is clearly given priority instead of aesthetics and iterface. You want to use it? Fine, then figure it out. Not an apple-esque approach on the user experience and a pleasant and minimalistic interface, it can be nice and all but obviously the developer disagrees. That, and the (dubious?) sense of humour in the random messages the program displays in the status bar explains the error.



    Are you so irated about the error message, you can use another program. If you are only moderately irated, you can close the status bar and never open it again -- there you have your just-progress-bars. Either way, not a real WTF, just lots of ranting over a minor nuisance (another normal day in the world of blakeyrat?)


  • BINNED

    @blakeyrat said:

    Who the fuck wrote this piece of shit? Who the fuck sat with his finger on the "release this product to the public" trigger and nodded to himself and said, "yes. Yes this is the quality level we want to ship. This product is done."

    Someone who thought they were doing a good job. Look how thorough and discoverable the log is! Never mind that you don't care what's in the log unless something goes wrong. The dialog box, on the other hand, is what happens when you put people who think they know what's best for you in prominent positions. It's Nanny-state programming at its worst.



  • @Speakerphone Dude said:

    Now I have to go and install this masterpiece because I have to know what lies under the Tools menu in the log window.

    It has a single menu item, labeled "Count". When selected, is displays a dialog reading:

    @Moron Developer said:

    ---------------------------

    ImgBurn

    ---------------------------

    7 Event(s) Displayed



    0 Event(s) Selected

    ---------------------------

    OK

    ---------------------------



  • @Someone You Know said:

    Which raises the question of why all the menus in the log window appear to be grayed out/disabled.

    Because it's not the active window, the dialog box is. Duh?

    Edit: that said there is some funkiness with the log window focus. If you're in another app, and click on the log window, ImgBurn instead focuses the main window. If the main window is in focus, you can focus the log window. I wonder how many lines of code they had to write to over-ride default Windows functionality and break their application in such a creative way...



  • @atipico said:

    That said, it is a product where functionality is clearly given priority instead of aesthetics and iterface. You want to use it? Fine, then figure it out.

    ALL IT DOES IS BURN CDs/DVDs! THERE'S NOTHING TO FIGURE OUT! The equivalent feature in Windows has one button and one dialog with a progress bar, and that's its entire UI, and it works FINE for the application of BURNING CDs/DVDs! ONE BUTTON!

    @atipico said:

    Are you so irated about the error message, you can use another program.

    That is what I did. In fact, I only opened ImgBurn by accident-- I thought I still had my "mount ISO as virtual drive" software installed, and alas did not.

    @atipico said:

    Either way, not a real WTF, just lots of ranting over a minor nuisance (another normal day in the world of blakeyrat?)

    It's not a "this dialog box keyed my car and kicked my dog" WTF, but it sure makes you think, "while the developer was writing the message in this dialog box, did he ever stop to think 'why is this necessary?'"

    Because, seriously, WTF.



  • I actually like blakeyrat's ranting most of the time. I see him as a sort of Usability Lewis Black.



  • @Zecc said:

    I actually like blakeyrat's ranting most of the time. I see him as a sort of Usability Lewis Black.

    Be careful with praise, otherwise if you inflate his ego he may start posting mildly interesting stuff like that other dude with his 13 tables.



  • Well when ImgBurn was still young it was competing with Nero, which at that time had ceased being a simple easy-to-use disc burning utility and had added in video and photo editing, blogging, word processing, telephony, slideshows, language translation, grocery shopping, child daycare, turn-by-turn directions, and the ability to be an easy date* on Friday nights. It seems overly complex today, but it was a huge improvement over the competition back in the day.



  • @Zecc said:

    I actually like blakeyrat's ranting most of the time. I see him as a sort of Usability Lewis Black.

    This isn't even usability, this is the ability to stop what you're doing and ask yourself, "wait... I'm writing a program to burn DVDs... in what way does creating this dialog box contribute to completing that task?"

    I guess "self-awareness" is the term for that?



  • Who the fuck downloaded this piece of shit? Who the fuck sat there with his finger on the "launch this program" button saying, "Yes, yes this is the quality of software I want to burn DVDs with".

     Jus' sayin'.



  • @rudraigh said:

    Who the fuck downloaded this piece of shit?

    Not me. This is a work computer; I don't control what software it came with.

    @rudraigh said:

    Who the fuck sat there with his finger on the "launch this program" button saying, "Yes, yes this is the quality of software I want to burn DVDs with".

    Not me, as I've already explained. I didn't even want to burn a DVD, I was trying to mount an ISO as a virtual drive.



  • Have you heard the default "I'm done burning" sound yet?  It deserves a spot in the UI hall of shame.



  • @Jaime said:

    Have you heard the default "I'm done burning" sound yet?  It deserves a spot in the UI hall of shame.

    Dear Christ. You made me open up the Settings dialog to look for it... holy shit. Why does a CD/DVD burner have a tab in settings labeled "Registry"? What possible settings could it have regarding the Registry? ... oh they mean "File Associations." Lovely checkboxes-that-act-like-radio-buttons littered all over the thing. Bonus points to anybody who can figure out what the various checkboxes in Device -> Synchronise Selection do.

    The success sound isn't that objectionable, it's just a bit long. The fail sound is... something else. "Oh nooo!"

    Oh and the Status Bar on the launcher screen, if you launch the app without double-clicking a file, reads: "Oompa Loompa doompadee doo."



  • @Jaime said:

    Have you heard the default "I'm done burning" sound yet?  It deserves a spot in the UI hall of shame.

    Can someone share this intriguing sounds? Maybe film yourself burning a dvd at 4x then upload the entire video on youtube?



  • It's just 5 seconds or so of marimba. Not much different than the average ringtone. Unless Jamie's version has a much more shameful sound?



  • @blakeyrat said:

    It's just 5 seconds or so of marimba. Not much different than the average ringtone. Unless Jamie's version has a much more shameful sound?
    Mirimba is to my ears what Hot Dog Stand is to my eyes. This is another example of why programs should use the sounds from the user's current theme instead of making shit up.



  • @mott555 said:

    Well when ImgBurn was still young it was competing with Nero, which at that time had ceased being a simple easy-to-use disc burning utility and had added in video and photo editing, blogging, word processing, telephony, slideshows, language translation, grocery shopping, child daycare, turn-by-turn directions, and the ability to be an easy date* on Friday nights. It seems overly complex today, but it was a huge improvement over the competition back in the day.

    Yeah, Nero became ridiculously bloated.  It got so bad that some of the "warez" sites were posting old copies that were a few versions out of date because they did what was needed (burn CDs / DVDs) but contained a lot less of the crap.  However, it does appear that they have seen the error of their ways and now they have split it into 2 products -- a "Multimedia Suite" that conatins everything plus the kitchen sink, and a program that just burns CDs and DVDs.

    Tio be fair, there was an option to do a custom installation which allowed you to to specify exactly what you wanted to install and you could uncheck the language translation, grocery shopping, child daycare, turn-by-turn directions and satellite telemetry so that those things didn't get installed.  Although Nero always seemed to install some service that didn't seem to serve any puprose other than to crash frequently.

     



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Dear Christ. You made me open up the Settings dialog to look for it... holy shit. Why does a CD/DVD burner have a tab in settings labeled "Registry"? What possible settings could it have regarding the Registry? ... oh they mean "File Associations." Lovely checkboxes-that-act-like-radio-buttons littered all over the thing. Bonus points to anybody who can figure out what the various checkboxes in Device -> Synchronise Selection do.
    Pic?



  • @Zecc said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    Dear Christ. I have this giant sore on my left butt cheek. I should go see a doctor.
    Pic?
    FTFY



  • @Zecc said:

    Pic?

    Grumble grumble.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Bonus points to anybody who can figure out what the various checkboxes in Device -> Synchronise Selection do.
     

    Your bonus points are safe. Even the people who wrote the 20-page guide on using ImgBurn don't seem to know what those do:

     

     



  • Again, about the time you're placing the 27th checkbox in the dialog, don't you stop and think, "wait a minute... this is a lot of work... is anybody really ever going to need to change these options?" Where's the self-awareness? Was the developer of this app coding in some kind of fugue state the entire time?

    And more bonus WTF points awarded for putting checkboxes in the application's options dialog that change global system state, I didn't notice that when I looked at it the first time.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Zecc said:
    Pic?

    Grumble grumble.

    Judging by that photo, your radio buttons work very differently than my radio buttons.  But this thread reminds me, there is truly only one state that computer hardware (and, by corollary, computer software) ever has: broken and untrustworthy.  The only question is, how broken and untrustworthy?



  • @tgape said:

    Judging by that photo, your radio buttons work very differently than my radio buttons.

    Hey dumbfuck, the checkboxes-acting-like-radio-buttons was in a different tab.



  • @tgape said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    @Zecc said:
    Pic?

    Grumble grumble.

    Judging by that photo, your radio buttons work very differently than my radio buttons.  But this thread reminds me, there is truly only one state that computer hardware (and, by corollary, computer software) ever has: broken and untrustworthy.  The only question is, how broken and untrustworthy?

    TRWTF with the picture is the "angry teenager" wallpaper in the background.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Oh and the Status Bar on the launcher screen, if you launch the app without double-clicking a file, reads: "Oompa Loompa doompadee doo."
    It changes, it seems to be mainly movie quotes.

    I do use ImgBurn, but even then I tend to only use it for making ISOs - I just use the Windows Disc Image Burner or the Corel Burn Now software that came with my computer for everything else.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Again, about the time you're placing the 27th checkbox in the dialog, don't you stop and think, "wait a minute... this is a lot of work... is anybody really ever going to need to change these options?" Where's the self-awareness? Was the developer of this app coding in some kind of fugue state the entire time?

    Instead the developer should have created a web service allowing the modification of configuration items via an API and fostered the creation of a vibrant community where people would have exchanged code snippets and clever hacks.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Hey dumbfuck, the checkboxes-acting-like-radio-buttons was in a different tab.
     

    LOL I've been using ImgBurn for years and never came across them. Until I went into "Page 3" and "Page 4" of "Build". WTF!?

    ☑ Answer 'Yes'  ☐ Answer 'No'

    Completely unneeded since they are greyed out until the "Don't Prompt" checkbox is ticked. I'm thinking these tabs were just chucked in and then neglected.

    ImgBurn is a little wacky and has its quirks with all its power. 99% of the options can and will be ignored.



  • @tgape said:

    Judging by that photo, your radio buttons work very differently than my radio buttons.

    wut
    Selecting one of the "Answer 'Yes'" or "Answer 'No'" options deactivates the other, like a radio button.
    It has checkboxes to allow changing checkboxes-as-radio-buttons between yes and no.
    What was wrong with just a single checkbox? Didn't take up enough space on the screen?



  • @Salamander said:

    What was wrong with just a single checkbox? Didn't take up enough space on the screen?
     

    I get it now: it's a three-state control. "Don't prompt" unchecked means to ask the user every time. If it is checked then the answer of the "Answer 'Yes'" or "Answer 'No'" is executed in its place.

    Better UI might have been "Root content" with a drop-down combo box with options "Prompt", "Yes", "No" - with possibly the Yes and No replaced with better terms like "Make single folder the root" and "Leave folder visible" or something.

    Of couse the current UI should be using radio buttons. Other tabs use them, I wonder why this is different.



  • @Speakerphone Dude said:

    TRWTF with the picture is the "angry teenager" wallpaper in the background.

    http://hiareyou.com/index.php?d=2012-06-08



  • @Salamander said:

    It has checkboxes to allow changing checkboxes-as-radio-buttons between yes and no.

    What was wrong with just a single checkbox? Didn't take up enough space on the screen?

    And since they're all identical ("Answer 'Yes'" and "Answer 'No'"), he probably made a custom control for that. Meaning, he could fix it by just fixing the custom control in one place to use radios or a single checkbox. Or maybe I'm giving him way too much credit.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Salamander said:
    It has checkboxes to allow changing checkboxes-as-radio-buttons between yes and no.

    What was wrong with just a single checkbox? Didn't take up enough space on the screen?

    And since they're all identical ("Answer 'Yes'" and "Answer 'No'"), he probably made a custom control for that. Meaning, he could fix it by just fixing the custom control in one place to use radios or a single checkbox. Or maybe I'm giving him way too much credit.

    I would bet on arrays of vanilla controls. Some people never let go of old Visual Basic design approaches.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Speakerphone Dude said:
    TRWTF with the picture is the "angry teenager" wallpaper in the background.

    http://hiareyou.com/index.php?d=2012-06-08

    I just clicked on the "Windows 7 theme" link, and this lead me to discover that "themes" are nothing more than ini-style files (not even XML). Of course: it worked for config.sys, why would it not work for Windows 7 themes? Somehow it is a bit of a cold shower.

    I am discovering more and more every year how recycled and half-baked Microsoft products are. Like SSRS, where they did not even bother using version numbers that makes sense for the web services (ReportingService2005.asmx is used for SQL 2005, 2008 and 2008 R2, but 2010 is used for SQL 2012, etc.). They are just like the rest of IT: patchwork and lazy design.



  • @Speakerphone Dude said:

    I just clicked on the "Windows 7 theme" link, and this lead me to discover that "themes" are nothing more than ini-style files (not even XML). Of course: it worked for config.sys, why would it not work for Windows 7 themes? Somehow it is a bit of a cold shower.

    Enlighten us, oh guru of software, what should Windows theme files look like?

    And while you're bitching about the file format being somehow ... some... thing... bad? I guess? You neglected to notice that unlike every other OS, Windows can download desktop backgrounds from an RSS feed. I can't even use my own fucking desktop backgrounds on my Mac. But I bet the Mac theme files are in a vastly superior format, right?



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @Speakerphone Dude said:
    I just clicked on the "Windows 7 theme" link, and this lead me to discover that "themes" are nothing more than ini-style files (not even XML). Of course: it worked for config.sys, why would it not work for Windows 7 themes? Somehow it is a bit of a cold shower.

    Enlighten us, oh guru of software, what should Windows theme files look like?

    And while you're bitching about the file format being somehow ... some... thing... bad? I guess? You neglected to notice that unlike every other OS, Windows can download desktop backgrounds from an RSS feed. I can't even use my own fucking desktop backgrounds on my Mac. But I bet the Mac theme files are in a vastly superior format, right?

    Mac has nothing to do with it - I don't even own a Mac so I couldn't tell if there are themes or not on that platform. I used to have an iPod (now it's only a mass storage device hidden in my glove box for my car radio) but I don't recall if it had themes or not.

    I'm not sure what I expected exactly for Windows themes. Maybe move past the key/value file-parsing paradigm and use a file format that can be validated and instantiated (like XML serialization)? Saving data to a flat format on one end and re-parsing the file at the other end to reload the values in a compatible application is pretty close to a print/scan approach. Just serialize/deserialize the friggin object and be done with it.

    And even if they needed badly to use a config file and not serialized objects, why not use a format that can be validated using a standardized method (such as XML schemas)? There is just no reason to ignore progress and even if it has been badly abused, XML remains a superior approach to key/value to store configuration information in a text file.



  • @Speakerphone Dude said:

    Maybe move past the key/value file-parsing paradigm and use a file format that can be validated and instantiated (like XML serialization)?
    I really really really really hope you just forgot <sarcasm> tags in there. Right? Right?



  • Try it for an example with a scratched CD-RW. When it fails to complete a burn with the volume on the speakers turned up, your wife will ask questions or raise an eyebrow at least... happened to me.


    Actually once I got used to ImgBurn , the fact it burns blu-ray and does lots of other tricks without asking for $100 'upgrade'  sold it for me. So much I gave the writer some money.

     

     But then I think taking the engine out of a VW camper, fixing it and putting it back is fun, even in the rain...

     



  • @atipico said:

    ... a product where functionality is clearly given priority instead of aesthetics and iterface.
     

    Aha. Sane UI is apparently "aesthetics".

    No wonder software is shitty with people like you writing and using programs.



  • @dhromed said:

    @atipico said:

    ... a product where functionality is clearly given priority instead of aesthetics and iterface.
     

    Aha. Sane UI is apparently "aesthetics".

    No wonder software is shitty with people like you writing and using programs.

    Let's start another vim vs vb flamefest! Actually, the settings page of ImgBurn is sort of like the anti-vim, since everything it in the GUI, no hidden :settings to remember/google/rtfm for.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Who the fuck wrote this piece of shit? Who the fuck sat with his finger on the "release this product to the public" trigger and nodded to himself and said, "yes. Yes this is the quality level we want to ship. This product is done."

    It is a somewhat standard look, apparently



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I can't even use my own fucking desktop backgrounds on my Mac.

    You what? Seems to work fine here.

    Although, yeah, there's fuck all else you can change.

    Much as I'd like to drastically change the window manager's behaviour in OS X, I can understand, having seen the horror that can come from letting some people really customise their OS too much, why Apple went with the "Fuck you, this is how it looks" option.



  • @Speakerphone Dude said:

    @blakeyrat said:
    @Speakerphone Dude said:
    I just clicked on the "Windows 7 theme" link, and this lead me to discover that "themes" are nothing more than ini-style files (not even XML). Of course: it worked for config.sys, why would it not work for Windows 7 themes? Somehow it is a bit of a cold shower.

    Enlighten us, oh guru of software, what should Windows theme files look like?

    And while you're bitching about the file format being somehow ... some... thing... bad? I guess? You neglected to notice that unlike every other OS, Windows can download desktop backgrounds from an RSS feed. I can't even use my own fucking desktop backgrounds on my Mac. But I bet the Mac theme files are in a vastly superior format, right?

    Mac has nothing to do with it - I don't even own a Mac so I couldn't tell if there are themes or not on that platform. I used to have an iPod (now it's only a mass storage device hidden in my glove box for my car radio) but I don't recall if it had themes or not.

    I'm not sure what I expected exactly for Windows themes. Maybe move past the key/value file-parsing paradigm and use a file format that can be validated and instantiated (like XML serialization)? Saving data to a flat format on one end and re-parsing the file at the other end to reload the values in a compatible application is pretty close to a print/scan approach. Just serialize/deserialize the friggin object and be done with it.

    And even if they needed badly to use a config file and not serialized objects, why not use a format that can be validated using a standardized method (such as XML schemas)? There is just no reason to ignore progress and even if it has been badly abused, XML remains a superior approach to key/value to store configuration information in a text file.

    Except that some people just want a simple configuration format, rather than dealing with all the obfuscated dickery inherent in XML schema validation.

    Also, if you have a problem with part of the schema and want to alert the user, the error that comes from an XML parser is going to be rather shitty, so you may as well just write your own anyway.

    From my experience, using XML schema validation just gives you lovely situations where the data may be perfectly usable by the program, but the validator chokes and dies because of some pissy nitpicking shite like two sibling nodes which have no concept of ordering being in a different order than it expects.



  • @_gaffer said:

    You what? Seems to work fine here.

    You know, it would have been a lot more helpful if you provided instructions on how to do it instead of just saying "works fine here."



  • @blakeyrat said:

    @_gaffer said:
    You what? Seems to work fine here.

    You know, it would have been a lot more helpful if you provided instructions on how to do it instead of just saying "works fine here."

    No problem. Open "System Preferences", click on "Desktop & Screen Saver", choose picture, look smug (this is always the final step for Apple products).



  • @_gaffer said:

    No problem. Open "System Preferences", click on "Desktop & Screen Saver", choose picture, look smug (this is always the final step for Apple products).

    Jesus. Duh.

    I'm trying to set a RSS feed as my desktop background, not a single image. You know, like that Windows theme file does. I want that theme file in a format Macs can understand, or at least a way of plugging the RSS url into a single Mac would be fine I guess. Dumbshit.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    I'm trying to set a RSS feed as my desktop background, not a single image. You know, like that Windows theme file does. I want that theme file in a format Macs can understand, or at least a way of plugging the RSS url into a single Mac would be fine I guess. Dumbshit.
    From the person who screams "Why don't you just Google the fucking thing??!?!?!?!?"

    Googling for:  "os x" rss feed background

    Returned [url="http://www.cultofmac.com/154437/use-an-rss-feed-as-a-desktop-background-os-x-tips/"]this[/url].


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