OSDir Application Screenshots

Chris writes "Did you know that OSDir now does frequently updated screenshots of open source apps, including Evolution 2.0, KDE 3.3, Gnome 2.8, Enlightenment DR 16.7.1, Thunderbird 0.8, and YaST? Have a look!" These screenshot tours are a great way to see how polished (or not) a particular piece of software is getting, especially when you absolutely have to know what every menu item holds.

Screenshots tell you little

[Dancin_Santa]

While screenshots make for nice eyecandy, they tell you very little about an application.

Anyone can put together a fancy UI using a GUI builder, but the functionality behind that UI may not be in any working order.

Featurelists, buglists, and roadmap are the important items of documentation. Not screenshots.

Re:Screenshots tell you little: Here is the info.

[BrianHursey]

Lets see here is a brief list of some of the main software that I saw on that page. You can find information on those peaces of software at these sites.

Enlightenment Project: http://enlightenment.org/pages/main.html [enlightenment.org]
Evolution: http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/ [gnome.org]
Gnome 2.8:http://www.gnome.org/start/2.8/ [gnome.org]
KDE 3.3:http://www.kde.org/ [kde.org]
Thunderbird 0.8:http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/re leases/ [mozilla.org]
XPDE 5.1:http://www.xpde.com/ [xpde.com]
YaST:http://www.suse.de/en/private/products/suse_l inux/prof/ [www.suse.de]

Yes indeed!

[Anonymous Coward]

These screenshot tours are a great way to see how polished (or not) a particular piece of software is getting, especially when you absolutely have to know what every menu item holds.

And to use any of these apps, that's just what you have to know.

Good To See Vidalinux...

[Kick the Donkey]

Good to see VidaLinux [osdir.com] listed. That's one project that I think shows a lot of promise.

Gentoo AND user friendly. Now that's a concept.

I can't see much of the "polish"...

[FooAtWFU]

I can't see most of the "polish" they're talking about because I'm looking at a lousy, badly dithered 255-color GIF file. I mean, come on! If there was any polish and shine it disappeared in the noise diffusion. What on earth are they using as their screenshot/conversion tool? Give me a 24-bit PNG already! =b

These are distribution screenshots!

[twener]

The screenshots show the modified and tweaked desktops of Fedora and Conectiva, not vanilla GNOME or KDE desktops.

GUI Usefullness

[StarWynd]

I would much rather have a review of the ease of use of the software than seeing eye candy. The GUI presentation is an important aspect of software, but it's not the look of the GUI so much as it is how easy the GUI is to use. The best GUI software out there is the kind where you don't have to think too hard about how to do something. There are times when I've gone back to the command line just because the layout in the GUI version was so confusing. There's a big difference between an interface being really slick and being really useful.

complimentary

[comforteagle]

These screenshots are cool on their own, but are also complimentary to the news, articles, ratings, and especially the new reviews were doing at OSDir.

This way we can get useful information out about the releases and follow up with reviews (wanna write one?) once folks have a chance to put them to the test, which if thorough, takes some time.