Dohickey Alpha 0.5 - Testers and Angels needed

[DoctorMO]

Looks like a locals file problem, I've been bitten by this before and even created a clean on the make. I must confess to not beeing very experienced with packaging.

So hold off and I'm gathering all the package problems I've had reported and some helpful advice from the hal lists.

thanks guys.

[DoctorMO]

Hey all!

You should find a new package which allows you to do normal installs and run it from uninstalled; give it a try. oh and a new screen shot.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dohickey/

Packaging has hellish btw, I still have to work out how to compile the language po files so I can have it multi language; do let me know anyone if you know.

[maniacmusician]

Damn, I just wrote a long post, but it got wiped out! Damn. [sigh] What a hassle. So, here I go again.

The client needs to take a more Damn, I just wrote a long post, but it got wiped out! Damn. [sigh] What a hassle. So, here I go again.

The client needs to take a more input-oriented approach towards the user, rather than just giving them fields to fill in. I hate to say it, but it needs to be a little more like the Ubuntu Device Database program.

For example, the first thing users should see when they start Dohickey is "Welcome to Dohickey" or something like that, a little paragraph explaining what the program does, what its goal is, etc. Then, the user clicks next; here, the questions start. The way the questions are asked should determine the interface of Dohickey.

The first question should be, obviously, "Is your computer a Desktop or a Laptop?" This is for diagnostical purposes, a bit of data to be attached as classification for the profile.

Then, ask a question like "Did you build this computer yourself, or did you buy it prebuilt from a company?" If they answer prebuilt, then the Dohickey interface should take a broader, "whole-computer" overview of the situation. For instance, after that, It would ask the name of the company, the model of the computer, etc. The user would answer, "Dell Inspiron E1505." This data would also be classification. This can seem silly, but it allows for a very convenient way of tagging stuff for the database. This way, instead of searching individual parts, users can go to the Dohickey website and search for a computer model, like the Dell Inspiron E1505, and have a complete profile come up.

However, if the user answers "I built my computer," you can forego the niceties, and lead them to the interface of Dohickey that you have built right now, with individual devices listed. Then, these advanced users that built their own system, know it inside and out, can quickly fill out the information for each piece of Hardware. See, what this innovative design would do is create environments suited to the user. A user with a prebuilt computer may not know every little detail of it, so they get the survey type questions. People who built their computers get the detailed version.

I'd also suggest Autodetection of more devices. For example, I've noticed that the first device listed is always a Motherboard, but it has a long, nonsensical name like "82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge, 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) IDE Controller, 82801EB (ICH5) SATA Controller, 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller, 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1, 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2, 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #3, 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller, 82865G/PE/P DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface, 82865G Integrated Graphics Controller" Not even kidding. Yes, those are all the parts of the motherboard, but it shouldn't be labeled like that. Since it is always first, make the label say "Motherboard" and let the user fill in the details of the mobo, like the manufacturer, model, etc.

I noticed that you've already done that with some devices like optical drives and whatnot. My suggestion is, Instead of having the Name of the device, and then the classification, put the classification first. So, for instance, it should say "Optical Drive - HL-DT-ST CD-ROM GCR-8486B", not "HL-DT-ST CD-ROM GCR-8486B - Optical Drive"

My last suggestion is, do not leave the compatibility "star" rating to the user. That's a subjective evaluation. One user may say 3 for functionality while another user thinks that it deserves a 1. You need to ask the user evalutative questions about that hardware and then derive from the answers an objective rating.

Phew. that was a lot of writing. Hope it helped.

[DoctorMO]

The client needs to take a more input-oriented approach towards the user, rather than just giving them fields to fill in. I hate to say it, but it needs to be a little more like the Ubuntu Device Database program.

No thanks! I hate that stupid program with it's 'Next', 'Next' I'm think your stupid gui. No this is a tool for telling you what the computer contains; a user must have the remit for handling the gui currently there or I don't believe their data is going to be of any use any how. General position won't change but if you do see a road block in the flow I will have a look at how to fix it.

For example, the first thing users should see when they start Dohickey is "Welcome to Dohickey" or something like that, a little paragraph explaining what the program does, what its goal is, etc. Then, the user clicks next; here, the questions start. The way the questions are asked should determine the interface of Dohickey.

It might be worth putting in a welcome screen, but then again that is supposed to be what the help button is for (if it worked, which it doesn't because no one will write the help file)

The user would answer, "Dell Inspiron E1505." This data would also be classification. This can seem silly, but it allows for a very convenient way of tagging stuff for the database. This way, instead of searching individual parts, users can go to the Dohickey website and search for a computer model, like the Dell Inspiron E1505, and have a complete profile come up.

You should see my initial notes from 2 years ago, they have a striking similarity; but I dropped this idea because it would take too long to program. getting the structures for just the hardware and devices was hard enough. It remains on my list though.

I'd also suggest Autodetection of more devices. For example, I've noticed that the first device listed is always a Motherboard, but it has a long, nonsensical name like "82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) LPC Interface Bridge, 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) IDE Controller, 82801EB (ICH5) SATA Controller, 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) AC'97 Audio Controller, 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #1, 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #2, 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB UHCI Controller #3, 82801EB/ER (ICH5/ICH5R) USB2 EHCI Controller, 82865G/PE/P DRAM Controller/Host-Hub Interface, 82865G Integrated Graphics Controller" Not even kidding. Yes, those are all the parts of the motherboard, but it shouldn't be labeled like that. Since it is always first, make the label say "Motherboard" and let the user fill in the details of the mobo, like the manufacturer, model, etc.

There is no such thing as auto-detection, this program does not auto detect things it simply attempts to understand what has been detected already by your system. this long string is because your hardware isn't known and no one has edited the information in that hardware profile. eventually all motherboards will be identified and you won't see strings like this. btw, not only with the motherboard not always be first, sometimes it's split into a number of parts. I have a way of telling it that one part is a fragment of another but not in the gui yet can't quite figure out how to do that.

I noticed that you've already done that with some devices like optical drives and whatnot. My suggestion is, Instead of having the Name of the device, and then the classification, put the classification first. So, for instance, it should say "Optical Drive - HL-DT-ST CD-ROM GCR-8486B", not "HL-DT-ST CD-ROM GCR-8486B - Optical Drive"

This information is available in your system, there is a lot of work in hal to do with disks and optical drives.

My last suggestion is, do not leave the compatibility "star" rating to the user. That's a subjective evaluation. One user may say 3 for functionality while another user thinks that it deserves a 1. You need to ask the user evalutative questions about that hardware and then derive from the answers an objective rating.

I agree, what about a task bar button for 'rate this' and a drop down menu which says 'Doesn't Work (0), Some Works (2), Most Works (4), Fully Works (5) and perhaps put it on a right click menu too?

Phew. that was a lot of writing. Hope it helped.

Lets talk some more about how to organise things.

[Crashmaxx]

It works now, and it looks good. Only three things I think need to be improved:

1. Better install an usage tips. Like how do I upgrade this later? Or remove it all together? And how do I run it without install? And when it is running, what stuff should I be editing and what not? But I'm sure this will come in time, its still very alpha

2. I feel you should be able to double click or right click on devices to edit them. Or maybe the button needs to be next to them. Something, cause its not intuitive that you can even change the details nor how. And the stars are nice, but it is not obvious you can change them. And as mention, a guide to what they mean, or maybe a drop down instead would be better. And maybe it was just me, but the window was small and descriptions cut off.

3. There should be an option to opt out for devices you are unsure what are, if they work, or just don't use. I don't want to give a score of 0 just because I didn't recognize it. Nor do I want to give a 5 to something I am assuming works, but may not even use. And along with this, hopefully you can have the names and details sync with the server at some point and then you can just confirm the "known" details of it and only have to change something when you had different results or the details are wrong. But I don't know how to do that, or what your plan was with that.

I hope that is some helpful feedback. And it seems like it didn't detect a lot of my stuff. But I don't know how you are doing that, and some things may have been there but just called strange things, especially since its a laptop. Let me know if that is strange or what is the deal here.

[DoctorMO]

1. Better install an usage tips. Like how do I upgrade this later? Or remove it all together? And how do I run it without install? And when it is running, what stuff should I be editing and what not? But I'm sure this will come in time, its still very alpha

Better install and running documentation? care to edit the INSTALL file and pass it back to me; developers are always quite bad at docs anyway so I copied the current one from gaspachio.

2. I feel you should be able to double click or right click on devices to edit them. Or maybe the button needs to be next to them. Something, cause its not intuitive that you can even change the details nor how. And the stars are nice, but it is not obvious you can change them. And as mention, a guide to what they mean, or maybe a drop down instead would be better. And maybe it was just me, but the window was small and descriptions cut off.

a) Double click, right will do that to view more details
b) right click should have an edit entry right.
c) stars as mentioned

3. There should be an option to opt out for devices you are unsure what are, if they work, or just don't use. I don't want to give a score of 0 just because I didn't recognize it. Nor do I want to give a 5 to something I am assuming works, but may not even use. And along with this, hopefully you can have the names and details sync with the server at some point and then you can just confirm the "known" details of it and only have to change something when you had different results or the details are wrong. But I don't know how to do that, or what your plan was with that.

The opt out is: you don't have to rate things or set information for things you don't understand. simple as that. there isn't a need for a disruptive opt out because its passive anyway.

I hope that is some helpful feedback. And it seems like it didn't detect a lot of my stuff. But I don't know how you are doing that, and some things may have been there but just called strange things, especially since its a laptop. Let me know if that is strange or what is the deal here.

It detected stuff is my guess but since there isn't a server to collect information from your not going to get much more information at the moment. the server is finished I just have to beg for someone to host it... still could be worse.

[DoctorMO]

As well as working on the above problems I've set up the beginnings of a wiki:

http://dohickey.wikispaces.com/

So if there are any kind souls who want to document a few things, including problems and feature requests please help yourself.

[DoctorMO]

OK Crashmaxx and maniacmusician the attached screen shots have a lot of your ideas in them.

I managed to find a way to get the motherboard thing to work although I would like it if some people were to test it and let me know by creating a screenshot and a log listing of list-hardware.py (comes with) for debugging if your motherboard is still split into a number of parts.

Couple of bugs left, one to do with firewire devices as you can see it says iPo instead of iPod. but the optical drive is now at the start and we have a computer information section as well as a welcome screen and a place to set what computer you have.

[DoctorMO]

Is anyone else trying this alpha? I need feedback to solidify the code and I'm working on some translation improvements so that should be interesting too.

[DoctorMO]

Hey all, it's me again the echo thread poster *hellow big empty caven of users*

I've personal invested in a web service to host dohickey and it's server implementation as a result I've redone the website (not a great deal but enough) and got us a spanking new home at http://dohickey-project.com/

I'm a terrible speller so it's most likely there are spelling mistakes in there.

also you can see the screenshots posted above there and I still need more people to post their complete device listings so I know the client won't chop hardware into little bits.