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Free software scares normal people

(danieldelaney.net)
917 points cryptophreak | 3 comments | 30 Oct 25 15:07 UTC | HN request time: 0.01s | source
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fschuett ◴[30 Oct 25 18:17 UTC] No.45763249[source]▶
> Free audio editing software that requires hours of learning to be useful for simple tasks.

To be fair, the Audacity UX designer made a massive video about the next UX redesign and how he tried to get rid of "modes" and the "Audacity says no" problem:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYM3TWf_G38

So this problem should get better in the future. Good UX (doesn't necessarily have to have a flashy UI, but just a good UX) in free software is often lacking or an afterthought.

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1. immibis ◴[30 Oct 25 20:00 UTC] No.45764615[source]▶
The problem with the new Audacity isn't the new version, it's that it replaces the old version. If the new version came out but it was called "DARing" and Audacity continued to be the thing we have now, people might question the name but no other eyes would be batted.

Pre-emptive anti-snark: yes, the old version will still exist... if you can dig up the right github commit and still make it compile in 2030.

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2. fschuett ◴[30 Oct 25 20:28 UTC] No.45764927[source]▶
Well, Tantacrul did answer that objection: it just shows you a popup dialog on first start: "which theme do you want" (colorful or colorless, light / dark) and "which experience do you want" (classic / new). So if you pick the "colorless, light, classic" option, it's going to look pretty much like the current Audacity, except that they moved from wxWidgets to Qt.
3. Hendrikto ◴[31 Oct 25 10:49 UTC] No.45770560[source]▶
Had you actually watched the video or tried using Audacity, you would know that the option to continue using the old UI is there.