Just updated the desktop client to 33 and wow… not too impressed. the setting page now defaults going to the settings which yeah, makes sense for what the menu option said but thats not what it did before with showing all of the folders and what was being synced - which is mostly why I go to that window to begin with, so now theres an extra click every time to go to the folders syncing.
The other opinion i have is the layout is horrible now, you have a TON of wasted viewing space on the left side when you only have a single account syncing. This squishes the entire view into a much smaller pane on the right. The accounts and settings used to be a neatly organized tab at the top. this side pane makes no sense with how much space is wasted.
As always with design/UI/UX choices, it seems that opinions are divided. There are others who are apparently thrilled: A word of thanks.
I haven’t used the new version yet; The Arch Linux packakge is still on 4.0.8, and that’s probably for the best, considering how many open issue there still are on GitHub, including, apparently, a memory leak: https://github.com/nextcloud/desktop/issues
Speaking of GitHub issues: If you have suggestions that you would like to bring directly to the attention of the developers, it is best to open an issue there. Here, we can only agree or disagree with your suggestions, but ultimately, it is the developers who decide on any changes, and they track issues on GitHub.
thanks yes, im familiar with opening github issues, this was more for discussion. the post you linked is amusing, the very first thing i had to do when i opened the latest client was make the window BIGGER
i do need to go up there and see if someone had logged another thing i noticed - that the tray icon no longer shows when files are actively syncing. it shows “last sync was successful” but go into the settings and the folder view and things are moving… so now to see if there is activity right click > click settings > click user profile > then finally see that things are syncing…
yeah, quite unusual, its a huge waste of space and now you have to make the window even wider. how many people actually have extra multi server nextcloud accounts to warrant a whole side bar for accounts. i honestly use that folder view more often than the other menu when you left click on it. the left click menu shows each file but the one in settings give you a more clear picture of what folders are currently syncing.
It is bad. Not clearly thought through. Seriously, why? It’s freaking enormous for no good reason and the sidebar is nothing but a pointless, wasted space unless you have 10+ Nextcloud accounts.
I have many folders, so it’s a long list, and the Connection Settings window always showing on the bottom is annoying and completely unnecessary. It was infinitely better as a tab that is hidden away since it’s rarely needed. It could have been at least added to the giant, pointless, empty sidebar
Overall yea, this is a major pointless update and a big regression in interface usability. What an absurd waste of time and resources that could have been better spent on improving the client’s performance and stability.
Speaking of which…
In the end though, I don’t care as I rarely go there. The bigger question is: is it faster and more stable? The Windows 4.* client has been terribly slow compared to the previous versions and to the Linux version.
Major letdown.
PS. Nope. Still slow. Crawling along at around 40MB/s syncing single large file on a 2.5 Gigabit network while there is nearly no CPU nor other network activity on both the server and the client machines. Late Windows versions 3 used to hit close to 200MB/s, similar to the Linux client that can routinely exceed 200MB/s. Ever since v 4.0 it’s been downhill for the Windows client The same folder syncs on Linux in less than half the time needed now for the Windows 4 or 33 client to sync. So yeah, it pains me to see that instead of fixing the client’s performance issues Nextcloud wastes resources on pointless and bizarre interface changes.
You might do some improvement suggestions on the bug tracker, or even report some issue if you see serious regressions that don’t allow you to do certain things that were possible before.
You might find as well some information about the design changes, e.g. if they want a more uniform experience over different platforms etc. Sometimes they reach out to test new versions, that is a good point for feedback (e.g. Desktop Files Client 33.0.0 RC4 available).
That is strange, I thought the underlying code for syncing would be the same… but that is rather a different topic.
For me it simply doesn’t matter at all. It could be bigger. Or smaller. It’s not as if you have it open every day and have to compare things on a daily basis or anything like that.
I actually think the design is good:
now you can see all the settings at once. This is also an advantage for support and debugging. Asking someone to “please send me a screenshot of your settings” is now easier.
I can’t comment on the other issues you’ve described.
Yeah, I went back to 3.17.4 and it syncs at around 100-150MB/s with peaks close to 200MB/s when it hits single larger files, compared to a steady 40-50MB/s for versions 4 and 33. Day and night difference. Same folder, on the same machine synced in under 30 minutes with 3.17.4 compared to around 1h 40mins for the newer versions.
I’m gonna rethink what I really need. Nextcloud has been such a constant PITA for three years now, both the server and the Windows and iOS clients. I’m scared of updating anything in fear it blows up again. I tried hosted and self hosted, went back to self hosted but it’s just too frustrating. The quality just isn’t there and it’s so slow and bloated, feature creep is bad while performance issues are being ignored.
I complained before but I really need to get off my lazy ass and finally start looking for alternative solutions. Maybe I can achieve what I need with Syncthing. I only need to sync files among 5 PCs and upload photos from an iPhone. I have no need for all the apps and collaboration stuff. The administrative overhead is just too much. Not worth it.
I’m gonna go back to 3.17.3 for now and stop updating for a while and do some research on alternatives.
The same folder syncs on Linux in less than half the time needed now for the Windows 4 or 33 client to sync. So yeah, it pains me to see that instead of fixing the client’s performance issues Nextcloud wastes resources on pointless and bizarre interface changes.