It is hard to find the link for Windows download, most people (especially us dumb Windows users) want to find a link and download, not scroll a bunch then go to another page then scroll some more and make a decision about which one of 20 links they need. It is not that hard, especially for most people on HN but it does add friction to people trying your software. This is a very common thing with other projects so not just picking on this one.
Finally, when it does load on my Windows machine (using MSI installer and after convincing Microsoft that it is safe to run and bypassing their warning) it loads up super tiny on my 4k laptop screen and is unusable. I suppose I could mess about with the compatibility and scaling settings but I kind of lost interest after all of the above.
I tell you all this because obviously a lot of work went into this tool and from the screenshots it looks beautiful and useful, but is let down by the process involved to get it to run, at least on my machine.
Really weird criticism. If you're confused about how GitHub works, you might follow the link to their website[0] (when you click on "Release" in the readme) and then scroll down to find a "Download for Windows" button.
At least on desktop, there's also a link to the main site in the About section of the repo. This might actually be a better link for the HN submission, as I bet there's a non-zero intersection of hex editor users and people who completely do not understand Git whatsoever (assuming they've even heard of it).
This is how most open source projects do things, 1. because they are not users, and 2. they don't have UX teams and upper management to force them to make it easier to use for people.
Be lucky you get binaries at all, there are many projects that don't provide any at all, and are quite hostile to anyone asking for them!
On another hand, no upper management to push ads and dark patterns. The more old school or even ugly a project looks like, the more I end up trusting it.
> it loads up super tiny on my 4k laptop screen and is unusable. I suppose I could mess about with the compatibility and scaling settings but I kind of lost interest after all of the above.
Oh, it’s this one. I tried it a couple of years ago and it did this, and was somewhat awkward to fix IIRC.
Why would I do that unless I have a strong reason to use it rather than just move on with my day? A link is posted on HN for some cool software, it is already annoying to install it due to Microsoft complaining about it, then when I first run it, it opens up a tiny window an is asking if it can upload information. I don't expect to spend time figuring out its issues. I can't be the only one using a 4K display on Windows.
> Why would I do that unless I have a strong reason to use it rather than just
> move on with my day? A link is posted on HN for some cool software, it is
> already annoying to install it due to Microsoft complaining about it, then
> when I first run it, it opens up a tiny window an is asking if it can upload
> information. I don't expect to spend time figuring out its issues. I can't be
> the only one using a 4K display on Windows.
Spoken as a true reverse engineer, you should ask for a refund.
Finally, when it does load on my Windows machine (using MSI installer and after convincing Microsoft that it is safe to run and bypassing their warning) it loads up super tiny on my 4k laptop screen and is unusable. I suppose I could mess about with the compatibility and scaling settings but I kind of lost interest after all of the above.
I tell you all this because obviously a lot of work went into this tool and from the screenshots it looks beautiful and useful, but is let down by the process involved to get it to run, at least on my machine.
For now, I will keep running HxD.