Some FOSS programs, due to being mantained by hobbyists vs a massive megacorporation with millions in funding, don’t have as many features and aren’t as polished as their proprietary counterparts. However, there are some FOSS programs that simply have more functionality and QoL features compared to proprietary offerings.

What are some FOSS programs that are objectively better than their non-FOSS alternatives? Maybe we can discover useful new programs together :D

I’ll start, I think Joplin is a great note-taking app that works offline + can sync between desktop and mobile really well. Also, working with Markdown is really nice compared with rich text editors that only work with the specific program that supports it. Joplin even has a bunch of plugins to extend functionality!

Notion, Evernote, Google Keep, etc. either don’t have desktop apps, doesn’t work offline, does not support Markdown, or a combination of those three.

What are some other really nice FOSS programs?

edit: woah that’s a whole load of cool FOSS software I have to try out! So far my experiences have been great (ShareX in particular is AWESOME as a screenshot tool, it’s what snip and sketch wishes it could be and mostly replaces OBS for my use case and a whole lot more)

  • rodneylives@lemmy.world
    51·
    6 days ago

    I think you’re overstating things a bit, but it’s true that I keep getting caught up by weird behaviors.

    I paste image data into a layer. I drag the layer a bit to get it where I want it. I try drawing on that layer: nothing happens. Turns out, when I pasted the image, it created a layer the size of the current image with all the extra space filled with transparent pixels. When I dragged it, the transparent part of the layer that had been off the image’s borders was actually dead space, and it won’t accept drawing into it until I go under layers and choose to expand the layer to the dimensions of the image. Once you realize what’s happening it’s not so bad, but until that point it’s the software working how you don’t expect it, and some people are going to drive themselves batty trying to figure it out.

    And just now in 3.0 I’ve discovered, if I copy a rectangular part of an image using the Rectangle Select tool, then paste that data into another program, what gets pasted is a transparent box the size of the original image full of transparent pixels, with the copied part opaque in the middle of it in its former position inside the image.

    It seems like it’s purposely trying to come up with an unintuitive way to implement my actions. I don’t remember it being like this in the past. What happened?

    • Krudler@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      6 days ago

      I really don’t think I’m overstating things, I go back to the early 90s, I started with Harvard graphics and stuff like that… I have used so many damn image editing softwares, and I’ve even made a few of my own.

      I’m honestly going to just plant my foot and say gimp is a misbegotten atrocious lump of shit from a UI perspective - a complete embarrassment, and a complete failure from any perspective of usability science

      It is absolutely at the bottom of the pack of any piece of software I have ever used, it’s hard to pick up various bunches of shit and decide what lump smells the worst, so I’m not going to say gimp is the worst, but it’s floating at the bottom of the septic tank

      I cannot believe that people continue to step up and defend it, it’s garbage.

      • varjen@lemmy.world
        3·
        5 days ago

        When was the last time you tried gimp? It improved a lot when they made it a single window instead of the original insane multiwindow model. It’s probably not as well organized as PS but it’s really not as bad as you say IMO.