Could you consider making install process easier?

[quasiblob]

I'm not a homelab kind of person, but I've wanted to setup something like this for too long already. I had horrible experience setting this up on macOS.

I have to say I don't use my Mac that much at all, but the guide was so superficial, that I had to resort to using LLM and googling (which wasn't helpful at all, because not much documentation exists), and even then I wasted hours. And yaet

Naturally, it was easy to get the app running on a random folder, but I wanted to have it running as service or whatever daemon thing its called in Unix like systems. I really don't like Docker on Windows, based on limited experience I have with it. This is where the problems started. I didn't find any proper documentation for this, macOS page had only a minimal example, which was completely without any explanation.

I wonder who can get this running, without any prior experience, as the settings seem to be different compared to original File Browser. I don't consider myself a complete moron with tech, I've dabbled with installers / 3D software / scripting / IDEs / programming and AI models for decades in total, but I'm not a system admin, nor a web dev and I felt miserable, without LLM I would have given up, as documentation felt so useless - maybe the info is there, but I didn't manage to find it.

I'm just wondering how much better adoption this or any other similar app could get, if the getting started part was handled better. This wouldn't need much, but now this feels like the app is aimed to those who are familiar with *nix systems and running similar apps.

Also, GitHub repo front page doesn't even have the basic install steps, neither any info on how to update the app. I've already seen similar "massive fork of..." kind of statements which always makes me worried, but in general I wish app authors simply would explain what they are 'selling', even if it is a free tool, for example I skipped several similar apps, because their GitHub pages were not even trying to explain the core things - what does it do and how.

[gtsteffaniak]

Thanks for the suggestions and feedback, all documentation is on https://filebrowserquantum.com/en/docs/getting-started/

I appreciate these type of posts because I don't have fresh eyes to see it myself. Most of the documentation is catered towards docker. But non-docker usage is actually really simple. Perhaps that's the issue, it's simpler and easier without docker which is why there's less documentation.

It might also help if I created a short video as well, which I plan to do.

Do you have any specific suggestions that you found tripped you up getting started?

[VonAdam1]

I also have limited technical knowledge and had a hard time getting this installed. Eventually, with the help of LLMs, I got it running on my Synology server, but it took me a couple of months! :D

I think it would be a huge help if we could change the config directly through the app itself. That way, users with less experience could actually understand what the settings do realtime. I think a saw a discussion about this...

Regarding the documentation: When I first started, I struggled to understand the logic behind the steps. Because I have limited experience with GitHub, Docker, and terminal etc, I didn't understand what was actually happening in the background when I followed the instructions. Adding context for beginners would make a huge difference. Creating a AI Agent trained on Quantum and its data, configs etc would help us beginners or as you mentioned, a video tutorial.

[gtsteffaniak]

changing the config in the UI has some challenges, but that is a great suggestion. I will definitely keep that in mind. That would certainly be a great feature to have

[gtsteffaniak]

I think I will make some simple videos guides soon too that are linked on getting started to help give better context.

Simple short videos are something I have wanted to do for a while, but didn't want to create something that wouldn't be correct as future changes are made.

Once I release v2.0.0 I will probably make the videos