Confusion on installing node packages

[arthexis]

Hello, I was surprised that no default nodes were included in the default install:

The documentation only says this about how to install the node packages, but it isn't clear enough exactly what I should do to install them, and this may confuse other users:

Thanks, I love the idea behind this project!

[KennedyRichard]

Mr. Guillen,

Thank you for taking the time to give us feedback regarding Nodezator's shortcomings, it is much appreciated.

About your difficulty in finding info on how to load nodes

I'm sorry that you had to experience such inconvenience.

Your experience made it clear that we need to make some crucial resources more easy to find. For instance, we have a section in the online manual dedicated to explaining how to load nodes, and another one explaining how nodes are defined and organized into packs so they can be loaded, but it is my fault that none of those resources were shown in the form to load nodes inside the app, nor were they linked in the section of the README file that you showed us.

As you pointed out, this ends up demanding extra effort to look for the information somewhere else. The entire online manual, including the chapters linked are available in-app as well, in the menubar "Help" > "Read manual", so there's even less excuses not to make this information more discoverable.

I'll make sure such resources are very easy to find, both in the form inside the app used to load nodes and in the README file. It should not take much time, but It'll have to wait a few days or a week until I can squeeze it in between my current tasks. I'll get back to you on that when I'm finished.

About Nodezator not including node packs

Nodezator indeed doesn't include node packs in its installation. However, it comes with a lot of nodes by default already, as one can see by creating a new file and right-clicking the canvas (a popup menu appears showing a lot of different nodes that can be used).

When I created Nodezator, I wanted it to be an app that didn't force people to use specific nodes. Instead, I wanted to give people maximum freedom to create their own nodes and only load the nodes (packs) they wanted for each file.

While this gives people a lot of freedom, I do understand that this may cause Nodezator to appear a bit bare at first.

However, it is not as though this is set in stone. I'm not opposed to include a node pack or two with the default installation. Even so, wanting to include them presents its own challenges, all related to creating and choosing the right node packs for the job:

1. Nodezator was released less than a year ago and multi-purpose node editors aren't so popular with developers yet, so it has a small community (though thankfully it is growing). Many people still hadn't time to develop node packs they are willing to share and some are happy to use them in their own personal workflow without having to worry about publishing and maintaining them.

2. Apps like Nodezator make it easy to define new nodes, but designing them in the first place is the real challenge. That is, designing modular functions that go well together for a particular purpose still takes some time, effort and experimentation with real problems. Even the node packs available for download in https://gallery.nodezator.com, despite their simplicity, took some time and effort to think about real problems, which kind of operations would help solve them, and translating this all into functions to use as nodes; despite being fun work, it still takes time; and even so, those packs are far from complete; they serve as very neat examples and are useful on their own to solve some specific problems for which they were designed, but they are only, as is shown by their names, example packs.

3. Choosing the node packs themselves is also a challenge: Nodezator is a multi-purpose node editor, so any node packs for any field can be created/chosen: image editing, data visualization, machine learning, text processing, you name it; based on what criteria will we choose? I mean, we could vote, but even so, won't we be tempted to add additional packs, and maybe still want to add more in the future?

Please, don't feel discouraged by the challenges I listed, they are only honest concerns, nothing more. Additionally, as I said, I'm not opposed myself to the idea of adding one or more node packs to the default installation. The prospect is quite interesting actually.

My point is just that it is too soon to think of this. I believe it is better to wait a bit more for more people to start using Nodezator, grow used to it and develop their own node packs naturally, and once we have a good number of node packs available we may start to think about picking the most used ones or design our own custom-made packs to include in Nodezator.

If after what I explained you still think we could try something soon, let me know and we can consult with the rest of the community about it, either here on github or on the discord server.

Turning this issue into a discussion

I'll also take the liberty of converting this issue into a discussion, but don't worry about it, it doesn't mean your request is any less important. It is just that in Nodezator and other Indie Python repos we use issues for things that crash the app or otherwise prevent the user from doing something that is supposed to be available. When such an issue appears, any other work is paused and all attention is given to that issue so that it can be fixed ASAP.

This measure is taken for the benefit of the users, including yourself: by doing things this way, whenever you have a real issue, it won't compete for space with other less urgent matters. Suggestions of improvements and feedback about bad experiences like this post of yours are as important as an issue, but they don't have the same urgency, which is why we turn them into discussions.

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Thank you again, Mr. Guillen, for taking the time to give us feedback. Sorry for any inconvenience you may have had while using Nodezator. My goal is to work as hard as healthily possible to ensure Nodezator meets the needs of our users.

Let me know if you need anything else.

Peace.

[KennedyRichard]

Last but not least, thank you for your kind words in the top message:

Thanks, I love the idea behind this project!