Products · Product
Pharo
Raised as a usability problem by 44 people on Hacker News over 14 years (2011–2024), in 38 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads in the last 5 years.
Every issue, all time, most people first
Text and UI look blurry or tiny on high-DPI screensUnreviewed
20112026- Pharo IDE looks blurry on high-DPI retina screens2023-11-06
- Text and UI elements look blurry or tiny on high-DPI screens, with inconsistent scaling2023-09-13
- Interface looks blurry on the M1 Mac's high-DPI screen2022-04-08
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Git workflow is not obvious, creating friction with version control2024-04-27
- Cannot change directories to anything except ~/Pharo; new directories must be pre-created2024-04-27
- Source links missing, dead, or unclickable on success page2024-04-26
- Pharo IDE looks blurry on high-DPI retina screens2023-11-06
- Text and UI elements look blurry or tiny on high-DPI screens, with inconsistent scaling2023-09-13
- Too many setup steps before it's possible to just start writing code2023-05-12
- Must guess that whole expression must be highlighted before 'do it' runs2023-05-11
- Pharo releases after 5 show an empty window and the VM hangs without starting2023-05-11
- After launching the stable image, user faces a blank screen with no obvious starting point and can't find a tutorial2023-05-11
- Window opens but never draws anything, stays stuck showing old content2022-10-20
- Pharo fails to start on Fedora, with little installation or troubleshooting documentation2022-10-20
- Bugs, jank and an complex unfamiliar UI made the commenter drop learning Pharo2022-08-18
- Must work through lengthy tutorials before writing a simple hello world2022-07-19
- Needs laptop to re-figure out hidden mouse click combinations2022-05-22
- New package installer is hard to find; old one broke without any deprecation notice2022-05-06
- Interface looks blurry on the M1 Mac's high-DPI screen2022-04-08
- Custom windowing makes it hard to iterate, find, close windows and avoid overlap2022-02-27
- UI keeps changing each major version, so older learning material is hard to follow2021-11-16
- Can't find a GUI painter; Pharo's GUI tutorials are daunting2021-08-24
- Tiny mouse cursor is hard to find, inconsistent within the same application2021-07-15
- Can't alt-tab between windows; window manager is slow and clumsy2020-12-18
- Classes are cluttered and docs are poor, so the user can't figure out existing tools2020-04-07
- Pixelated UI on high-DPI screens makes the environment unusable for the commenter2020-01-21
- Launcher window opens then immediately closes, with no clear explanation on screen2019-12-21
- Pharo's usability is behind its presentation; newcomers must aimlessly click around2019-01-25
- Cursor is tiny and nearly invisible on high-DPI display; font scaling inconsistent2019-01-24
- Can't read class and method docs as a reference; must click each method to see docstrings2019-01-24
- Tutorial link is broken and outdated, and the way to start is hidden and undocumented2019-01-23
- Non-native look and feel, and lacks high-DPI support on Windows2019-01-22
- Keyboard-only use creates many windows that are tedious to arrange and switch between2019-01-22
- Font rendering looks terrible on hidpi screens, causing headaches and making it unusable2019-01-22
- Smalltalk IDE is dated and requires forgetting prior development tools2018-11-10
- Foreign environment ignores host OS conventions like inertial scrolling and trackpad gestures2018-11-10
- Screen reader sees blank window; cannot use the IDE at all2018-10-21
- Pointer does not respond to TrackPoint like other apps; user can't tell why it moves differently2018-10-21
- UI looks pixelated on HiDPI displays, making it unusable, bug open for years2018-10-21
- Too many unexplained steps to learn, install and run beginner programming tools2018-05-12
- Class hierarchy takes too much screen space; only one method visible at a time2018-04-05
- IDE randomly ignores clicks, crashes, and error windows keep reopening2018-04-04
- Newsletter popup hides the page content2017-10-04
- Dark theme makes text significantly harder to read for this commenter2017-06-07
- Menu is unusable on a high-resolution HiDPI screen2017-06-07
- Menu is unusable on a QHD+ high-DPI screen2017-06-07
- Many overlapping windows make the Smalltalk environment cluttered and hard to focus on2017-05-27
- Introductory book has outdated screenshots and instructions, so user can't find what to click2017-02-04
- Mouse-heavy floating window stacking slows the user down2016-07-27
- Users must choose a folder and create a shortcut manually2016-05-14
- Smalltalk images store code outside files, breaking standard source control workflows2015-08-17
- GUI looks dated and clunky and does not match native look and feel2015-04-17
- UI feels off and inconsistent, a strange mix of unrelated styles2015-04-16