Xupport 1.2.7

Xupport provides a cornucopia of various “utility” type functions, such as the ability to run system maintenance scripts, and configure the firewall. Sound familiar? Golly gee whillikers you betcha. We all know this kind of program. There are only about 50 of them after all. Of these 50, Xupport is the most confounding, most indescribable of them that I’ve ever seen. Who would have thought, for example, that a file browser and a firewall configuration interface could coexist in the same application?

Please understand that I use “coexist” with the lightest possible emphasis on “co”, for these features mix together about as well as Steve Ballmer and uh, anyone else. Shit, if you just split each of these unrelated functions into separate applications you could charge $10 for each! Ha, ha. If nothing else it would make selecting apps to review here at PvT much easier for a week or so.

Besides winning the Jewish Mother Biggest Misuse of Metal Ever Award, Xupport also wins the Basil Memorial Pointlessly Non-standard User Interface Award, for the many, oddly sized, placed, and colored interface items.

For example, watch incredulously the effect when you click a button after launch: First, a drawer (around which the interface is built) appears above the main window before sliding down into place. Now click another button; The drawer appears, once again above the title bar, then slides down behind the old drawer, after which the old drawer slides up above the title bar before disappearing. Xupport, when I watch this effect, I feel as if I have finally perfected my teleportation device, only to have it dump me in a Manure Bank.

I have mostly avoided criticizing the functions this stewing pus-wart performs, mainly because I see no use for most of them, yet I concede that some people would have genuine uses for a mishmash of system-voodoo features such as this. Ironically, the thing that Xupport was designed to do, that is provide a GUI to common CLI tasks such as the undying favorite update_prebinding, is the thing it does worst. I am sorry, but this GUI is more disgustipating than a pile of wormy offal.

Laurent Muller, for creating a relatively useful (to some people) application that is all about the GUI, yet neglecting to adhere to any known GUI guidelines, I award you a 7.4.

Download Xupport