Rob:
Many thanks. A couple of responses below.
Plus an overarching one: There is nothing in Help to tell users how to
report a bug. Nor a menu item to help them to do so.
On 24 Apr 2014, at 16:38, Rob Weir wrote:
On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 10:10 AM, <circul...@gmx.com> wrote:
How long does it take to fix a bug, please?
It depends on the bug. Some get fixed quickly. Some may never be
fixed.
And is there any point in reporting them?
Yes. Even if a bug is not quickly fixed it is good for the developers
to know what bugs are out there. In some cases when they make a major
change in one area they will look in Bugzilla to see if there are any
other related bugs (lower priority ones) that they can fix at the same
time.
Bug reports are useful for users as well, and IT professionals who
support users. The bug reports can describe workarounds, and at the
very least they confirm the bug exists, which can reduce the
frustration of users when they are not being certain.
Its great that some of them are getting confirmed now, but even that
has
taken several years in some of the examples below - 4 1/2 years in
one. None
have been fixed yet. (nb only have public wifi so can't download the
latest
beta - sorry).
You can find ones older than that, if you look hard enough. But this
is not a queue for movie tickets. Bugs are triaged according to
severity and impact, not time. Volunteers typically prioritize based
on that, though obviously their own interests and expertise play a
role as well.
The primary problem highlighted is that the bugs will not enter the
queue until they are confirmed. Presumably someone examines them when
they are submitted to decide whether to confirm them or not, as part
of the triage. That is where things seem to be going wrong.
On that, would add that if, after having discovered a bug and
presumably had a nightmare with it, then put in the time and effort
necessary to report it, it is left unconfirmed without explanation,
they are likely to conclude that it is not worth the trouble in future.
Might it be an idea to have a 'bug moderator', who you can appeal to
if nothing happens? Or is that best done here? Trouble is a lot of
people will not know of this forum, and it might waste users' time.
There are several serious bugs to report - particularly in outline and
template management, while working in metric (which presumably the
vast
majority of users do) is a nightmare at present. But doing so is time
consuming, and there seems little point if nothing is getting
fixed, or
certainly no urgency if it takes years to do so.
EXAMPLE 1: BUG IN OUTLINE - BUG 98752
https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=98752
This was first reported 02 February 2009 but was not confirmed.
It caused me huge problems in 2011 so was reported independently on
the
forum (because finding out how to report a bug was so obscure) and
confirmed
by Hagar Delest on 01 October 2011 here:
https://forum.openoffice.org/en/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=44287&p=204470&sid=d016d92716a51e5c9d2cf10631ae8b0d
#p204470
Did as required. Nothing happened until 07 August 2013 when Rob
picked it
up, which was a very welcome surprise after so long.
The QA volunteers have been doing a great job working on the back log
of older, unconfirmed issues. In many cases we find the old issues
are stuck for lack of additional information from the reporter of the
issue, e.g., lack of an example document.
Good to hear. Thanks to all concerned.
Not generalising from personal experience, but no-one has ever been
back to me for more information on a reported bug. My feeling is that
anyone who has gone to the trouble of logging a bug would be happy to
help clarify it if approached.
In other cases old bugs are no longer reproducible. They were fixed
in an earlier release. And
in some cases they are real defects which we are glad to classify as
such. The goal of reviewing these old reports is to make sure that
Bugzilla correctly reflects the actual state of the OpenOffice
product, what bugs actually exist in the most recent version. It is
slow work, but we're catching up.
What might be an idea is somewhere to look at stats for bugs -
reported, confirmed, fixed etc, perhaps a listing of the pipe and
those that are being currently resolved - so that folk can see what is
going on. Or at minimum, putting a report in the new newsletter from
time to time. Be much easier to appreciate the scale of the problem
(for want of a better expression).
It would also be great to know what is being developed, enhanced etc -
especially if we could make input before it is finalised.
Btw, if you (or anyone else) is interested in helping with this, we
welcome all volunteers. Personally I find it a relaxing diversion to
review old bug reports, see if they still are bugs, remove duplicate
reports, etc. Info for how to get involved is here:
http://openoffice.apache.org/orientation/intro-qa.html
Thanks Rob. Would like to help, but without internet or electricity
(truly), any time on computers is at too much of a premium and doesn't
leave any downtime like that, so will prioritise reporting the various
bugs known to me, then enhancements.
Stay happy
Regards,
-Rob
EXAMPLE 2: ORGANISING TEMPLATES - BUG 118552
https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=118552
First reported 26 October 2011. Confirmed on 03 April 2014. Still
hasn't
been fixed.
EXAMPLE 3: UPDATING STYLES - BUG 121785
https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=121785
Reported 18 Feb 2013. There is a problem with updating styles, which
doesn't
behave as stated in help (which covers the topic very badly).
On this one, can't get the problem confirmed, and can't even get a
response.
EXAMPLE 4 : ICON LABELS BUG 121766
https://issues.apache.org/ooo/show_bug.cgi?id=121766
This one is embarrassing. Undo is labelled 'Can't Undo" and Redo
similarly,
and have been since 2007 at least, which must be obvious to millions
of
users. Astonishing that no-one has picked it up.
Reported it on 13 February 2013 was confirmed admirably quickly.
Naively, it would seem dead simple to fix - just correcting a couple
of
labels - but it slipped through to OpenOffice 4 and is still there.
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