I disagree with both sides of the forum issue.. I think that depending
on how it is implemented, it could go either way..
There are forum software's out there that will send you a mail
(including what was said) whenever a section is replied to.. Which
means you just subscribe to the wine-devel section for example and any
new threads will be emailed to you, as well as replies to the ones
already posted..
And I'm sure someone here could write something so that you could reply
to the email and have a script send whatever you wrote to the forum for you.
Of course at the same time, you have to worry about forum db crashes (i
know we have all heard of that happening from time to time)..
Bug searching is harder than it needs to be. I personally have made a
custom search to find bugs that i have reported, and bugs that are
assigned to me, just because the my bugs and bugs by me links dont find
all of them.. Plus, when searching for an app-specific crash, searching
thru just the summary doesn't always work, as user may post the err
message on the console, so then you need to create a custom search thru
the comments as well. And most users who are searching for a bug dont
care what the status of the bug is, they want to search all bugs, in
case it has a known workaround..
So here are my recommendations for bugzilla, obviously these would have
to be implemented by mozilla, but we'll worry about that later.
1) Create a simplified mode and advanced mode, and if the user hasn't
specified which mode they want, then default to simplified. Advanced
mode would be the search as it is now, simplified mode would be the
modifications below:
2) At the top of the page, change the word summary to "Search for:" and
make the text field next to it search thru all comment and summary
fields, and if possible, textonly attachments, and put a link to the
advanced search.
3) Remove the following sections: component, status, resolution,
severity, priority, hardware, os, email and numbering, and bug changes,
as well as the advanced querying section. That way it is more
google-ish, which is what users want..
For entering new bugs, the following changes should be implemented:
1) Remove component altogether, or make it a little more clear at
least. If I am entering a bug for an app crash, and it doesnt use
directx, for the most part i use wine-misc, which doesnt help anyone
out. At the very least if it does stay in there, put an unknown
component in the list so i can pick unknown and change it later, once
the area in question is discovered.
2) Allow us to attach a file on the main bug entry page, so we can
attach the trace and comment the trace at the same time, instead of
having to file the report, and then go back to the bug to attach the log.
3) Change the default for platform to PC, the default for os to linux,
and remove the windows entries from os.
4) Remove priority and severity.
Anything that I have asked to be removed from the enter bug form should
be left in the actual report, but should be allowed to be changed or set
by regular users, only by developers, and people with the change flags
set (bugzilla maintainers)..
Thats all I can think of for the user-friendliness factor in those
areas. I should add that the appdb is flooded with bug reports, which
doesnt look good for wine. I say we reset the appdb comments to null,
and pot a note at the top of every page in red letters that says
"Problems using a particular app? Click here!" and make Click here! be
a link to bugzilla's bug report page. That will reduce the number of
bug reports in the comments. Then each app maintainer should put a note
at the top of their app pages saying "If you have a problem using this
app, please (do such and such)" where such and such is whatever the
maintainer would prefer, either email them privately, or file a bug
report, or write to wine-devel, or anything other than complain about it
in that app's thread. That would make wine look a lot more
user-friendly, as new users can see hey this app works, and there arent
any issues with it, or they can see hey this app partially works, but
any problems i have can be easily reported, and people aren't bashing
wine about lack of support for that app.
ANYWAYS this email has gotten longer than I planned, and my hands are
starting to hurt, so please, comments or suggestions, send em my way.
Tom
S. Schauenburg wrote:
OK, but I mean (don't hit me for this) take a look at Cedega. They
have a forum and a wiki and have loads of user input. This generates
(inter)activity of users and 'promotes' the application in a certain
way, people like to tell other people something finally works :-)
5. First you need to search for a bug. A normal user wouldn't know
what things to select and would need to 'guess' where to fill in the
keywords etc. The search form looks threatening/scary, so it needs to
be simplified into (for example) keyword and wine version.
With the bug submission page I wouldn't know what to fill in at
"Component" and "Priority". And there's no real place to 'attach' a
error report/log to (for example a +seh debug channel)
By the way, I hate the AppDB comments/summarize where people put a
error log or something into the comment and/or the summary (under what
doesn't work).... This clearly states that people aren't using
bugzilla. So if we (Wine) would be a bit more user-friendly I guess it
would get the ball rolling.
Offtopic: I myself would volunteer to be a moderator on the forum.
