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List:       abiword-dev
Subject:    Re: bug 5420
From:       Alan Horkan <horkana () maths ! tcd ! ie>
Date:       2003-07-20 17:34:47
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On Sat, 19 Jul 2003, Dennis Heuer wrote:

> Date: Sat, 19 Jul 2003 20:20:03 +0200 From: Dennis Heuer
> <dh@onclick.org> To: abiword-dev@abisource.com Subject: bug 5420
>
> Somebody ("sviles_abi@iinet.net.au") edited my bug message 5420 and
> pleased me to send in some screenshots. I send them in here because
> bugzilla told me "you did not append a file" four times though I

I had similar problems with bugzilla in the past, I am not sure why but it
no longer happens to me.

> appended a file four times. This took me one hour because I use a ppp
> connection. It takes me one hour to post a bugzilla bug, and it takes

The very slow connection might be part of the problem, I dont really know.

> me a day to query for bugs because of 30 questions I can't answer...
> If you still expect me to use bugzilla instead of this mailinglist, I
> skip support completely and maybe abiword if it doesn't enhance

Dont make threats.  Threats get you nowhere.  Threats annoy developers and
make them not want to help you in fact it makes them want to tell you to
leave, to put very politely.

I understand you are annoyed and I often have to use a slow connection
myself but getting angry with us wont help.
We do the best we can.  We all work on abiword voluntarily.

This document explains some of the limitations you should expect
http://www.abisource.com/support/expectations.phtml

We appreciate that you went to the trouble of filing a bug report and I
apologise that bugzilla does not work for you.

> without my support. This is meant serious . Bugzilla sucks! It sucks!
> It really sucks!

The alternatives suck more, lots lots more.

Perhaps IRC might work for you.  If you go to irc.gnome.org #abiword and
ask nicely perhaps someone will agree to let you email some of the
screenshots and that they would attach them to bugzilla for you.

Your comments were detailed and fairly clear and they may be enough for
someone to confirm the problems you are having, as you are on a slow
connection and screenshots are a big problem for you then dont worry about
it.

<snip>
comments also available in bugzilla
http://bugzilla.abisource.com/show_bug.cgi?id=5420

> Your layout engine is crazy in many ways. For an example, I press the

It might seem easy but it is not.  Abiword is hard work.  Word processing
is a difficult problem to get right.  Broken would be a fairer description
than "crazy".
The devil is in the details.

> page-up and page-down keys to force the layout engine to redraw the
> page to get rid of artifacts. I found out that these keys are not able
> to show the first or the last page in full. It seems that the layout

Ctrl+Page Up will bring you right to the very top of the page.
Similarly Ctrl+PageDown will bring you right to the very end.

I agree this behaviour could probably be improved.
(Microsoft Word 97 handles this quite differently).

> engine stops if the first or the last page is reached but not if it is
> displayed in whole. Another interesting thing is the ruler bar. It
> does not switch to the next page if the cursor enters it but if the
> next page is displayed on about the half of the displayed area (it
> must reach more visibility than the previous page (51/49 ?) ). Why the
> ruler bar switches at all? Why not a ruler bar for every page? This

> would be much easier to implement.

It is very dangerous to say something is easy.  Software is almost always
more complicated than you think it is.
If it is so easy then we would very much appreciate if you could provide a
patch to do what you suggest.

I hope you do stick with Abiword, but it is hard work, please be careful
about criticizing use harshley.  Help us to help you.  We are doing the
best we can and we want to make abiword the best word processor it can be.

Just trying to keep the atmosphere are friendly and welcoming as the day I
joined in the Abiword community.

Sincerely

Alan Horkan
http://advogato.org/person/AlanHorkan/


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