From kde Wed Mar 17 15:30:18 2004 From: Nathan Toone Date: Wed, 17 Mar 2004 15:30:18 +0000 To: kde Subject: Re: [kde] KDE Developers don't test their own programs... Message-Id: <200403170830.21429.nathan () toonetown ! com> X-MARC-Message: https://marc.info/?l=kde&m=107953760512742 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Here are my opinions - they probably differ from yours, but that doesn't invalidate your opinion. (I like to play the devil's advocate). However, I agree with you on one point - KDE is far from finished. But I think that most people would agree on that point. If you stand still, you may as well be going backwards - especially WRT computers and technology. > I.e. KDE Addressbook. Don't even think of trying to use the csv > importer. its totally useless to me because I cannot import my adresses. Haven't tried it - so I can't comment. It may be that your csv file is not 100% conforming to specification though. I don't discount the possibility of bugs, but I do know that for the most part KDE applications try to adhere to previously defined standards (and in my experience, they have done a good job of that - where KDE messes up is when you try to do something with a "nonstandard" file.) > mime type detection might work for 95% of stupid newbies that never > change anything. I tried to add .sid Tunes and Gameboy roms. But its not > possible because both of them are recognized as octet-streams... That > might be true but they still have different file endings.. well but > konqi doesnt care.. hit is hit :-) One thing to remember. The extension of a file name is NOT THE SAME AS A MIME TYPE. Mime type is something completely different. This is one thing where advanced windows users really get messed up (it took me a while to figure it out too). Mac users apparantly don't have this problem as much. But whether a file is called "Myfile.ksp", "Myfile.doc", "Myfile.avi", or "Myfile.mp3", if it was created with kspread and has a mimetype of application/x-kspread, it will open with kspread. KDE will *ALSO* recognize file patterns, but in the event that there is not a mimetype saved in the file itself. (At least, that's my understanding, is that right?) Again - this is an issue of doing things in a "nonstandard" way - mimetypes should be declared within the file - - not by file extension. Extensions are WAY too easy to change. > Viewing pdfs is still a pain because the tools render slow and always > only the current page. After switching the page you still have to wait 5 > secs. Searching is a pain that way.. not to speak of the missing search > function or the ability to select text (yes I know its ghostscripts > fault but that still doesnt make it better). And before I forget, don't > try to view landscape pdfs.... There are a lot of options for displaying PDFs. KPDF (which I've found to be pretty quick, but sometimes renders blocky), KGhostview (which is pretty slow, I'll admit), XPDF (which isn't a KDE application, but it *IS* pretty slow - but renders well), and Adobe's own Acrobat viewer. I think that Adobe's product should be a LOT better than it is - it lacks a lot of the functionality of the windows version...so let's start bothering Adobe and encourage them to support Linux better. > The reason why I dont file bug reports is because I just don't have the > time to surf the homepages and check if my bug isn't already filed etc. This is really a minimal amount of time - if you follow the KDE bug wizard, it does it for you. > I already file reports for openoffice, evolution and sometimes debian > packages. No matter what program it is for, it normally takes 10-15 > minutes. Way too much for just a simple bug. It's a small price to pay for a free operating system and desktop environment. Besides, if you don't log the bugs, you dont' have a right to complain about them. It's kind of like voting - if you didn't vote, you don't have a right to complain about the current administration, because you didn't *DO* anything about it. (Now if you voted for someone else, you have all the right in the world to complain about it.) If you want to lend credibility to your complaints, you have to do everything you can do as well. > I vote for an easy Tool > with a bug search function and a simple form to fill out all the needed > information. Gnome developers have tried this but they forgot the search > function. Without this I can't save time because searching for an > already existing bug takes most of the time (besides waiting for slow > php scripted webpages to appear :-( ) The bug submission pages at http://bugs.kde.org/wizard.cgi are among the best that I have ever found - they are quick, they do the searching for you, and if you don't like it, you can even file a bug on it - and they will get it fixed. > I am convinced that there are lots of people out there finding bugs but > none of them files them because its still too difficult. The same with > localization. And if you file a duplicate bug - NO BIG DEAL! This is to minimize work for the developers, but they know their bugs - and it doesn't take them that long to mark a bug as a duplicate. You should do what you can - but I don't think you need to spend 15 minutes looking for duplicate bugs when you aren't familiar with all the bugs in the system. > Enough rant. No problem - I love to have discussions like this - and it's points like yours that show where applications like KDE can get better. > I'd like to see what others are thinking. That's what I'm thinking. :) - -Nathan -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (GNU/Linux) iD8DBQFAWG8L+lPSZRR0T30RAn5SAKDCdEfAdcNIFrTRHBXEJZBpiVAY1gCfcunv KR9x790NyDG+X8yufDtjcpw= =c5W9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- ___________________________________________________ This message is from the kde mailing list. Account management: https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde. Archives: http://lists.kde.org/. More info: http://www.kde.org/faq.html.