Bug reports

[bbadmin]

It's frustrating how often we get bug reports in previous releases, a day or two after after uploading a new release in which we could have fixed them!

If you have noticed an issue, don't assume someone else will report it. Please report it yourself, using this form:

https://www.textpad.com/emailus

Check that you are using the latest version of TextPad, and explain how to reproduce the problem.

Thanks!

[AmigoJack]

From my experience as both developer and user for 25+ years I can assure you that contact form will annoy away people because they can't provide attachments, such as screenshots. And the communication is hidden between you and the reporter, so nobody else knows what has been reported and what not.

Having one topic per issue/report on a board as this many advantages:

• Everybody can read it, including dates of each post (to sense when it was reported and maybe how often). The potential solution/workaround might already be mentioned and used by others before any new update is ready.
• Everybody can participate, especially if the first post lacks many details or is way too ambiguous - detail questions can be asked before you (the developer) has to look at it.
• Since everybody can read and participate, answers of you (the developer) can be read, too. And if more than 4 eyes read that mistakes can be spot more often and easier - misunderstanding happen.
• Yes, attachment can't be made either, but embedding pictures and or links is at least possible, so one can upload screenshots elsewhere. Think of configuration files and/or macros as files to be inspected.
• Everybody is able to subscribe (including you as developer) to see when new posts have been made per topic. Or new topics.

I, too, once tried to make users send reports in a way most comfortable to me. And realized that it just turns people silent and they'll look elsewhere. Actually some people are crazy enough to rather use Twitter or whatnot to (pseudo) report bugs, because that's their favorite way to get into contact. Which I don't support. That's just an example - the more ways you're open to get reports the less annoyed they are.

I've also experienced myself investing a lot of time to make detailed reports just to get the attention of developers for 10 seconds at max and their decision to close a ticket as "won't fix" for cheap reasons. Mostly misunderstandings. Sometimes bland incompetence.

Please think about it. Today's ticket systems are publically available for a reason - have a look at f.e. https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues and https://sourceforge.net/p/sevenzip/bugs/

[ak47wong]

Why not just keep using this forum for bug reports? There’s only been about 50 posts started or bumped this whole year; it’s not a busy place. How about at least upgrading phpBB to the current version?