Re: fix bugs before adding new features

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Re: fix bugs before adding new features
by Brandybuck on Tuesday 29/Nov/2005, @10:22

It's up to the individual developers whether they fix bugs or add new features. No one is there to force them to do one or the other. It's called freedom.

That said, bugs are still getting fixed. No competent developer ignores reproducible bugs in release software. They do fix a lot of bugs. Some they can't fix, because it's outside of their area of expertise. Others may be minor and not worth the risk to fix in the 3.x codebase (every bug fix has the potential to introduce new bugs). Still others are currently being worked on, and will be merged in for 3.5.1. Then there are those few bugs that are design/architecture related, that must be fixed in the 4.x codebase.

3.5 is a feature release, and the focus is on new features. KDE could keep going on and on and on with 3.4.4, 3.4.5, 3.4.6, 3.4.7, and so on. But without new features users lose their excitement and developers get bored. This is especially true with a high visibility project like KDE. Thus every so often there is a feature release.

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Re: fix bugs before adding new features
by James Richard Tyrer on Wednesday 07/Dec/2005, @08:34

> No competent developer ignores reproducible bugs in release software.

Then should I believe that the developers that ignore (or worse summarily close) my bug reports are not competent? :-)

> KDE could keep going on and on and on with 3.4.4, 3.4.5, 3.4.6, 3.4.7,
> and so on.

And if we did that we would eventually have the most stable and bug free software on the market. Some users would prefer that to new features that don't work and the serious regressions that seem to come with them.

KDE 3.5 totally breaks my desktop due to a serious regression, and several serious issues which I have reported have not been fixed.

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Re: fix bugs before adding new features
by Paul Eggleton on Wednesday 07/Dec/2005, @11:45

> KDE 3.5 totally breaks my desktop due to a serious regression,
> and several serious issues which I have reported have not been fixed.

Which regression/issues are those? Could you quote bug numbers?

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Re: fix bugs before adding new features
by James Richard Tyrer on Wednesday 07/Dec/2005, @12:26

The serious regression which makes my desktop unusable is: Bug 116562

Some unresolved serious issues, 53052, 59901, 06542, 108510, 107087

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Re: fix bugs before adding new features
by Paul Eggleton on Wednesday 07/Dec/2005, @15:19

Personally I would class these bugs as "annoying", not "serious". I certainly think "unusable" would be going too far.

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Re: fix bugs before adding new features
by James Richard Tyrer on Wednesday 07/Dec/2005, @15:40

Please look at the screen shots that I attached to bug 116562.

My previous desktop setup is now unusable.

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Re: fix bugs before adding new features
by Morty on Thursday 08/Dec/2005, @09:29

From the bug report it looks like the size of panels is not correctly handled when creating a no-icon placement zone. Rather than getting it correctly from panel/icon size ratio, it looks like it uses a "better safe than sorry" approach. A bug creating some annoyance for some users, but IMHO it's preferable to the bug of having panels overlapping icons when unhidden.

>My previous desktop setup is now unusable.

Which I guess is very annoying for you, but not serious. Afterall you can simply reorder your icons.

And I agree with Paul's classification of those other bugs as annoying too. Not that they should not get fixed, but they are far from serious. Besides it's grate you help by folowing up your own bugs, it's far to many stale reports in there. Hope you close those that do not longer apply, too:-)

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Re: fix bugs before adding new features
by James Richard Tyrer on Thursday 08/Dec/2005, @21:17

I have posted two more screen shots to bug 116562.

Specifically, please look at:

http://bugs.kde.org/attachment.cgi?id=13831&action=view

I have added yellow cross hatching to show the very limited area of the desktop where I can place icons. So, although this bug doesn't even matter with the default setup with 3 icons and one panel, it totally screws up my rather elaborate setup.

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Re: fix bugs before adding new features
by Morty on Friday 09/Dec/2005, @05:45

Does not look to nice, I agree. But looking at the other screenshot:
http://bugs.kde.org/attachment.cgi?id=13832&action=view

The top and botton part look correct, and the same for the right side(if that clock of yours is some kind of panel). But the thing in the middle of the screen looks strange, and most likely whats breaking your setup. Without knowing the exact code I guess the no-icon placement code most likely suppose you have the panels at the screen edge. Not having the possibility to have icons on both sides of it. Other than that the distance to the icons look correct. I think you have to move that one to reclaim your desktop space.

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Re: fix bugs before adding new features
by James Richard Tyrer on Friday 09/Dec/2005, @08:42

The thing in the middle is a panel which is supposed to be upper left. The problem is mostly caused by the external taskbar which is lower left. I also note that the small panel that holds only my clock has: "Allow other windows to cover the panel" checked so it shouldn't influence the position of the desktop icons either. I did the unhidden screen shot to show that the icon positioning is being set by the panels which are hidden just the same as if they were not hidden which is not correct. Auto hide panels should not influence the position of the desktop icons.

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Re: fix bugs before adding new features
by Morty on Saturday 10/Dec/2005, @13:51

>The thing in the middle is a panel
>which is supposed to be upper left.
>The problem is mostly caused by the
>external taskbar which is lower left.

This is your real bug then.

>the icon positioning is being set by
>the panels which are hidden just the
>same as if they were not hidden which
>is not correct.

No, it's actually the correct behavior. If not, changing settings to/from hide/no hide of panels would lead to automatic rearranging of desktop icons which is not wanted. And more importantly panels should never cover desktop icons regardless of settings, anything else is a major bug.

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Re: fix bugs before adding new features
by James Richard Tyrer on Saturday 10/Dec/2005, @14:56

> This is your real bug then.

That is what I said, space is being reserved for the hidden External Taskbar and that is a bug.

> No, it's actually the correct behavior.

This is not the way it worked in 3.4.x or, IIRC, any previous 3.x.y version.

To elaborate on this, in 3.4.x, two hidden panels could be on the same side of the screen as long as there was some way to determine which one would unhide when you did what. In my case I have the External Taskbar in the left bottom and a Panel in the left top. Since neither one is full "length" (actually height) there was never a problem. Now in 3.5.0, a full height space is reserved for both of them (full height space is being reserved for the External Taskbar) with the result that the left top Panel has spaced reserved near the center of the screen where it can never go unless both the External Taskbar and the Panel were unhidden at the same time which is usually impossible.

> If not, changing settings to/from hide/no hide of panels would lead to
> automatic rearranging of desktop icons which is not wanted.

This behavior not being wanted, might be the case in some instances, but as you can see this is not always the case and does not work with my DeskTop setup. Therefore, as I said, if this "feature" is what is wanted, it is going to have to be a configurable option.

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