Please read: Wine(HQ) needs a reorganization (AppDB, Bugzilla, etc.)

[Tom Spear (aka Dustin Navea)]

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.
>  
>