Subject: Re: commit - Win32 Lists dialog and more bugs fixed
From: Martin Sevior (msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Thu Nov 23 2000 - 20:16:39 CST
On Fri, 24 Nov 2000, Mike Nordell wrote:
> Martin Sevior:
> > How bad is it?
>
> Enough (in my quest for perfection, I'd say this is quite off track).
>
> 1. I still don't understand how it should work with renaming of radio
> buttons and all, and if I don't understand it I think it's pure luck if I
> got it working right. Also, this might indicate that its (visual) design
> could possibly confuse others also. It simply has too many states to be
> intuitive.
>
> 2. I sure don't understand the class AP_Dialog_Lists, why I think it's in
> part pure luck that I got it working. All those variables that subclasses
> are supposed to tuch (some never used, and others used in the strangest
> contexts) added a great deal to this confusion. The fact that some
> developers seems to *hate* the C++ keyword "private" is also contributing
> greatly to my confusion.
>
> 3. You can use it to create new lists, but I haven't even tried to get it to
> modify existing ones.
>
OK, well I've thought about this a lot and it appears that many of our
users are using Abi to do real work already. This being the case I've
become convinced that we should not release with the dialog in its present
state. This is too bad because we can't show off the great multi-level
capabilities. However I think it would be worse to promise something and
deliver well short of the mark. We need a new release quickly and this
feature will not be ready in time.
What users mostly want is something that is reliable and works as
expected. If we leave out the List Dialog we'll deliver a considerable
improvement over 0.7.11.
It pains me that all the work everyone (especially me!) will not be
available immediately but I think it is better to get it absolutely right.
We apparently have a reputation as being a buggy application which pains
me even more than not being able to show off our features. We could for
example easily allow multiple column section per page but users would
quickly find way to crash Abi if we did that.
>
> > Does it have the confusing behaviour we talked about if
> > you move the pointer out of the dialog?
>
> Actually, I think its behaviour is becoming more confusing by the minute.
> :-)
> It doesn't update itself at all as it should when selecting another
> document/another list. Perhaps I can get this fixed tomorrow.
>
> And that's just the beginning of it. It seems every time I play with it I
> discover new bugs in AW that needs my immediate attention so I'm quite busy
> with other stuff also. :-(
>
> Right now I've found a place that got a comma instead a decimal point in a
> string describing a length. Specifically,
> getProperty((XML_Char*)"margin-left") returned "1,200000in". That's bad.
Sorry my fault for not thinking international.
>
> OK, I've found the bug (fl_BlockLayout::StartList). I'm fixing it right now.
>
> Please remember that printf fmt string "%f" does produce different results
> depending on the locale.
>
This is in many place in the code. I'll hunt them down.
> (just as a thought, does this display that the lists implementation isn't as
> rock-solid as it should be?)
>
*Sigh* yet another example of thinking inside my box. However these are
easy to fix.
> > Would you be in favour of putting the dialog into debug for 0.7.12?
>
> I really don't care, as I see the need for a redesign of the whole list
> dialog system. It's state today is "quite unmaintainable", and then I'm not
> using my colorful language.
>
> We might as well put it in 0.7.12 or else I've just tossed a couple of days
> down the drain. On the other hand, the call is really not mine. I think it
> really needs a few more days work, but if I have to make a decision now: Go,
> it's still needs that (framework) redesign wether we release it or not.
I don't think you've tossed time down the drain. I'm sure you can re-use a
lot of the code you've written and everyone now has a better understanding
of a lot of the issues with the list dialog.
> > What do you think of the
> > checkbox for 0.7.12 release and a proper fix later?
>
> It wouldn't make a noticable difference why I don't think it's worth adding
> it.
OK, if there are no further objections I'll put the list dialog back into
debug mode and we'll be in full release mode. Bug fixes only until Sam
closes the tree.
Martin
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Thu Nov 23 2000 - 20:16:45 CST