In the past when we considered it, we were not able to find something close enough to our needs. And our experience trying to clobber documentation into a wiki suggested we’d spend just as much time trying to force something else to be what we needed.
Today, there are still challenges. If Xojo were to pick something off the shelf, I think the beta group, case privacy, and feature request ranking would be the biggest challenges. Most issue trackers are tuned well for bug reports, but no so great for feature requests. And I’m not aware of any (though I’m not up to speed on the current market) that offer something more than upvote/downvote ranking.
I mean, the FogBugz era didn’t last long at all. Any SaaS option won’t be customizable, so they’d need to host something. That means modifying code, which also makes updates exceedingly difficult. I’m not convinced an off-the-shelf option is the best.
I prefer to use the new feedback system developed in xojo because of only one reason. It will make Web 2.0 much stable as they will use their own system.
I learned today that it’s possible to use GitHub Issues with a private repo. Xojo could in theory have a private GitHub repo for their source code and a public issues repo. They are linked together but GitHub cleverly hides data leakage between the private and public repo.
@GarryPettet : this is not a reply specific to your post, but a general comment on the whole thread.
This thread shows how passionate Xojo users are with the product, and how Xojo is important to our own business. There are however a few things that we seem to have lost perspective of:
Xojo is a private company. They are in their absolute right to use whatever tool they see fit for development and operation, just as we do in our own business.
I would expect that Xojo management and engineers are well aware of various tools and options available on the market. In this context, we must assume that the decision to make their own issue tracking tool must be well justified. I would not go down a route that costs more or provides lesser results when my business depends on it. I expect that most everyone on this forum would not either. Whether we think they are right or wrong in their choices is irrelevant.
Our place is not to design the product or the tools for Xojo, but to use what they provide. A corollary of this assertion is that if we are not happy, we can move on as others did. Moving on is not something to decide lightly. The bigger the code base, the more expensive the move is. But, this is what customers do in a free market.
First releases of a product are rarely as complete and as polished as one would like or expect. Case in point: Web 2.0. I was extremely disappointed with the first few releases. It took the better part of 2 years to gradually get a usable release for me and my use cases. 2021 R3 marks that point where Web 2.0 is good enough to go productive with it (for my use cases). I expect Feedback will go through a teething period just in the same way. Hopefully a much shorter teething period.
So, where am I going with this? We obviously are a bit worried with the coming changes to Feedback. Rightly so. But there is a line that we cannot cross and some posts in this thread come very close to crossing that line. I for one, will not tell Xojo how to run their business, but I will not hold back if the product fails or the feedback tools and processes fail once the change is implemented. Customers can voice their discontent with products and services, or even move on if things are just too bad. But customers cannot run the business in lieu of the company.
I’m not saying that Xojo shouldn’t rewrite Feedback with Web 2.0. I suspect overall that will be a positive thing since they will be dog-fooding Web 2.0 themselves which surely will only improve the product.
The dog fooding is important here.
The WebListbox, the session handling and all the JavaScript must be rock solid, before you put such an app out, which would see hundreds of people using it.
Well, a product designed by a vewry few people will allways be short sighted. Yes its their company but it is a shame that they preffer users leaving instead of taking the user base for the changes in the tool.
Well, that seems to be the rule with xojo, development expediency was prioritized over quality. And as the 2021r3, seem that it has disconnections, webdatepicker dont work as it whould be, WebListbox is a shame, cant use load balancing, and a long etc. Make more tests before moving.
I think the post said MAYBE next year
Looking at the long list of bugs in Web 2.0 and xojo talking about the web feedbac many years back, maybe many if not most of the users have that impression
If the user can’t reproduce the issue then the user really doesn’t understand the issue. And reporting just a symptom rather than the actual issue really isn’t of much help to anyone.
You can’t really expect Xojo to do ANYTHING about a non reproducible bug report.
This is total nonsense. Making a case is already helpful, if we report something it isn’t reported just to be trown into the bin. Even if it where just a symptom it MAY be helpful to others, but in xojo’s feedback app sharing with others is out of the question, the system is just badly broken. It requires users to search for issues in order to have xojo prioritze these issues. Simply said, registring any data MAY be helpful to even others. Maybe xojo should integrate they bug reporting system more to the forum. Since that’s where people search for solutions. Nobody will look for problems, this accounts for xojo’s feedback app as well as google, it uses the same principle. Xojo can change things here, but they don’t seem to and that’s the whole discussion. You are basicly saying “dont report to the police, as they can’t do anything about it” … we all know how that works out if everyone does that.
You are saying we can’t expect Xojo to do ANYTHING about a non reproducible bug is not as it’s going and not as should be going. ANY bug is A bug and is worth a good review, as it MAY break something on the way. In my experience even Xojo does TRY to find an issue, it’s just seeming to become less and less over time. I’m NOT saying that this is true, it may as well be that there is NO time to handle such or the priorty is just evaporating.
Eighter way you are not providing a solution, the discussion will keep coming over and over again. We need change, a working solution. Web Feedback or something other… stable and working. And we believe xojo can provide this… it’s a matter of how and when.
Sure, reporting a symptom may help others know what to avoid, or may give someone extra insight.
However until an issue is reproducible, it’s not ACTIONABLE.
WTF do you expect anyone to do with a symptom except to try to reproduce it? And only then can it be reliably fixed, otherwise it’s just guessing and shooting in the dark.
I usually have very good luck with Xojo fixing my issues, and I attribute that to the reproducibility of the issues I report, usually with simple precise steps to reproduce and a concise description. And of course a sample project both to facilitate their debugging but also to validate the fix. Make it easier for them as humans and they are more likely to engage and respond.
Maybe you report some docs issue… does that require a reproduction?
Only on certain issues its required to reproduce, so it could even be a status “Requires Reproduction”.
But it should NOT be required to have a reproducable issue.
Yes of course doc issues need to be reproducible too. You need to say exactly how to locate the offending text and it’s best to provide a direct link. The fuzzier your report the fuzzier will be their response.
“Docs for Str are wrong” will not get you much attention nor should it.
Well I think that’s a bit too far the other way. IMHO A even the symptom of a bug should be taken seriously and not sweet under the carpet, but rather try to tease that critter to come out more into the open.
But when reporting a bug one cannot really expect much action unless it’s been made reproducible and thus very visible.
If that is actually true for xojo’s case then they need a better way to attact attention to these kind of bugs since if xojo can’t reproduce 99% of the cases are not viewed, read or commented on by others (especially withing those 10 days they need a response in).
See on the forum there IS activity around issues, in feedback there it’s lacking. So it looks like only the reporter has the issue… That’s just plain wrong.
