I know. I still want it. I’m fed up with releases still having major bugs making them unusable.
Maybe Xojo should get more people into their Beta program then.
I’ve mentioned this before
If you dont report what you find as “major bugs” then we cant fix them
The last bug report I can find from you is 3 years old
“more testers” ? “more thorough beta testing”
It’s sad that we can count on point releases such as 1.1 and 1.2 every single release. That being said its a complicated product with a very large surface area. No matter how many beta testers there are; there is not too much incentive to check every nook and cranny. Especially when you are forbidden to discuss it with others. I can see the value in Alpha being locked down as those are highly experimental and new features being introduced. Beta however should be welcoming to anyone who wants to join and discuss it.
Regarding RTF I know Michel works a lot with document based data and so thats very important for him. I personally have avoided RTF because the cross platform issues and rendering limitations are obnoxious. I hope you find some relief in this area for your projects Michel.
[quote=281464:@Norman Palardy]I’ve mentioned this before
If you dont report what you find as “major bugs” then we cant fix them
The last bug report I can find from you is 3 years old
[/quote]
Norman I don’t disagree with what you are saying. Xojo staff have been quite clear that they are happy to review important bugs during the alpha/beta cycles if properly reported.
However there needs to be some Xojo empathy that users did not subscribe to a fairly expensive development tool (compared to the 95% of development tools in usage today which are free) just to submit bug reports all day long. Some responsibility here has to fall on Xojo that at times the product is broken.
There’s a balance somewhere to be had that would reduce the frustration in these threads.
Thanks - I simply reverted to 2015R4.1 where neither the RTFData bug nor the fontsize bug exist.
[quote=281372:@Bob Keeney]@Michel Bujardet This one is so big, it is curious it went undiscovered through Alpha and Beta testing.
I see that you are part of the beta program too. So why didn’t you see this?[/quote]
Bob, beyond the fact that I JUST DID REPORT the issue the minute I saw it, I find it pretty preposterous that you seem to have the need to blame it on me for not magically finding it before. As far as I know, I am not the only beta tester, far from it I hope. And I am not an Alpha Tester either who had much earlier the opportunity to see the bug. Plus the RTFData thing has been going on since 2016R1.1. I am in enough pain as it is with these issues without your twisting the knife.
Users, and singularly professional ones who provide third party tools and should know better, should show some solidarity, instead of playing the blame game.
One particular person’s showstopper is something another person would never run into. Most of the people testing in the months of the 2016r2 cycle simply did not run into this particular regression, including us. That does not make it any more or less important to the people it impacts.
It’s always frustrating when you run into a bug that slows you down- and moreso on the outside of a release cycle. I get frustrated when I report something to Apple or Microsoft and get told to wait for the next update (or two, or however many). But we all do our best. In this case Michel wrote very good reports as soon as he encountered this, and then in turn we verified and fixed them for the next upcoming cycle.
We try to
Which is why the top 4 or 5 bug reporters are engineers
I think I’m still #1 as far as Xojo goes and Greg is second
And he also has the distinction of being the top Feedback bug reporter
Joe William and Geoff are next in reporting bugs in Xojo
And Robin & Stephane fall in there too I think
We use the product & report as many bugs as we find
Thats all we expect of users
Report what you find
My comment was directed specifically at Markus
Saying that a version is unusable and NOT reporting bugs is not helpful in any way - not to us and not to himself
Sure.
I dont think anyone is suggesting you [quote]submit bug reports all day long[/quote].
I know I haven’t.
Report what you run into.
Thats not unreasonable is it ?
In my opinion a release cycle of every 90 days on a product of this size and complexity is just not realistic. I recently had to revert from 2016r1 back to 2015r4.1 because of a major issue I experience in Windows (I reported it).
I think it is great to rely on user input and beta testing, but when major issues like this escape into the general public it’s clear that this approach is not working adequately.
I my case I’m really in the market to buy a hammer to build a house, not test hammers for the manufacturer. Some people can be more generous with their time and expertise but I suspect many users are like myself.
Given the inability to add more internal resources to do adequate testing, I would be a proponent to spread the releases out further to allow existing resources more time to test. The company has a product and reputation to maintain and quality has and will always outweigh quantity.
Anyway, just my two cents.
I see that both the RTFData and TextArea font size issues have been fixed for the next release. Thank you Xojo 
At first glance, the more people you add, the more chances you have to spot bugs in time and fix them before release… I happen to have been part of the Windows 10 beta program for over year now. Microsoft resources are bigger without comparison with Xojo. Yet, I regularly see regressions and new issues. And every time they do a release, there are still bugs to find.
Maybe indeed the quarterly release cycle is a bit short, but I have seen all too often people complain here that the release was not spot on time. It is expected by a significant number of people, it seems.
Norman, with all do respect (and I have a lot of respect for you) this is just false in this case. How can you possibly believe that having a product tested by 500 people versus 1 would not provide better results? You don’t necessarily know how your users are using your product, how frequently, what features they require or will use. The more people who test it, the more likely they will uncover something, especially if you are not testing every feature in house for regressions (impossible). There probably is some knee-over point of excessive users, but Xojo is far from it - the results speak for themselves.
If you take the mindset you will not add more beta testers, increase internal resources or extend release cycles then you are saying there simply is no solution to these user concerns - just live with it. Everyone wants the product to improve, succeed and flourish while expanding its user base and acceptance. There is no dark motive in these comments to bash Xojo, just user input.
I’ve been a user and supporter of Xojo for many years and love the product but am concerned on the quality of releases.
[quote=281464:@Norman Palardy]If you dont report what you find as “major bugs” then we cant fix them
The last bug report I can find from you is 3 years old[/quote]
Which is pretty much the time when I wanted to upgrade my license (that is running till 2017) using an upgrade offer to Pro and was told I can’t do that as I have a REAL.studio licence, not a Xojo license (an active Xojo license is considered at full price of $699 even if you bought it for $2 in a bundle offer, mine was considered at $249 because that’s how REALstudio licenses are set in the database. Never mind the updates I bought).
So my Xojo license is not a Xojo license as far as Xojo is concerned.
I complained about having my licence treated as a second-class license.
I was dropped from the beta list shortly afterwards as I didn’t have a Pro license.
I’ve stayed on REALstudio 2012 R2.1 since, installing Xojo (for which I have a valid Desktop/Database/Console license) whenever a new version comes out but not using it much.
No, I don’t feel very much encouraged to hunt for bugs.
I still think it is not unreasonable to expect Xojo to be a mature product without major show-stopping bugs. But the silly Rapid Release Cycle prevents that. One, two, three, even four emergency bug fix releases is what we have seen in a quarter since the introduction of the Rapid Release Cycle.
I know that Xojo is between a rock and a hard place with all the ongoing changes (Cocoa, iOS, Win10, etc), but maybe its time for a feature freeze and just to get the stuff that is there working nicely on all platforms. Which I guess is what you are trying to do with the new framework. But instead of releasing it in a mature form we get half-baked releases with major bugs. I really feel for you guys, because you HAVE TO release even when it’s not ready and just try to fix the worst mistakes after release. But seriously: how much longer can this go on?
P.S. I considered if I should move to Xojo, but every time I consider it a major bug raises its head. Maybe I should stop considering as that seems to bring bad karma 
What Norman fails to mention is that many beta testers had been put off testing by the rapid release of betas. Like “what’s the point of testing when a new build is out before I have even finished my tests?”. There’s “testing fatigue” setting in, and after complaints the betas were supposed to not come out as often. As I’m not in the beta I don’t know if that came to pass or not.
I don’t necessarily think the “rapid release model” is to blame. For one the rapid release model is what justifies the ongoing subscriptions. If it was only released once a year then there would be less incentive to stay subscribed.
Lastly its not like queuing up a years worth of “bug fixes” and then merging those into your new dev branch once a year is going to result in less bugs. Anytime you are merging multiple branches of fixes into the production tree there is possibility of failure and bugs. You want to minimize the impact any individual bug can have.
In that scenario you actually want MORE releases, not less. When the RTFdata bug is identified and fixed Xojo could release an update that day as opposed to waiting until the next 90 day cycle or if there are enough other bugs to justify a point release. The fact that there have been more point releases is sad because it indicates failures in beta, but also a net positive because it means they are willing to stray from the cycle to resolve issues.
I think its great Xojo is a commercial product, well documented, and employs talented engineers. I think some aspects of open source like updates early and often would actually be useful. Perhaps releases are just releases “frozen in time” like many Linux distributions and beta simply represents all the updates up to the day.
tldr; Releasing less often is NOT good for business and not likely to result in less bugs.
There’s a point at which more ? better
And IMHO probably already there since our alpha + beta list is already very large
And we recently did just expand it so all beta users also get access to what used to be called "alphas’
Thats happened for the last few releases
From my perspective I haven’t noticed more reports than usual
“Better” reports is subjective
Yes it is.
And the old model was one big rekease a year, and then bug fix releases every few months. That way you ended up with a stable product before major new features were introduced, and you renewed once a year, just like you do now.
Now its like “that version can’t be used with databases, that version can’t be used with RTFdata, that version can’t be used with whatever”.
If the Rapid Release Model were not to blame then all those versions should be mature but they are not.
What is needed is not “more beta testers”, but “more beta testers with the time, resources and knowledge to apply appropriate use cases, and document the results in a comprehensive manner”
The beta tester list, should not be open to “just Pro customers”, many of us are “professionals”, but do not need to spend the extra for things we don’t have a use for. The list of Beta testers should be vetted (don’t ask me how, or by whom), but if you are on the list, and don’t make contributions, then you should be removed. If you are on the list, and the reports you submit indicate a lack of understanding that exceeds the requirements to test properly, you should be removed. You should not be “on the list”, because you paid more for the product than the next person.
What we DO see is what seems to be not much testing until FC hits
At which point it’s to late
[quote=281507:@Markus Winter]Yes it is.
And the old model was one big rekease a year, and then bug fix releases every few months. That way you ended up with a stable product before major new features were introduced.
Now its like “that version can’t be used with databases, that version can’t be used with RTFdata, that version can’t be used with whatever”.
If the Rapid Release Model were not to blame then all those versions should be mature but they are not.[/quote]
You are asserting that 9 months out of the year should be focused solely on bugs?
I’m not sure what platforms you are targeting but Xojo does NOT have the luxury to spend only 25% of their time on new features. Windows is diverging, Mac is constantly changing, iOS is far from complete, and the Web is well desktop apps realized on the Web. They can’t compete if they publicly come out and say “We have so many bugs we will spend 75% of our time on it.”
And that too was a problem - new features landed once a year
So Apple requiring 64 bit … wait until that one new release for the year
Dropping Quicktime - wait again
There’s many cases where the rapid model made it possible to respond to changes
Its not all bad