qtchooser / qdbusviewer (ksnapshot / spectacle)

[Xen]

Valorie Zimmerman schreef op 25-05-2016 4:09:

> Hello Xen, have you filed bugs against Spectacle in bugs.kde.org? The
> developer does not (presumably) read this list. Ksnapshot was not only
> unmaintained, but was rapidly bit-rotting, and also would completely
> cease to function in the post-Wayland world, so the Spectacle devel
> took what he could of the old code, and started anew with the rest of
> the application.
> 
> It is new, so bug reports are welcomed. It is fine to do the
> workaround of making ksnapshot work for now, but that will not work
> forever. Therefore, it will help all of us if you make the effort to
> file bug reports and make Spectacle better.

Filing bug reports does not make a program better, you know that?

It only tells you what is wrong about a product. That does not improve 
anything.

Most of these things are things you can discover in 2 hours if you try. 
That means the developer should already be fully aware of it and 
shouldn't need other people to tell him so.

He apparently sought to improve things that already worked well, and 
made things worse. Who am I then to say that he should do things 
differently?

It seems rushed, like most thing are. Spectacle has better command line 
options than KSnapshot, and more fit for an actual screenshotting 
application. However using DBus makes it harder for users, not easier. 
You can use the DBusViewer to view most or all of the options available, 
but only if the application is already started, and most of them are 
useless to a user. It is a developer tool, but now prominently features 
on a user dialog screen for just adjusting a command or changing the 
command that is started on a shortcut. DBus is not something you should 
expect users to use, it is not a user interface. This makes it 
incomprensible and even impossible to even change the default. Now you 
end up with a non-configurable system for most users.

The issue with KDEs configurion was not lack of DBus, it was lack of an 
ability to efficiently select applications, requiring you to type a full 
path, even though you can only use applications (normally) that are 
already in the PATH. So what was needed was a better way to select 
in-PATH applications, but now we have DBus instead which makes it even 
worse instead of better. KSnapshot was controllable by DBus, just not 
started that way. But for a user, command line options are enough.

Moreoever those are meant as a user interface instead of as a developer 
interface....

So currently we see four changes:
- better command line options
- worse way to start it (DBus)
- worse user interface
- some failing functionality on the one hand, and added background 
functionality on the other hand.

I mean no one needs me to see this, the question is whether they 
recognise it or not.

I don't want to end up being the next guy to file a bug report and then 
being ignored.

Moreoever the last bug report I filed spammed me incessantly. I had to 
take myself off its CC list because there were meaningless updates 
emailed to me daily. Now that was a very popular bug, you might say. But 
it just took me another 15 minutes to log back into the system after 
having forgotten my password or username.

Requiring users to create accounts specifically for you is just not 
done. That is putting up barriers to entry, email suggestions or bugs 
should be free, not behind a walled garden.

And moreover, I do not like BugZilla at all even if it is KDE's variant 
(there are much better systems).

So no, I prefer to talk directly to developers. Sorry.