Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 105217
Long outstanding, important Writer issues
Last modified: 2009-09-24 18:03:28 UTC
I have long wondered how to point the OOo developers to the fact that while more and more new features are added to OOo (like Base and new proposed UIs), there are a LOT of P3 issues with much interest which have not been solved (or even looked at) for years! This is why I intend to collect such issues in this meta-issue and reference them from here. People can add further issues they come across if are are > 2 years old, important (in their opinion) but not solved yet. As a hint: An issue can be considered important if - there is no easy workaround - it blocks the adaptation of OOo for you or in your organization - it has more than 20 votes or 10 CC readers.
Here is what I have found so far, grouped by topic: Year Issue Description 2002 Issue 9370 Off-margin page background 2005 Issue 42019 Gradient and Hatching for Page Background 2003 Issue 22753 Image Cropping with jpeg preview ok but on the page wrong (which turned out to be a cropping problem with linked images) Here some issues of mine, confirmed by OOo member(s): 2005 Issue 45499 Applying frame style to image ignores image aspect ratio 2005 Issue 45501 Inconsistent behaviour applying frame style to an image Some from bibliographic project: Year Issue Description 2002 Issue 4260 Proposals for Bibliographic facility enhancements. 2005 Issue 44189 Bibliography entry in document is not reflecting updated values in Bibliography database 2007 Issue 73465 Enhancement of the insert bibliography entry dialog 2003 Issue 13009 Option to set sorting of bibliographic entries and Issue 28574 Sorting bibliography entries were closed as duplicate, but (a) are not yet solved and (b) got lost in the huge meta-issue they are now included. Given that for an code insider it is TRIVIAL to sort the entries in the list and make the dropdown larger, it is poor that this hasn't been solved yet. Some from formula editor (One was reported 8 years ago!!!) 2001 Issue 972 Alignment of baselines of formula and text in writer 2004 Issue 26446 inherit font size of formulas from paragraph 2002 Issue 5156 colors in formulas and Issue 45775 Allow to inherit formula colour (color) from paragraph text (... a similar topic) 2005 Issue 41502 need scalable slash 2005 Issue 45511 Integral sign too small and not scalable I am confident that when these issues are resolved, then OOo will have much more acceptance, f.e. in scientific and legal fields and in companies which are strict about corporate identity.
1) The wrong problem: "I have long wondered how to point the OOo developers to": We don't need to get remember about the fact we have issues pending since years. We KNOW it! What we need is developers, which submit patches to solve those issues. 2) The wrong decision: "*I* have long wondered how". What is the legitimacy of your present action? Did you discuss this with the developper/QA community? Do you have gathered input from a Product Management team which decided to use this method to collect "old 'forgotten' issues"? I don't think so. 3) The wrong criteria "it blocks the adaptation of OOo for you or in your organization" "important (in their opinion)" Do you think someone reporting an issue will consider *his* issue as not important? We try to implement and act on objective criteria but not on subjective ones. 4) The wrong method. You describe the problem as if we *forget* some issues (which is not the real problem, see 1)). In the end this issue will have maybe 500 dependencies to this issue. Don't you think we can also "forget" this one? Who is the owner of the issue who will "remember" "people" to fix the tasks? Does the owner have the *authority* to do so? "writerneedsconfirm" is definitively the wrong owner. Sub-component "programming" means Macros, Basic, API and so on in OOo. Not "to-dos for the programmers" If the problem is "to long time" than the solution is to set a target to those tasks to say: "we will fix them then". But your issue has no target and you don't have the right to set one. So this method doesn't solve the problem at all! Sum up: please don't spend more of your free time on an own idea which has not been discussed and approved by others and which addresses the wrong problem problem with the wrong method. I might now recommand you to read this: http://blogs.sun.com/GullFOSS/entry/why_all_issues_are_equal
closed
Last advice: the "right" method would be to make your own query in IssueZilla and to take part of the Release meetings asking for updates... But it remains that you address the *wrong* problem here.
> Sub-component "programming" means Macros, Basic, API and so on in OOo. > Not "to-dos for the programmers" I see. Could you please update the subcomponent description accordingly? Currently it is too general: "Use this component if the feature/enhancement is mainly related to programming tasks." > But it remains that you address the *wrong* problem here. I understand. Several people (according to their comments) have been under the impression that issues were indeed "forgotten". Good to hear this is not the case. Maybe the problem is that, apart from a "OOo Later" target there is no indication that issues have been or will be re-evaluated according to the criteria in the well-known "why_all_issues_are_equal" document you mention. P.S. I tried to increase objectivity by creating a query for the given criteria, but failed: The query would run forever and time out as the criteria became more complex (e.g. using regex for the number of CC listeners).
"Wrong problem" very much resembles the *State of denial* that many people adopt when facing a true problem. Add myself to cc-list.
@discoleo Please ... stay polite. These guys work hard, I am sure. I also know that OOo has too few developers (or too few funding, as you prefer) to get all the issues solved in a timely manner. Its the same with almost every software company. (Unfortunately I am a Java programmer and already involved in another project; and I cannot fix every software myself.)
@matthiasbasler: Thank YOU for having *read* my comments, for your understanding of the problem, for having tried to make the things move and for teaching trolls without feeding them ;) I didn't want to reply anything to your last comment because... - This issue is closed and until now nothing justify to reopen it. And writing in a closed issue does not make sense :) - As a consequence of above, we are right now "discussing" and it's not the right place to do it. ...but maybe you could discuss this on the users@qa.openoffice.org ML or lurk around on the Release meeting chat (don't have the reference right now). Maybe you could query for only the 10 oldest, most voted defects and try to ask if we can re-think about it for the next release or at least give those issue a < OOo later target. MBA is good at pushing issues and has a pretty good overview about our roadmap and resources, so I set him on CC :) An anecdote: I worked 2003 (!) on a "feature" which sounds for a lot of people who have voted (51 votes is not few but still doesn't make a majority) for it like a "defect" but is not in the way we have to implement it. I even wrote at that time a specification for it which I finalized. Alas! This feature has never been part of the "Big picture" and consistently felt out of every roadmap. 1 month ago an *community developer* got interested and started coding... Now we are on the track for 3.3 :)))
I posted a rather long mail as a starting point for discussion on users@qa.openoffice.org but there's nobody listening. This mailing list is currently "idle". I'll leave it at that.