Add "known issues" section to 1.1 release notes

[tresf]

We have plenty of "known issues" for our software and starting with 1.1, I'd like to have a "known issues" section.

I'm not sure if it should just be in the GitHub release notes or maintained elsewhere, but I wanted to start it off... They should be written in a way that're easy to understand. We may want the work-arounds to be spelled out in the same area?... These are issues that I would consider major from a usability perspective. Opinions and feedback welcome.

All Versions:

1. Piano roll visual glitches piano roll redraw glitch #1187 (fixed via 90bb470)

Windows:

1. Sound output is distorted New PortAudio Driver #1173

Apple

1. No MIDI support (Apple) MIDI Support #1153
2. No VST support VST plugins on OS X (Apple) #698
3. No SF2 support SF2 hangs on open (Apple) #649
4. File associations do not work Mimetype Support (Apple) #665
5. ZynAddSubFX "Show GUI" broken ZynAddSubFX "Show GUI" broken (Apple) #703

[Umcaruje]

The first one should state:

1. Piano roll visual glitches when using themes from previous versions piano roll redraw glitch #1187

I think that having 'known issues' is a great idea, and can reduce duplicate bug reports.

[tresf]

when using themes from previous versions

Most people that use LMMS don't even know what "themes from previous versions" means... What they know is that they grabbed the latest version and now they can't use their software. Perhaps we should just fix this one prior to 1.1?

-Tres

[diizy]

On 12/04/2014 04:21 PM, Tres Finocchiaro wrote:

when using themes from previous versions

Most people that use LMMS don't even know what "themes from previous
versions" means... What they know is that they grabbed the latest
version and now they can't use their software. Perhaps we should just
fix this one prior to 1.1?

It's not something that can be fixed that easily. Nor do I think we
should delay 1.1 for this. There's no problem if you remove your
previous version properly, or do a fresh install... This problem only
shows up when you have lingering files from an earlier version that
didn't get removed properly.

[tresf]

It's not something that can be fixed that easily

Are you sure? I'd like to know more about this.

-Tres

[diizy]

On 12/04/2014 06:02 PM, Tres Finocchiaro wrote:

It's not something that can be fixed that easily

Are you sure? I'd like to know more about this.

We've talked about it before... it's not hard to fix per se, but it's
quite a lot of work, and of course there's the potential for bugs, need
for testing etc...

The thing is that we need to add metadata to themes, and then make LMMS
check the theme for this metadata and ensure the theme is compatible,
and if not, fall back to default theme. The problem here is the code for
checking the metadata - we need to parse some kind of human-readable
text, so it's quite a bit of coding to get it right. Also, the format of
the metadata-file must be carefully thought out, we don't want to lock
ourselves into a format that later proves inadequate for our needs... it
must be smartly done and extensible.

IMHO this would cause too much delay for 1.1 and it's better we take our
time with this rather than rush it in.

[tresf]

Hmm... If fixing the path fixes the problem, can't we just detect the old path and remove it?

[Sti2nd]

detect the old path

On Windows it always installs itself as LMMS in C:\Program Files\LMMS , no version or difference in path.

[tresf]

On Windows it always installs itself as LMMS in C:\Program Files\LMMS , no version or difference in path.

Then what causes the problem and how is it corrected by setting that path?

-Tres

[Sti2nd]

Then what causes the problem and how is it corrected by setting that path?

Wow, stop! I got it all wrong. If you install on the same location it overwrites naturally. I was going to make a really strange conclusion.

[tresf]

Wow, stop! I got it all wrong. If you install on the same location it overwrites naturally. I was going to make a really strange conclusion.

Yeah... hmm... reproduced that this does not appear to be a problem 0.4.15 --> 1.1 RC10 or 1.0.3 --> 1.1 RC10 (64-bit) Did this bug go away? I'm very confused.

[musikBear]

'Known Issues' 👍
But a component specific list over every headline in all tickets, would propl be the only tool, that would help (not prevent:) stopping duplicates, but such a list willn not only take quite some time to make, but also need constant maintainace/ updates
-And then peeps propl wouldent care to browse it anywhitc, befor they file a new issue 🌵

in relation to theme-bug, couldent a popup at install just say like...

"If you have old themes from versions prior to 1.x, you MUST remove them before installing this version"
Continue Y/N

[tresf]

But a component specific list over every headline in all tickets, would propl be the only tool, that would help (not prevent:) stopping duplicates, but such a list willn not only take quite some time to make, but also need constant maintainace/ updates

I'm talking about known issues offered with our release notes. People should learn to search before submitting a bug with any software, I don't think there's a need to coddle them in that regard. :)

"If you have old themes from versions prior to 1.x, you MUST remove them before installing this version" Continue Y/N

Well, I can't even reproduce the bug, but it's certainly one of our most commonly submitted. If we were to do this, I'd rather have this xml property simply reset to its default value when currentversion > configversion, personally, but the people reporting this bug aren't running 3rd party themes, so I'm at a loss until someone can reproduce.

[tresf]

Removed Piano roll visual glitches comments, appending to proper bug report.

[diizy]

On 12/05/2014 03:41 PM, Tres Finocchiaro wrote:

Ok, I reproduced it.

I think this is due to the 32-bit vs. 64-bit paths on Windows. It
appears when both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the software are
installed, the artwork never gets overridden and this bug occurs.

@diizy https://github.com/diizy, we already have a centralized
function which loads our pixmaps, right?

I think we have some kind of pixmap caching system but can't remember if
that's in 1.1 yet... probably not...

Can't we just fallback on the default artwork directory rather than
allowing these null artifacts?

No because mostly it isn't about missing pixmaps at all... mostly, it's
about missing qProperties in the CSS file, like in the case of
PianoRoll, the Background-property isn't set, nor are the other colour
properties, so it causes the glitching...

[tresf]

Thanks Vesa. Took me a while to realize the CSS was the problem too.

I'm tracking this overat #1187 now. I have an idea that I think would be best of both worlds (help users and developers, very little compat code). We can continue discussing over there.

[tresf]

Whoops, here: #1412

[DaAwesomeP]

The problem with #1173 is not that the audio is distorted - the problem is that it doesn't work at all and crashes LMMS at startup.

[tresf]

Closed via 1.1 release notes which will eventually be here:
https://github.com/LMMS/lmms/releases/tag/v1.1.0

Screenshot for those without access to the draft:

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[DaAwesomeP]

Please change the "Windows distortion" part...that is not true at all.

[tresf]

The problem with #1173 is not that the audio is distorted - the problem is that it doesn't work at all and crashes LMMS at startup.

Yes, I know. In your case, that is your symptom. For most others though PortAudio loads, but the sound is distorted. It is certainly misleading to crosslink in that fashion, but the part about your bug report that makes the description valid is the part about having Mono source code out there ready to be used which fixes this problem for us.

I don't know enough about the bug nor the codebase to speak on behalf of us fixing it upstream in our code, but this problem is so prominent that we changed the default sound driver from PortAudio to SDL about a year ago for the 1.0 release.

[tresf]

@DaAwesomeP Per your recommendation, I decided to split them up to avoid any confusion. I also landed on some SDL tricks while looking around... :)

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[DaAwesomeP]

Thank you 😃