Difference between revisions of "MacOS alpha"
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So you have been asked to participate in testing the Inkscape 1.0 alpha for macOS and you are willing to embark on this endeavor - great! Let me first thank you for your interest and give you "the tour" about what's up ahead. | So you have been asked to participate in testing the Inkscape 1.0 alpha for macOS and you are willing to embark on this endeavor - great! Let me first thank you for your interest and give you "the tour" about what's up ahead. | ||
Testing the 1.0 alpha for macOS will probably be a bit different from what you might expect: although Inkscape has been around for years and there have been official releases for macOS in the past, the build | ===out with the old, in with the new=== | ||
Testing the 1.0 alpha for macOS will probably be a bit different from what you might expect: although Inkscape has been around for years and there have been official releases for macOS in the past, this app has undergone a lot more changes than "only" the leap from 0.9x codebase to 1.0 would lead you to think. It uses an entirely new build system (rebuilt from scratch and still being worked on) and that proves to be an additional source introducing issues and regressions until it's matured. So in addition to probably new/changed/broken/... functionalities originating from the 1.0 codebase there will be a lot of macOS-specific issues in Inkscape that none of the releases for the other platforms have. And these issues might be even of foundational nature; in fact, so foundational that you'd never expect them to surface in an app that already has years of development under its belt. To give you two examples, we've already had and fixed Inkscape crashing on opening/saving files as well as a broken text tool, accompanied by missing fonts and texts in a drawing... I know that sounds bad and I know testing is not all fun and games, but we have to push through this once (and only once!), so please don't let that scare you off! | |||
===early testing group=== | |||
If you are part of the early testing group (you know who you are because you'll have been told), that is exactly why you are a small select group - we need to find the remaining foundational issues before we announce any kind of public testing, or else we'll get swamped with tickets and complaints. So you might have a more frustrating job than "regular" testers since you are likely the ones finding more big and obvious issues. You should be aware of (the importance of!) that so you don't get discouraged should you hit a dead end after the first five minutes and then having to wait a few days until it's fixed. | |||
===regular testing group=== | |||
If you are part of the regular testing group (you know who you are because you won't have been told to be an early tester ;-)),the most obvious and frustrating issues that would stop you from working with Inkscape after a few minutes will hopefully have been found and fixed by the early testers. But that's no guarantee, though, so please don't get discouraged as well. | |||
(Example: the first working build crashed on File|Open or File|Save apologize for that, but that's something we have to push through with the new build system. | |||
by a completely new build systemd system than before. And whenever you , y new due to a new build process. And since there was/is no recipe out there that tells us everything upfront that we have to do to get it working, there will very likely be (a lot?) stuff left that is still broken and that we have yet to fix. And that is where you come in: we need you to use and test Inkscape intensively to verify everything works as expected. as if it were a regular release and tell us about all the issues you encounter. | |||
At the same point, a lot of stuff d So there was/is a lot of research and trial & error involved until we finally get everything right. That means that there can and will be errors and issues that you wouldn't expect from a software that has been around for years and is finally making the leap to 1.0. | At the same point, a lot of stuff d So there was/is a lot of research and trial & error involved until we finally get everything right. That means that there can and will be errors and issues that you wouldn't expect from a software that has been around for years and is finally making the leap to 1.0. | ||
Revision as of 22:36, 4 May 2019
Template:Warning This page is work in progress and not to be used until this warning is being removed!
Introduction
So you have been asked to participate in testing the Inkscape 1.0 alpha for macOS and you are willing to embark on this endeavor - great! Let me first thank you for your interest and give you "the tour" about what's up ahead.
out with the old, in with the new
Testing the 1.0 alpha for macOS will probably be a bit different from what you might expect: although Inkscape has been around for years and there have been official releases for macOS in the past, this app has undergone a lot more changes than "only" the leap from 0.9x codebase to 1.0 would lead you to think. It uses an entirely new build system (rebuilt from scratch and still being worked on) and that proves to be an additional source introducing issues and regressions until it's matured. So in addition to probably new/changed/broken/... functionalities originating from the 1.0 codebase there will be a lot of macOS-specific issues in Inkscape that none of the releases for the other platforms have. And these issues might be even of foundational nature; in fact, so foundational that you'd never expect them to surface in an app that already has years of development under its belt. To give you two examples, we've already had and fixed Inkscape crashing on opening/saving files as well as a broken text tool, accompanied by missing fonts and texts in a drawing... I know that sounds bad and I know testing is not all fun and games, but we have to push through this once (and only once!), so please don't let that scare you off!
early testing group
If you are part of the early testing group (you know who you are because you'll have been told), that is exactly why you are a small select group - we need to find the remaining foundational issues before we announce any kind of public testing, or else we'll get swamped with tickets and complaints. So you might have a more frustrating job than "regular" testers since you are likely the ones finding more big and obvious issues. You should be aware of (the importance of!) that so you don't get discouraged should you hit a dead end after the first five minutes and then having to wait a few days until it's fixed.
regular testing group
If you are part of the regular testing group (you know who you are because you won't have been told to be an early tester ;-)),the most obvious and frustrating issues that would stop you from working with Inkscape after a few minutes will hopefully have been found and fixed by the early testers. But that's no guarantee, though, so please don't get discouraged as well.
(Example: the first working build crashed on File|Open or File|Save apologize for that, but that's something we have to push through with the new build system.
by a completely new build systemd system than before. And whenever you , y new due to a new build process. And since there was/is no recipe out there that tells us everything upfront that we have to do to get it working, there will very likely be (a lot?) stuff left that is still broken and that we have yet to fix. And that is where you come in: we need you to use and test Inkscape intensively to verify everything works as expected. as if it were a regular release and tell us about all the issues you encounter.
At the same point, a lot of stuff d So there was/is a lot of research and trial & error involved until we finally get everything right. That means that there can and will be errors and issues that you wouldn't expect from a software that has been around for years and is finally making the leap to 1.0.
Downloads
todo You'll find the most recent builds ...
Please take note what exact build you are testing because we will be talking about which build has which issues and in which build it is supposed to be fixed. Should you at some point have forgotten or it just got messy and confusing, you can find and use the version number in the "About" dialog as it shows the exact Git commit as well.
Reporting issues
The ideal issue report
where to report
The sections below go into detail about where you This is where it's going to happen!