Questions and bug report!

Friday, March 28, 2003 by adni18 | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk

It could be a good idea if we could have some special threads about Stardock products.
It could help the authors of Stardock applications to know what are the problems, the bugs etc, but not only, it will reduce the threads of all those questions we see in the message board and it will help also, the users and the authors to know, when they have a problem, if it is common or it is happening only to them.

Not all the users are going to Stardock chat room, to report the problems and the bugs, you know...

We could have, the first thread in Message Board "Frequently Asked Questions" followed by threads like :
"Window Blinds questions and bug reports"
"Logons questions and bug reports"
etc

Some people or a special admin, will love to check out these threads and answer.

The results of those specific threads will help all Stardock family, which includes authors and users

It is only one idea, which for example, could be very useful now with WindowBlinds 4
river55IL
Reply #1 Friday, March 28, 2003 4:13 AM
There's a Stardock chatroom????? How do I get there?
river55IL
Reply #2 Friday, March 28, 2003 4:31 AM
Oops. Sorry Nikos. I forgot to add that I think your suggestion is a wonderful idea.
Delicious
Reply #3 Friday, March 28, 2003 4:36 AM
I think that reports should be made in the newsgroups. At least that is what I was told in another thread.

Posting bug reports for any of the stardock products in the DB is a clear violation of the information act.

The information act is simply, anyone posting negative remarks about stardock or wincustomize will be added to the memory of the admins and crew.
Fuzzy Logic
Reply #4 Friday, March 28, 2003 5:02 AM
The majority of 'bug reports' are actually either user errors or system errors. Just because something isn't working the way you expect doesn't mean it's caused by a bug.

Genuine bug reports are incredibly useful to the software developer and should be reported.

Newsgroups and chat rooms aren't always the easiest places to access. Most people will come here and there are a few of us who spend time searching through threads to find answers for people. I'm not convinced splitting the messageboard into a number of sections is a good idea, it would become bulky and ineffective like we see on other sites. Perhaps just "General Discussion" and "Software Questions and Bug Reports" might be useful.

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HuronJoe
Reply #5 Friday, March 28, 2003 8:21 AM
If any information is put out at all, it should be to let people know that the discussion group exists. Maybe should be put into the readme text for all software downloaded from Stardock. I know that may be over simplifing so if not in the readme text then in the ad's listing the various programs. There is an enormous amount of tips and tricks offered every day from the discussion group. It makes for a friendly enviroment to learn from. Its true that not all web site discussion groups are as good as ours but if people get there feet wet, they will become constant readers and evenually contributors. The best thing I ever did was to purchase Object Desktop and the second best thing was to purchase the WinCustomize browser.
HuronJoe does realize that not everyone enjoys reading as much as he does but it doesn't hurt to at least steer people in the right direction.

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eieio
Reply #6 Friday, March 28, 2003 8:36 AM
I know this is off subject but HuronJoe, or anybody, how do you do that red print thing?
Gadget Girl
Reply #7 Friday, March 28, 2003 8:37 AM
Gadget Girl agrees with all the above(they are all good suggestions).

I have a lot of problems trying to find the right Q and A for problems I'm encountering these days.

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Gadget Girl
Reply #8 Friday, March 28, 2003 8:40 AM
pictoratus- It is *Gadget Girl and your message after that* hope that helps

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Gadget Girl
Reply #9 Friday, March 28, 2003 8:42 AM
sorry- put slash,then type me and then your message

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eieio
Reply #10 Friday, March 28, 2003 8:44 AM
Thanks, Gadget Girl
eieio has to try this out
eieio
Reply #11 Friday, March 28, 2003 8:44 AM
WooHoo it worked!
Gadget Girl
Reply #12 Friday, March 28, 2003 8:48 AM
Gadget Girl just loves peoples red thoughts and emotions!!!

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MikeB314
Reply #13 Friday, March 28, 2003 8:56 AM
Basically, this message board is for discussions about skins, customization software, and this site. However, as has been stated before, this is not an official support channel for Stardock products. The newsgroups and the support email address [email protected] are for that. The Stardock IRC channel can also be useful. Of course, people are welcome to discuss potential bugs here, but there is no guarentee that someone from Stardock will see or respond to them.

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adni18
Reply #14 Friday, March 28, 2003 11:55 AM
Or you didn’t read my post carefully or I didn’t make my self clear

I didn’t say anything about:
“splitting the message board into a number of sections” or “official support channel for Stardock products”


"Software Questions and Bug Reports" might be useful.” This is exactly what I have said Fuzzy

The only think I was having in my mind when I have post this thread, was how to help the authors of the Stardock products, the skin authors and users of those products. That’s all.

Oh yes Mike, I am sure that people from Stardock are seeing everything, if someone see something, he reports it immediately to the rest or to the one he is interesting about it
feline
Reply #15 Friday, March 28, 2003 12:21 PM
with reference to the stardock newsgroups, when installing WB it used to install a shortcut to the newsgroup. it doesnt seem to have done this with the beta's of WB4 though.

however, from line 3 of the readme.txt for WB 3.98d, the newsgroup is:
news://news.stardock.com/stardock.windowblinds

well worth checking out.

i do agree that a simple run down of common questions and answers on the stardock programs would be a useful thing to have here.
Fuzzy Logic
Reply #16 Friday, March 28, 2003 1:06 PM
I know what you are saying about the messageboard Mike and its intended purpose. The simple truth is people will not go to a newsgroup or send an e-mail to support because it is easier to post a message here! One look at the messageboard tells you how many "Help needed..." type messages there are. If people are going to do this (and it doesn't look as though you can stop them) it may be wise to have them all in one place.

Another useful thing would be an indicator which shows which admins are online - they are sometimes needed fast!

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Fuzzy Logic
Reply #17 Friday, March 28, 2003 1:07 PM
Ahem, I see you got there...

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MikeB314
Reply #18 Friday, March 28, 2003 1:20 PM
I'm not saying this is a bad idea. If people want to get help from peers, that's a fine way to do it. I'm just saying that you can't count on 'official' support through this method. That's all.

I do think that a single thread devoted to WB bug reports would become huge pretty quickly and new users would never bother to read all that to find an answer. They'd just post a new thread.

I appreciate the idea. Ideally though, I think it would need to be a separate section of the message board. Better yet, maybe if there was a way to bring the newsgroups to WinCustomize it would make them more accessible to people.

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river55IL
Reply #19 Saturday, March 29, 2003 7:32 AM
Nobody addressed my question about the chatroom...
adni18
Reply #20 Saturday, March 29, 2003 10:40 AM
Hi river55IL
It is the Stardock IRC channel, #stardock on irc.stardock.com

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