Some thoughts on areas for improvment

[Philantrop]

Originally Posted by holymadness

Just FYI I've posted all these issues to GitHub. Or at least, those I consider bugs (as opposed to feature requests).

Feature requests belong there, too.

[ProfCrash]

Marvinhas a forum. I get that there are other ways that people report bugs but as Marvin grows in popularity people are going to post here.the point of the forum is for people to communicate and learn. Instructing folks to go elsewhere is counterproductive.

Seriously, enter peoples problems for them at the other site and stop directing folks there. What worked with a smaller crowd will not be as effective with a larger crowd. And frankly, it is off putting to see a problem posted and be told to go elsewhere.

[holymadness]

Originally Posted by Faterson

I find there are sometimes various problems with the display of blockquotes in Marvin at this point. Nothing serious, but esthetic issues such as the one you posted. What happens in my Marvin, is that blockquotes sometimes have too large margins above and below them, so that it looks ugly. I suppose when I increase paragraph spacing in the book, this also disproportionately increases the top- and bottom-margins for blockquotes.

Aesthetic problems are serious problems when it comes to reading.

Originally Posted by Philantrop

Feature requests belong there, too.

Will do. I think all of mine have already been requested, or Kris has said they're in the pipeline.

[Philantrop]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

Seriously, enter peoples problems for them at the other site and stop directing folks there.

Yes, that's exactly what I've been doing with the now archived thread we had before. I definitely won't be doing that again just because someone is too lazy to do it himself.

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

What worked with a smaller crowd will not be as effective with a larger crowd. And frankly, it is off putting to see a problem posted and be told to go elsewhere.

Issue trackers have been working for much larger crowds for decades now. And, really, that's what they're for - tracking bugs and feature requests. That's just not really possible in a forum.

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by holymadness

Just FYI I've posted all these issues to GitHub.

That's great, but please try to make sure you're not posting duplicate issues (those already reported earlier in the list). It happens to everyone, and it's happened to me, but at least the basic effort to avoid posting duplicates should be there.

That's the nicest thing about GitHub: it has a strict policy, one issue = one thread. That way, you can easily and efficiently track individual Marvin issues / feature requests until they are resolved. Or in other words, MobileRead = chatty, friendly chaos; GitHub = order, or as Wulf (and Goethe) would say, "Ordnung!"

[Faterson]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

I get that there are other ways that people report bugs

Not "other ways", Professor Crash. There is the superior way, preferred by Marvin's developer, which is GitHub. And then there are, indeed, all the other ways, distinctly inferior and less efficient, such as the chaotic chitchat here on MobileRead. It's great to have these forums, too, but for serious-minded bug-fixing and requests resolution, only GitHub will do.

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

Instructing folks to go elsewhere is counterproductive.

It's not "elsewhere", but it's Marvin's official bug-tracker. Instructing people to post their issues there is not "counterproductive", but imperative and necessary.

Originally Posted by holymadness

Aesthetic problems are serious problems when it comes to reading.

That entirely depends on your private definition of "serious", holymadness. To me, a "serious" issue would be, for example, a garbled passage that would not be legible at all. As someone coming from a culture obsessed with diacritic letters, let me assure you that that issue keeps rearing its ugly head in all sorts of low-quality e-readers, but of course not in Marvin (if your source files are of reasonable quality).

[Philantrop]

Off-topic flaming deleted.

[ProfCrash]

Except that people, like myself, are clueless.honestly, the attitude of the folks who help Kris caused me to roll my eyes and stop looking at the original thread. I amsure my departure from this forum will not bother folks. You are going to get more folks like me in this area. They are looking to have questions answered and look at old topics to find answers.

I would be s hocked to see "call Amazon to report x" as the response in the Kindle forum. Finding the equivalent response here is a bit surprising.

I am suggesting that you think of your audience.

[Faterson]

And I am suggesting you acquaint yourself with the purpose of an official bug-tracker for software developers, and that its purpose cannot be imitated by a forum like MobileRead, where chaos (especially the endless rehashing of the same old, same old, same old topics all over, and over, and over again) reigns by necessity on an everyday basis.

[kguil]

Originally Posted by ProfCrash

Except that people, like myself, are clueless.honestly, the attitude of the folks who help Kris caused me to roll my eyes and stop looking at the original thread. I amsure my departure from this forum will not bother folks. You are going to get more folks like me in this area. They are looking to have questions answered and look at old topics to find answers.

I would be s hocked to see "call Amazon to report x" as the response in the Kindle forum. Finding the equivalent response here is a bit surprising.

I am suggesting that you think of your audience.

It would bother me - please don't go. I'm more than happy to help you out here, by email, or anywhere else.