[Help Us!] We need help from you all (1 Viewer)

elliottmc

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  • August 7, 2005
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    Dear everyone,

    I wanted to expand upon some of what Chris (infiniteloop) said here https://forum.team-mediaportal.com/area-51-testing-area-552/how-supposed-work-103576/, and to make some very direct statements based on the responses to threads here.

    There seems to be a lot of excitement from the community, of the "MediaPortal will be great when _you_ complete this nice feature".

    Unfortunately while this is good to read, it isn't a matter of us (the team) getting a feature done. Without the support of the community, these features will never get tested to the point where they can be included.

    So, we do need you to actually test the features and report back.

    There is a slight downside to this, in that the changes will probably only work with the default skin (if they need skin changes). However, the sooner we get enough testing, we can decide that a feature is safe for 1.3.0 and it can be committed to the master GIT branch. At that point, skin developers will have a clear indication of what they need to change to support MP 1.3.0, and everything will be compatible.

    Also, the team are constantly looking for potential team members, who will get access to the inside track and get to have much more direct input into the future direction of MediaPortal. If we see good testers here (clear bug reports, good ideas about how features can be improved) we will hopefully be able to expand the test team with more new members.

    I hope that everyone understands that MediaPortal is a product of the development team and the community of users, and that both groups play an important role in improving the software.

    So, if you like the sound of a new feature, don't discuss it. Test it, then discuss it. :)

    Best wishes,

    Mark
     

    larsbln

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  • June 12, 2010
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    Hi Mark,

    I really enjoy the possibility of testing features before they are merged to final versions. As you said "the community of users" play an "important role in improving the software". What if users want to test more than one feature at a time?

    Don't get me wrong on this, competition is a good thing when it comes to markets and business, but not about test users.
    Maybe developers can refine their test goals frome time to time and merge their feature with other test builds in the end of the testing period.

    What do you think?

    best wished

    lars
     

    elliottmc

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  • August 7, 2005
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    Hi Lars,

    This is exactly what we have done with the 1.2.3 test build, since it is important that fixes work together.

    With other big feature fixes, there is a very real risk that if we combine two fixes, and only one is considered ready, then neither of them will be in the next release because the test build was not up to standard. So, in such cases I am afraid that the only thing to do is test new feature builds individually.

    Once a new feature is committed to the master branch, hopefully it will be then possible to test the next feature also including that one.

    I hope this helps.

    Mark
     

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