Bug List

[Alexis]

I really would appreciate the existence of a list of known bugs. I don´t want to reduce the value of the product. I really love MEX. But i don´t want me or anybody wasting time of trying to achieve something which looks like MEX is capable of but after hours of trying find out MEX is not (yet).

 

I mean it´s a deep product and it´s ok for me not everything works the way it should right from the start. But if you release updates and some stuff isn´t working yet the way it should you should communicate that. Only, if you know it at that time, of course. Before i´m going to report that stuff as a bug i want to check here with other users. At the moment i´m experiencing problems, inconistencies with:

• Activation by Key Release.
  
• Activation by Loosing Focus.
  
• Not able to stop Macros / the Running Man.
  
• Crashs on Saving Macros in the Script Editor. (a lots of crashes in general, compared to MEX 3.X)
  
• Window Reorder commands do not work consistently.
  
• Shortkeys are not working every time.
  
• Floating Menus change position to 0, 0 if another floating menu is getting enabled.
  
• Command "Wait for window title" need extra delay command ahead to work properly.
  

Who can confirm or negate this? Does anybody like to add stuff? Does a list like this somewhere already exist? Again: I don´t want to bash the product in any way.

 

Thank you

Alexandra

[terrypin]

Alexandra,

 

First, I recognise most of your points. However, I think that if we expect such a list to be useful to both ISS and other users then it needs to include more detail.

 

Secondly, I too used to believe that our suggestions and criticisms were being avidly noted by ISS in this forum. But I now believe it's safer to formally report all bugs vis the ticketing system (and file a copy of them yourself). Then, when preparing a post like yours you'll be able to be more specific.

 

Thirdly, I think to be fair we should start from the assumption that ISS are doing their best. And that many (all?!) of the bugs we've reported are at least logged and are being worked on as resources and priorities allow.

 

Having said all that I agree that (as I've said myself here a few times!) it would indeed be very useful to get more feedback from ISS on the 'Bug List'. But that obviously means more work. Tthe list below took me a couple of hours to prepare, and that's just one user. So we come back to the issue of limited resources. Nevertheless, in the long term IMO a greater effort on this sort of thing would be in ISS's interests as well as ours.

 

Here's my contribution, which I hope ISS will consider as a possible starting point for a more comprehensive list if they decide to follow-up our request. No particular sequence, except for the first which as you see I feel strongly about!

 

[iSS7102] Macro Express Pro - Cannot convert a Popup menu macro to a floating menu macro and vice versa

ISS took a couple of months to recognise and log this issue and disappointingly have now told me it's a low priority. To me it's important, as I sometimes need both pop-up and floating types. I want them to be identical but obviously I don't want to have to tediously create and update them independently. I'm surprised more other users don't appear to be concerned about it, particularly as it's a plain loss of a feature that was in ME 3. See thread http://pgmacros.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=3539

 

[iSS6977] Macro Express Pro - Within minutes of installing I'm getting erratic behaviour. Windows Activate is not working properly.

Not as well-defined or repeatable as I'd like, but I'm sure something is still flaky about the Windows Activate command.

 

[iSS7061] Macro Express Pro - Problem with macro categories

Thread 'Using Explorer & Script Editor - another bug' http://pgmacros.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=3895

 

[iSS6808] Macro Express Pro - Issues with activation Mouse Event Area on a Window combined with Scope setting

Sent 16th March. Inconclusive correspondence by email since then.

 

[iSS6758] Macro Express Pro - Longer names in pop-up or floating menu the default column is not wide enough

 

[iSS7092] Macro Express Pro - Search in Favorites commands list

(Not posted in forum. Search doesn't work in Favorite Commands view.)

 

[iSS6890] Macro Express Pro - When I delete a comment by using the Comment tool on the right of the Script Editor window '//' remains

Trivial, so presumably trivial to fix.

 

[iSS6807] Macro Express Pro - Sizing and positioning commands unreliable

Another example of intermittent and ill-defined behaviour! Classic example where an update from ISS would be helpful.

 

[iSS6790] Macro Express Pro - I'm getting erratic behaviour with macros like this when I try to run them in debug mode (F9 and Enter) or from Explorer...

Also see 'Using Open Folder in Debug mode - bug?' http://pgmacros.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=3754

 

Problem with indentation of submenus

Thread http://pgmacros.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=3903 (Hopefully submitted as a bug by Macronewbie, but no confirmation.)

 

Clipboard delay/performance issues

Various threads, some old, some recent. Some no doubt due to user error or system idiosyncracies. ISS have emailed me that they regard this as a Windows OS issue. But I'm not convinced. I don't see why ME Pro needs a (recommended) 250 ms delay after every clipboard command to work reliably. In a Repeat loop that has serious performance implications IMO.

 

Variable issues - various!

Mostly documented by Scasper & Cory, and others. I'm not personally clear about the current status, or indeed whether there are any bugs formally ticketed.

 

HTML in Dialog Boxes, How About Message and Menu Prompts?

Scasper, thread http://pgmacros.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=3870 (Assume submitted and ticketed.)

Sizing & Formating the IF MESSAGE box?, Similar issue by me, thread http://pgmacros.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=3894, submitted 27th May as feature request.

 

Show Window using Partial - bug?

http://pgmacros.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=3751 Assigned [iSS6775] 30th March.

 

--

Terry, East Grinstead, UK

[Cory]

I too would like an outstanding issues list. In fact I made my own for my incidents. I just found the ISS bug form a sort of 'over the wall' and would often loose track of things like how to reproduce, sample macros and all that. So on my web page I can keep videos, screen shots, demo macros and support files and keep a history of what happened.

 

During the beta program we had access to an outstanding issues list but is wasn't terribly useful. Too little information, unable to contribute, and when ISS deemed an issue solved it disappeared. So even though there is a system at ISS we don't have access to I don't think it would be an answer.

 

I had recently been pushing the idea of someone, possibly ISS, maintain a database of issues but something like this would take time to maintain. Personally I don't want to give away any more time than I already do without compensation so I'm no volunteering. And ISS like any company has limited resources so I would rather their resources be directed to fixing bugs than making their tracking available to us.

 

I did recently have another idea and that was to ask Joe to start another forum here dedicated to known or suspected issues. I envisioned we would kick around ideas in this forum and after someone brought up an issue and it was vetted here in the main forum and it was confirmed by others that we would create a message just for that item. Then people could subscribe to the ones that were important to them and receive updates as people developed workarounds, fixes, or what have you. And of course searching would be much more effective. It seems like a good stopgap but on further thought it would require heavy moderation and undoubtedly there will be conflicts as to what constitutes an issues and what not so I think that might be a bit of a quagmire and take a lot of volunteer time.

 

I realize I have not given any answers here but I wanted you to know that others have been thinking of this but it's not as simple as it seems. Ultimately I think the best solution would be to have a single party who is familiar with all of the problems with MEP that could maintain this for us. The natural choice would be ISS but I don't think that have the time right now to start something like this. Also, frankly, ISS might be slightly biased and therefore not the best selection. I know if I owned ISS I would not want to make my product look bad by publishing speculations and would only want to have things posted that were known and proven issues. But I think the community would benefit from the speculative since this is where man things start.