Reporting bugs
Over time, I've reported a number of possible bugs with BricsCad. But, I've been cutting back on these reports.One reason is that it takes time to determine if it might be a reproducable bug, and I don't always want to spend that time. This situaion can't be changed. But, another aspect is the process of reporting via. the web page. It certainly takes more effort to do it this way, vs.sending an E-mail. I realize that the web version makes Bricsys' life easier by separating the bug reports from the spam, and by prompting the user for the necessary details such as build number. But, the web form's "hassle factor" for the user may reduce the chances of a bug being reported.One way to address the above issue is by creating a "Bug Report" feature inside of BricsCad . PDF Xchange has such a feature. It allows the user to type a message, and automatically attaches a file with some information such as version number.There is one final aspect of bug reporting. It is frustrating to spend the time to research it on my end, only to learn it is a known problem. Of course, a company can hide this fact by not acknowledging a bug is already known (I am a bit afraid that my posting this may enourage you to adopt this policy). Yet another modivation to avoid reporting bugs.All of the above items result in me reporting perhaps 10% of the mis-behviors I experience. Do my fellow users feel the same way?Joe Dunfee
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Joe,with a small, truly dedicated team, we try to deliver an affordable and worthwhile product. We are indeed forced to run the organization efficiently, using support request pages instead of plain mail. Accepting plain mail to report issues would force us to hire extra staff for a rather pointless reason. At least we do the best we can to provide timely and sensible responses to these requests AND to remedy the issues. Have you tried this with (much larger) cad companies?Perhaps we could dedicate our development time to create the ultimate bug reporting tool, for now we'll dedicate our time to improving the quality of the cad program.This is by no means written to offend, or to downplay the frustration you experience when running into a problem, rest assured we really listen and improve things at the highest possible rate, even if this is sometimes at the cost of not responding to all post that comes in: we try to put our effort there where it benefits our users most.Kind regards,Hans De BackerDevelopment ManagerBricsys
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Doing a report is a little more long-winded, but the response is always prompt and helpful even if there is not always a ready fix.The forum helps me a lot to learn what problems others have and perhaps avoid them myself, find or learn a solution. These things don't always find their way through the official proving process, at least as quickly as they appear in the forum.While the knowledge base contains expert information and proven findings, the forum contains less well qualified but broader experience in practical use from users.I think it works about as well as it can and I very much appreciate the efforts of Bricsys.
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I tried hard to avoid making my posting sound like a rant. The reality is that I agree very much with the positive statments in the replies. The quick replies from Bricsys' staff in both private mails, and the public forums are a rare thing in the software world.The fact that I don't see anyone saying, "I also don't report most bugs" tempers my attitude a bit. Joe Dunfee
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I think many don't report what they think are bugs, because they are not sure. They check in the forum and quite often find either it's not a bug or there is a way around it etc. I guess that's the extra work Hans is refering to.
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I recently reported a bug with .shx fonts. Turned out it really was a bug with V8.0.11. Before reporting I kept looking for someone to say something in this forum. Since I tend to use V7 until I'm a little more familiar with customizing V8, someone using V8 would surely encounter the problem before I. For all I know maybe 100's requested support on this bug.My suggestion is a page on this site BUGS WE FOUND OR FIXED THIS WEEK. That way people could refer to the page to see if they would be wasting precious programmer's time by submitting a support request.Another suggestion, date the entries in the Knowledge Base so that it is easily apparent of new posts.Jerry
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I have seen a glimpse of the dedication Hans refers to in the time stamps of the reply e-mails I received for my support requests. Bricsys seems working day and night. I am truly impressed and hope it pays off.Gerrit
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Being with BricsCad, now Bricsys, since 2002 i can't help but to comment on the prompt replies on the bugs reported. I've my fair share working with other developers who reply acknowledging only our feedback without returning solutions. Here's thumbs up to Hans and his team who responded technically. It gives me so much confidence promoting BricsCad that I could go online next to our prospects, customers and show them the Support Requests section.AG
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