Hi,

In case not everyone reads news, I published an interview with Inkscape developers and contributors yesterday (there's 0.48 review too, but that's another story).

What's I'm rather concerned about is reply from Nicolas Dufour about beta versions not being tested enough. Thus the question: how many people here are ready to test beta versions, but cannot do it and for what reasons? Thanks in advance.

P.S. As usual, if you stumble upon reviews of the new version in either offline (paper) or online magazines or blogs in any language, please let me know: this will go to inkscape.org news.

I am always ready to test beta versions but I am not a coder. Is there a forum to go to to volunteer?
i liked your interview but it would have been nice to have a caption on the picture of the interviewees so we know who is who...

druban wrote:I am always ready to test beta versions but I am not a coder. Is there a forum to go to to volunteer?

A forum? Why? Isn't existing bug tracker good enough for reporting bugs? Or do you have something else in mind?

prokoudine wrote:Isn't existing bug tracker good enough for reporting bugs?

Yes it is!

prokoudine wrote:Thus the question: how many people here are ready to test beta versions, but cannot do it and for what reasons? Thanks in advance.

i was kind of asking about this, and wondering where you wanted us to respond! And i guess the answer is : here!

druban wrote:i was kind of asking about this, and wondering where you wanted us to respond! And i guess the answer is : here!

Either here or in the tracker

I would very much like to try some beta testing, because goodness knows I seem to stumble upon bugs as if they were real grasshoppers (ie - quite often), lol. I have clung to only the stable releases thus far, because I'm still learning my way around computers, and would not know what to do if say a beta version crashed the whole system. And as well, I'm still learning my way around Inkscape. On the other hand, I suspect I will never stop learning I have posted a bug or 2 at Launchpad, and done a very bad job of it so far. Mostly because I don't always know the proper terminology and other conventions.

So I think it might help to draw in more beta testers (who like me, want to help, but may not have so much technical knowledge -- ordinary users, iow), if there existed somewhere some general guidelines. For example, do we need to possess multiple computers with multiple operating systems and multiple versions of Inkscape? Do we need to have coding expertise? How much do we need to know about how Inkscape works? Or is it enough just to be using Inkscape regularly? Do we have to subscribe to any mailing lists (email tends to annoy me )?

I don't know! Maybe someone like me should stick to reporting potential bugs here in these forums, and let others more knowledgeable do the testing? In any case, I'm glad to help in whatever way I can, but also don't want to gum up the works with my naivety.