RFC: Enabling users to report issues with Plasma widgets

[Martin Graesslin]

On Monday, April 4, 2016 7:06:40 PM CEST Friedrich W. H. Kossebau wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> challenge:
> 1. take your favourite Plasma widget
> 2. find a bug or idea for an improvement with it
> 3. report it to the maintainer of the widget
> 
> 1. & 2. are easy.
> But 3. is not easy at all.
> 
> Question:
> Are endusers supposed to report issues with Plasma widgets and get in
> contact with its developers, designers, translators?
> 
> If "of course, yes" then they need to be enabled & encouraged to do so.
> At least every XMLGUI-based QWidget app has "Help">"Report Bug...". IMHO
> there should be something similar for Widgets. And something like "About"
> info as well, to know who to talk to or where the widget is from and the
> version.
> 
> Right now an enduser has no single clue in the UI where to go to with any
> widget issues. As a widget developer I experience that as a big burden,
> because it prevents feedback from the average enduser. Which sucks.
> 
> Please comment on this. Once I know your ideas about that, I would consider
> pushing this further to the VDG, so they can draft a nice UX for that, one
> without bloating the UI but still being discoverable and useable.

Speaking now with the experience from KWin (which has a dedicated info page 
per effect):
* cannot remember that I ever got contacted directly by a user due to the 
about information
* bug reports hardly reference an effect plugin directly. Users cannot and 
should not know where the bug is, whether it's in the plugin or in the 
infrastructure
* our devs don't care about it. I don't know in how many reviews I pointed out 
that I'm not the author of the newly added effect

So with the experience of the 40 plugins in KWin I think the possible gains 
presented here do not justify the addition of code and UI elements.

The only real argument I see is honor those who deserve honor. If we want to 
show in 3rd party plasmoids that they are 3rd party, we need them. But not for 
bugs, translators, designers.

Cheers
Martin
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