Subject: Page Setup - Windows Users - Please Vote
From: John Selby (a.selby@paradise.net.nz)
Date: Tue Aug 21 2001 - 17:01:01 CDT
The page setup feature in AbiWord has bugs that have been reported several
times.
For some users (mainly outside the USA I suspect), the tendency for the Page
Setup feature to crash AbiWord makes this great piece of software almost
unuseable.
I'm writing this in the hope that people who have experienced problems with
Page Setup in the Windows version will go to bugzilla and vote. The
developers have a daunting list of bugs to spend their valuable time on; I
suspect that unless people place some votes on the Page Setup crash
problems, action to remedy the problem(s) will be slow to occur. Personally
I think this bug is critical enough to be on the top ten of listed bugs.
The behaviour is recorded as bug number 1418, and several comments are
registered in bugzilla against this bug number.
It has been variously reported as bug numbers:-
1277, 1375, 1763, 1776, 1808.
I understand all the above numbers were noted to be duplicates of bug number
1418, and they have therefore been removed from the bugzilla list.
Currently I notice there are recently reported bugs numbers:-
1820 (page format freezes Abiword 0.9)
1831 (page setup margin setting crashes Abiword)
1870 (page setup choose landscape causes crash)
1877 (page setup change page size from letter to any other causes crash).
I suspect these may all be reporting symptoms of the same problem. I
believe it will mainly be noticed by non USA users because it appears that
the key to these crashes is probably the choice of a paper size other than
USA letter or legal which pulls the trigger for the crash when OK is
selected to close the dialogue box.
Users may not even realise they are making a choice to change paper sizes.
For example, on my computer (I'm located in New Zealand) the default
settings cause Abiword to automatically highlight the A4 paper size when the
File\Page Setup box is opened. Simply closing the box with the OK button
will crash Abiword immediately, since this effectively creates a choice of a
different paper size to that which was in effect before the box was opened.
If I want to make any changes in the Page Setup box I have to remember to
change the paper size to USA letter or USA legal before closing the box, and
this has to be done every time, since the existing settings are not
remembered and highlighted, the next time the box is opened.
(I may not be technically correct but I understand that Abiword builds an
.ini file the first time it is run, and will read various registry settings
when doing this, including relevant ones in the Regional Settings section of
Windows. No doubt this is why Abiword on my computer automatically
highlights the A4 paper size when I open the page setup box).
Hence my appeal to Windows users:-
Please, if you agree that this bug is a critical one, and you want to have
it fixed, go to the Bugzilla site http://www.abisource.com/bugzilla/ and
have a look at bug number 1418, get yourself a bugzilla account (click "open
a new bugzilla account") and cast a vote for this bug.
It presently has 23 votes. A few more votes from different people may be
enough to do the trick (I think this is called "lobbying"?)
I would dearly love to see it make its way into the top ten, and get fixed.
Until this happens, for me Abiword remains a tantalising possibility that I
want, but simply can't use in practice at present.
Other subscribers to this group, please excuse this long post.
And to those developers who are putting so much time and effort into the
creation of Abiword, thanks a million.
Cheers, John Selby.
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