yep, devs have many abilities, *telephathy* isnt one of them!

Opera is not a small company(I mean less than 5 people!) and it does not produce a program that is *virtually independant* of what is used on it(like a graphic display prog)

The browser has to somehow 'capture a fast moving target' every time - a target that not only changes both shape & form, but also number!! not only that, but it does not obey any real law, and some of these 'become law' just because a megamega large company uses them, and changes them *again* on a whim....

and, er, useing the baseball simile... you must be 100% sure that no injury happens to the team... no worry for the megamega team , they have loads of padding, and barely notice it...

-- still think making a browser is easy?????

Originally posted by haavard:

Lots of bugs are fixed every single day

Any plans on publicly documenting the bug numbers that were/are fixed?

Bug numbers? No. They would mean nothing to most people. And you have already had a discussion with Rijk regarding changelogs, fearphage, so I don't think we need to repeat that here

Originally posted by illiad:

*some* good news about Vista and SP... there wont be a SP!

Of course, the article didn't say that, it was just speculating on rumors. It's not true, obviously, and you know better than to cite The Register as a source anyway.

A reliable source is Mary Jo Foley:
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft

Regarding the two leaked (beta) hotfix packs this week, a MS spokesman was quote there as saying:
"We plan to make these two updates (KB938194 and KB938979) broadly available via Windows Update in the near future."

So that's terrific news, as these packs contain a number of wonderful fixes. They'll be out possibly as early as August Patch Tuesday (http://blogs.zdnet.com/hardware/?p=666).

As for SP1 itself, it's a comin' (again, from Mary):

"SP1 Beta is projected for release to influencers … either the week of the 16th [July] or the following week, depending on how things proceed. The public Beta will follow shortly thereafter," according to a note *Microsoft provided* to testers it was considering adding to the Vista SP1 beta program.

So, the hotfixes look to be out in a couple weeks, the SP1 beta is also imminent, and SP1 final could be out as soon as November, though better money is on early 2008.

Not that this excuses Opera from fixing their own problems. I'm willing to bet that the hotfix/SP1 fixes will be N/A to Opera.

Originally posted by haavard:

They would mean nothing to most people

I (and my geek kind) being perhaps less than 1% of the population keep track of bugs I report. I like to know when they allegedly have been fixed or when they are marked invalid, wontfix, by design, etc. Again this goes back to advanced users taking a backseat. Minorities should get some respect and consideration too. We are still human. If you prick us, do we not bleed? Do we not deserve some consideration?

We may have gone over this but my memory leaves me. If this has been previously answered I wouldn't mind a link. I did a few google searches for the conversation and came up with nothing useful. I do recall the bts can't be opened because there are lots of secrets in it. I know that. Don't recall a specific conversation about why bug numbers are not listed.

EDIT: I'm not really a horrible person. I do QA for a living so the secrecy of development procedure is simply destroying my paradigm. I'm just generally used to seeing progress reports or some signs of life.

Do you understand that I can report a bug to Opera and literally NEVER know the status of it? Do you understand how that can cause frustration?

Originally posted by haavard:

Reporting does much more than hoping, especially if a crash log is included Lots of bugs are fixed every single day, so it definitely helps to report them. Crash bugs are particularly important.

It's just that the Black Hole syndrome is so discouraging. Honestly, who ever hears from Opera after reporting something? How do you know the report has even been looked at let alone acted upon?

For example, in the Vista thread cited above, the topic originator there did make a bug report, yet it was never acknowledged, and at least one Opera employee apparently didn't even see it in the system months later.

And this isn't a trivial problem, either.

How could Opera possibly not have contacted him for a follow-up? It makes no sense.

Originally posted by rseiler:

who ever hears from Opera after reporting something?

I make Opera crash very often when I'm developing (not on purpose mind you). By often I mean, once a day is a good day. This doesn't always generate crash logs but it happens so often that I don't bother reporting each individual crash. So from time to time I grab a stack and throw them at Opera and the BTS of Secrets^TM. I've done this maybe 3 times. Once I did get a response about the quality of the crashlogs. So it does happen. I'm quite sure I'm not the only one.

I've received e-mails on several occasions from developers about bugs I've reported asking to clarify what I've sent.

@fearphage
I've sent several crash logs at once at the same time as well, but I have received response to several of them requesting more testing, logs, memguard dumps and clarification. That being said, I'm right there with you. There should at the very least be an email response sent out for every report filed so the author of the report knows that it has at the very least been looked at. A simple list of report numbers and status would be enough for me. No description necessary as I'm not very interested in bug reports other than my own and I file away all bug report numbers that I send.

I've sent an error report in on the same page about 4 times and it still hasn't been fixed...kinda makes you wonder if anyone's even looking at them.

Originally posted by rseiler:

...you know better than to cite The Register as a source anyway.
A reliable source is Mary Jo Foley

Mary Jo always has good info on Microsoft because she has tons of contacts with them. Too much for my own taste. For journalistic integrity, The Reg has nothing to learn from ZDNet. The Reg's always being tongue-in-cheek when talking about MS, while ZDNet always kissing the hand that feeds it. They're both partly biased in that matter.

Originally posted by Khadgar:

I've received e-mails on several occasions from developers about bugs I've reported asking to clarify what I've sent.

Man, you're lucky! I guess my reports are always crystal-clear, so they have no reason to contact me.

Originally posted by kyleabaker:

A simple list of report numbers and status would be enough for me.

I think they don't do it because the whining would decuplate. "Why was my bug cancelled?" "God, why are you making my favorite feature request a priority 5?" "OMG!!!111 my Bug is still unread, I'm quitting Opera!" "I can't believe you postponed it again, it should have been done 10 releases ago"...

It would just be unbearable!

rseiler: that is why I linked to the *original* article at neowin... are you saying they are not reliable also???
- I am sure 'vista users with problems' are as desparate for the fix as we are for kestrel...

I dont tend to trust blogs from sources that are nowhere near the company involved...

and "in the near future" "very soon" "very shortly" is just the same as WIR....

you then go on to talk about 'patch tuesday' from the zdnet blog, just the same as neowin said...

I dont know about your 'N/A' statement - when the whole world gets the hotfixes, so will opera...

fearphage: if you want to make a bigger discussion about bug reporting, try adding a post here:
better bug report with user feedback
there was a lot of discussion about this a while back - I cannot find, maybe because it was offtopic to the thread...(think about that when you are trying to justify your point!! ) peace, man...

Luchio: you make the other good point about bugreporting! has anyone bothered to see how MS does it(no, I mean *real response* from them, not the *totally generated by your PC* kind...)

Mention of bugnumbers was in this blog a while back - it would mean 'pages & pages' of numbers...

In the forum a few months back, a user was even talking about a 'user-generated list'(done by simply searching the forum for numbers, and matching them to the reported bugs) - nowhere to be seen....

Originally posted by fearphage:

I (and my geek kind) being perhaps less than 1% of the population keep track of bugs I report. I like to know when they allegedly have been fixed or when they are marked invalid, wontfix, by design, etc.

There can be multiple bug reports for the same bug, reported by different people. Someone would have to spend a lot of time going through every single fix, find every single bug report, etc. The system probably cannot be automated because the BTS contains a lot of highly sensitive information, and a single leak could lead to Opera Software being sued into oblivion by a disgruntled customer.

I wouldn't mind more transparency, but it isn't up to me. And I certainly don't want to lose my job over a slip-up somewhere that causes Opera Software to go bankrupt due to lawsuits.

But now we are going rather far away from the subject of screen reader support and Kestrel...

Just couple more words of offtopic...
As I said it before it will be useful for submitter to get a copy of bug submission -- there is already e-mail field in bug submission form.
This way I can at least keep track of my submissions, because I often forgot if some bug already submitted or not and what bug number is.

Originally posted by illiad:

that is why I linked to the *original* article at neowin... are you saying they are not reliable also???

I have no issue with Neowin (and read them all the time), but they're just an article aggregator not an original reporting source. Their article wasn't germane to your erroneous statement about there being no SP1 so I didn't mention it. The Neowin article said nothing about that, as it was merely a listing of the fixes in the two hotfixes to be released potentially on Patch Tuesday (which is two weeks away, not one).

It was The Register article that was in question.

Originally posted by illiad:

I dont tend to trust blogs from sources that are nowhere near the company involved...

I'm not aware of anyone better sourced about MS, and with a longer history reporting on them, than Mary. Sorry. I remember reading her as far back as PC Week. That she's with a blog now is irrelvant. Ed Bott is as well, and he's a sterling resource regarding Windows on the technical side of things. If you haven't noticed, blogs are pretty important these days. The good ones, that is, and both Mary's and Ed's are.

Originally posted by illiad:

and "in the near future" "very soon" "very shortly" is just the same as WIR....

I was very careful to quote quotes from *MS* that she reported. It's *MS* that said the two patches are due in the "near future," which some (including your Neowin) are surmising will be Patch Tuesday. And it was *MS* that said the SP1 beta will come "shortly thereafter" [the initial private release of SP1]. Mary's amazing at getting/finding quotes from MS through official and unofficial means.

Originally posted by illiad:

I dont know about your 'N/A' statement - when the whole world gets the hotfixes, so will opera...

Opera would be subject to the changes, yes, but will it benefit from them? Not terribly likely. What I'm saying is that if Opera is banking on the hotfixes making Opera suddenly work properly in Vista, they're taking a big risk. If I was having similar problems with any other browser (or any other application period, for that matter), then I would think differently.

Bug in opera ?
Go to Tools > Appearance > toolbar, then change the option of the progress bar to " off " then click on cancel.
but despite you clicked cancel, the progress bar will be "off" !
Sorry for bad english

Please fix bug #276397 for the next build!

rseiler, If no dates are mentioned, it could be anything!! at least Opera is more honest, saying they are not sure when...
here is mary's take on it...
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=605 (she got it from NVnews, actually!)
- full of the usual denials and counter-claims, trying to stop the tide of people in need.(too late, already 100's of hits in google!! also the geeks who downloaded it, before it was taken off the server..)

either way, no-one really knows!! more & more 'chatter' wont make it any more certain...

Are you a politician?? you are sounding more and more like one... you have twisted "I'm willing to bet that the hotfix/SP1 fixes will be N/A to Opera." into some blah about opera depending on it...

and there is my still unanswered question about one install file doing diff. things in XP or win98...

as I said, when this hot fix comes out, we will see.. it is just hot air until then!

@Illiad, I see nothing at all wrong with that link. She lists the fixes coming in the hotfix packs, relays the most detailed information that MS has disclosed about their availability, and mentions that they'll also (obviously) be incorporated into SP1 when it comes to pass. What else do you want? MS is only so forthcoming.

I'm not actually that concerned if the fixes are ready in time for this Patch Tuesday, since they are wide-ranging enough that a lot could go wrong with them if they're not right. I'd rather see them released "out of band" (that is, between Patch Tuesdays) or even on September's Patch Tuesday if there's any doubt about their quality. At least they're being tested externally now. Up to now, I think the lack of external testing of hotfixes has led to some really sloppy problems with updates.

I'm not a politician but am simply trying to correct inaccuracies where I see them.

hey.... take it easy... I never mean anything bad...

I'm just generally sick of the 'very soon = 9 months' stuff..

@stam1na, you filed that report yesterday... we are no miracle workers.

friday in around 40 minutes...........

Originally posted by illad:

I'm just generally sick of the 'very soon = 9 months' stuff..

Actually it's "just" 5 months since the first "not tomorrow" statements.

But if all fixes went into Kestrel, you could also say that it's lasting over a year now

friday in around 40 minutes...........

and no one said yet that there will be no Kestrel build this Friday.

@FataL: Because they’re still playing Rock, Paper, Scissors at Opera for who has to announce the “no weekly this week” news this week

Originally posted by wupperbayer:

@FataL: Because they’re still playing Rock, Paper, Scissors at Opera for who has to announce the “no weekly this week” news this week

Unfortunately that sounds about right. Hopefully we'll finally get some good news. I'm so tired of waiting for Kestrel.

By the way, I have those hot fixes installed in Vista Ultimate and see absolutely no difference with Opera stability or anything if that is what you all are waiting to see.

@Kyle, you be brave, much braver than me. I wouldn't have touched pre-release fixes (they have enough problems with released fixes!) with a mouse on the end of a 10-foot cord, but I'm glad they seemed to cause no ill-effects for you. Yet, anyway.

It's no surprise that the unrelated Vista fixes did nothing for Opera; it's Opera fixes that need to do something for Vista, apparently. Onward ho, Kestrel, the last refuge.

Is possible implement following:

accept data (images, css, javascript) only from browsed server (eg disable linked objects)

Thank you

P.S.

On go on, good work.

@rseiler
I only run the latest, still bleeding software available, hehe. This is half of the reason that I'm going insane waiting for Kestrel. I need a build that I can find new crashers in, lol.

I hope to see more compatibility on the line Opera-Google and Opera-Yahoo in future.

Originally posted by voiture:

Bug in opera ?
Go to Tools > Appearance > toolbar, then change the option of the progress bar to " off " then click on cancel.
but despite you clicked cancel, the progress bar will be "off" !
Sorry for bad english

i can confirm this.

Today's Friday. can we expect a half baked 'kestrel' today

We are holding our breath...

@hansbendiksen: Hehe, normally new builds come around 15:00-17:00 CET, so you have to hold your breath very long

a half-baked kestrel is no option. i mean like all others who check this site so often for a new download the sheer joy of testing a new build with kestrel-engine would wet my pants several times. but if this build is so half-baked that its usablility heavily suffers from big bad bugs...

google-opera, yahoo-opera, i thought this was not in opera´s hands anyway? but then again why do google and yahoo not fully supoort opera?

I'd take a half baked crashy mess right now... I've done really well recently; I've not had the shakes over waiting for Kestrel/9.5 at all for weeks.

For some reason today though it's just been getting under my skin again!

Fingers crossed I get something to play with and crash on the PC as well as listening to the start of the (SPL) season!

Holding your breath for a kestrel build is NOT recomended...

bexs: I was replying to rseilers comment about 'when SP1?" ... and if you goto http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=605 you will se much more agressive and impatient comments!!

oh, and if you dont remember how bad XP was before SP1....

everyone: you have been told by opera that it will be **long** time until the next release - why do you keep coming back *every* friday hoping to see something??? do you like talking to a brick wall??

hey a lot of us feel like that, but the quieter you keep it, the less stress there will be....

Opera is at least being honest, unlike the rather pointless 'very soon' statements from MS, as qouted in the blog...
http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=587

QFT "It is time to stop the misinformation, the bulk of which is coming from Microsoft right now."

It seems to me, very much like the papers do, when there is 'no news' on a popular celeb - get some old qoutes, find some pics... invent some story, that has no base in facts...

please 'keep it real' guys....

There can be multiple bug reports for the same bug, reported by different people. Someone would have to spend a lot of time going through every single fix, find every single bug report, etc. The system probably cannot be automated because the BTS contains a lot of highly sensitive information, and a single leak could lead to Opera Software being sued into oblivion by a disgruntled customer.

it needs only a few lines of code to the opera-page for linking bugs together (so one/ the first bug is the major bug and the same bugs are crosslinked to the major bug)

then the status could be easy shown! i think opera also does this internal!

Yes, the status is shown internally. If you read the last part of what you quoted, you will see why that might not be such a good idea externally.

There have been a lot of Merlin releases since talk of Kestrel weeklies. Is the desktop team divided into Merlin and Kestrel devs for now or is a lot of time just being funneled into Merlin across the board?

There will not be a Kestrel release this week.