Theres something that was pointed out to me by a new friend, that I had to vent about.. so HERE IT IS!!1
Why are some people too good to hang out in their threads and answer questions about the builds they post???
It seems to me that it builds credibility, to help the people using your build, so why not hang out and answer questions, address issues, help finding solutions, offer advice... BE HUMAN
Sure its great that new builds are being pushed out constantly... BUT IF YOURE NOT TALKING TO THE PEOPLE RUNNING THE CURRENT ONE AND EXPERIENCING PROBLEMS WHAT GOOD IS IT????
Step down from the clouds, and walk barefoot on the grass with the rest of us.. its cool and refreshing on your feet
WOW Man..
pitbull8265 said:
Theres something that was pointed out to me by a new friend, that I had to vent about.. so HERE IT IS!!1
Why are some people too good to hang out in their threads and answer questions about the builds they post???
It seems to me that it builds credibility, to help the people using your build, so why not hang out and answer questions, address issues, help finding solutions, offer advice... BE HUMAN
Sure its great that new builds are being pushed out constantly... BUT IF YOURE NOT TALKING TO THE PEOPLE RUNNING THE CURRENT ONE AND EXPERIENCING PROBLEMS WHAT GOOD IS IT????
Step down from the clouds, and walk barefoot on the grass with the rest of us.. its cool and refreshing on your feet
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Could not have said it better.... You hit the nail right on the head.. People respect those who back their work with support:good::good::good:
This DOES seem to be in SHORT reserve.. WELL STATED
Impressive
I have noticed this too.. Its like these people are too GOOD for Q&A and sometimes even respond to questions like they are PETTY and an inconvenience.. There ARE some who DO help, and those people deserve to know they are appreciated.. You in particular, have helped me a ton, so thanks.. Maybe you'll start a movement, and more people will start doing their part to help their followers...
+1
There is a SERIOUS shortage of helpers and an overage of shovelers
All these builds keep coming, and still the same problems on the one they put out before with a different NAME for the ROM.. Its like they change the name and recycled it..
I read through threads now, and if the OP doesn't hang out and help their users, I wont use their builds anymore.
Couldn't agree more!! Nicely said too
Be proud of your work.. Stick around and make sure people can..ya know, enjoy it too..
It's quality not quantity that matters. Stepping on other teams and developers to rush something out just to say "FIRST" will get you no where.. So while timely updates are important, if that's the only thing you post in your own thread.. "New build is up" when there's been 10 pages of people asking questions... I'll never support you, both publicly or financially.
I understand new enthusiast can be quite frustrating or maybe you just aren't a people type of person.. team up with someone that is... pass the q&a on to them, but do fricking something, people want support for YOUR roms and if you put out 20..that means all 20.
Exactly, how dare these developers not spend any time in the forums answering the same useless non-informative questions over and over. How dare they spend countless hours building a ROMs for free and then share it for others to use. How dare they spend time with their families and go to their actual job and have a life. How dare they….. (/sarcasm)
mapatton82 said:
Exactly, how dare these developers not spend any time in the forums answering the same useless non-informative questions over and over. How dare they spend countless hours building a ROMs for free and then share it for others to use. How dare they spend time with their families and go to their actual job and have a life. How dare they….. (/sarcasm)
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Yea, I'm somewhere between this and the op. They shouldn't be 100% absent, but on the same note, some consideration for the above quote is in order too.
While were venting, its possible the devs haven't figured out how to fix some of these issues, but it doesn't do a dam bit of good for 50 people to complain about the same thing and no one is posting logcats. So don't complain about things not getting fixed, if your not attaching logs to every post about issues.
Just my 2c, add 97c more and go buy a cheeseburger.
Sent from my G3, Unlocked by Team Codefire
mapatton82 said:
Exactly, how dare these developers not spend any time in the forums answering the same useless non-informative questions over and over. How dare they spend countless hours building a ROMs for free and then share it for others to use. How dare they spend time with their families and go to their actual job and have a life. How dare they….. (/sarcasm)
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Then why put out 20 instead of 1 that they can handle is the point!!
Variety is the spice of life. I'd rather have 20 that will get fixed eventually than just 1 that works perfectly. If they are all too similar for you then just move on to another one, build your own, or just wait for fully featured lollipop which will be here soon enough. If a thread is maintained or not - I'm just happy to have a thread. A couple devs have walked away already and it'd suck if more left. Just be grateful for what we've got and be patient.
Kris Nelson said:
Then why put out 20 instead of 1 that they can handle is the point!!
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The same person is not releasing 20 different versions. Also, most are all based off of the AOSP core source, but each dev might add their own touch/flare to it. But, since each one is based off of AOSP, then more than likely, they will all have the same issues, unless the dev has made some changes.
I'd rather have a lot of choices than none. Believe me, when there is NO dev support (that is, a lot of ROMs being release), then you get even MORE whining of "Why isn't there any ROMs/dev support for this?"
Maybe you're not a dev, but I am (not for ROMs but that is my full-time job). Development takes a lot of time. I do it at work and to do it at home as well, especially for something that is free, takes a lot of time and dedication. Especially, ROM development is NOT an easy task. Rebuilding ROMs takes at least 90 minutes or more, depending on the speed of your machine, the size of the source code, etc. Heck, I've pulled down the git for CM12 and it's 12gb in size (source code only, not compiled) and it took hours to download over my high-speed internet connection at home.
I can understand wanting support if you PAID for it, but this is free, people. Free. They don't ask for anything in return monetarily, and yet, we see people demanding support as if they paid for it. You get what you pay for, and in this case, it's free. But I feel the support most devs give is very good, considering it's free. Also, for things like CM, it's usually not just one dev, but several who have responsibilities for different parts of the Android code base. So, just because one guy posts about it, doesn't mean he's the only dev on it. He might be sending your findings back to the other devs.
Also, you DON'T have to flash these custom ROMs. They all have disclaimers that the dev is not responsible for any damages that may occur to your phone. They don't guarantee support, but it's there for you to use. However, who is to say they aren't monitoring the forums? Just because they don't respond, doesn't mean they aren't looking into the issues you report.
Yes, I understand how you want a response from them, but in the end, it is your choice whether you want to flash or not. They didn't twist your arm to do it.
Keep posting your defects. Most devs, the good ones, do monitor the forums and take note of the issues. However, they know about other major issues that they are probably trying to work on. Again, for most, it is done in their spare time.
I myself would like to build and release ROMs, but right now, I don't have the time. it's not just "make a change, compile, release". There is a lot of researching, debugging, etc that must go on. Those that are programmers understand this. And, once you fix a bug, you don't just go and release it (under normal circumstances). You have to go through a complete testing cycle, retesting previous tests along with any new tests to ensure you didn't break something else. It's not that simple.
However, with these free releases, WE are the testers. WE are the ones that report back the issues so they can be addressed. Post them here, or even some devs have Twitter pages where you can post defects. Not all, but some.
In the end, be thankful you have so many choices. Yes, it may seem as if they are all the same, and in some cases they are and some are from people who just want to say "look I released a ROM" and then you never hear from them again. But, in the case of XDA, to post about a ROM in the dev forum, I believe you have to be an identified developer, so they do have to go through some vetting process. So, more than likely, they are legit developers, not a fly-by-night person.
Just wanted to get that off my chest. I understand what people feel, but you have to understand, this is not an easy thing to do. Maybe a lot of you understand that, but I find that a lot don't. Or, they say they understand, when they really don't. They just "think" they understand.
Wow. Off the soapbox. It just burns me as a developer when I see things like this. Yes, I understand where you are coming from, but sometimes, I think you need to hear it from the other side as well.
Ciao!
If you're a good parent, when you bring a child into this world, you raise it, and nurture it... creating it is not enough...
noun
1.
the act or process of developing; growth; progress:
iBolski said:
The same person is not releasing 20 different versions. Also, most are all based off of the AOSP core source, but each dev might add their own touch/flare to it. But, since each one is based off of AOSP, then more than likely, they will all have the same issues, unless the dev has made some changes.
I'd rather have a lot of choices than none. Believe me, when there is NO dev support (that is, a lot of ROMs being release), then you get even MORE whining of "Why isn't there any ROMs/dev support for this?"
Maybe you're not a dev, but I am (not for ROMs but that is my full-time job). Development takes a lot of time. I do it at work and to do it at home as well, especially for something that is free, takes a lot of time and dedication. Especially, ROM development is NOT an easy task. Rebuilding ROMs takes at least 90 minutes or more, depending on the speed of your machine, the size of the source code, etc. Heck, I've pulled down the git for CM12 and it's 12gb in size (source code only, not compiled) and it took hours to download over my high-speed internet connection at home.
I can understand wanting support if you PAID for it, but this is free, people. Free. They don't ask for anything in return monetarily, and yet, we see people demanding support as if they paid for it. You get what you pay for, and in this case, it's free. But I feel the support most devs give is very good, considering it's free. Also, for things like CM, it's usually not just one dev, but several who have responsibilities for different parts of the Android code base. So, just because one guy posts about it, doesn't mean he's the only dev on it. He might be sending your findings back to the other devs.
Also, you DON'T have to flash these custom ROMs. They all have disclaimers that the dev is not responsible for any damages that may occur to your phone. They don't guarantee support, but it's there for you to use. However, who is to say they aren't monitoring the forums? Just because they don't respond, doesn't mean they aren't looking into the issues you report.
Yes, I understand how you want a response from them, but in the end, it is your choice whether you want to flash or not. They didn't twist your arm to do it.
Keep posting your defects. Most devs, the good ones, do monitor the forums and take note of the issues. However, they know about other major issues that they are probably trying to work on. Again, for most, it is done in their spare time.
I myself would like to build and release ROMs, but right now, I don't have the time. it's not just "make a change, compile, release". There is a lot of researching, debugging, etc that must go on. Those that are programmers understand this. And, once you fix a bug, you don't just go and release it (under normal circumstances). You have to go through a complete testing cycle, retesting previous tests along with any new tests to ensure you didn't break something else. It's not that simple.
However, with these free releases, WE are the testers. WE are the ones that report back the issues so they can be addressed. Post them here, or even some devs have Twitter pages where you can post defects. Not all, but some.
In the end, be thankful you have so many choices. Yes, it may seem as if they are all the same, and in some cases they are and some are from people who just want to say "look I released a ROM" and then you never hear from them again. But, in the case of XDA, to post about a ROM in the dev forum, I believe you have to be an identified developer, so they do have to go through some vetting process. So, more than likely, they are legit developers, not a fly-by-night person.
Just wanted to get that off my chest. I understand what people feel, but you have to understand, this is not an easy thing to do. Maybe a lot of you understand that, but I find that a lot don't. Or, they say they understand, when they really don't. They just "think" they understand.
Wow. Off the soapbox. It just burns me as a developer when I see things like this. Yes, I understand where you are coming from, but sometimes, I think you need to hear it from the other side as well.
Ciao!
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Thank you.. Just to correct you though.. There ARE the same persons that are putting out 20 different versions (1 developer. releasing 20 different roms.) That was just the point i was making..
I do personally research before i ever flash a rom or anything..and trust me i donate!! LOL
Kris Nelson said:
Thank you.. Just to correct you though.. There ARE the same persons that are putting out 20 different versions (1 developer. releasing 20 different roms.) That was just the point i was making..
I do personally research before i ever flash a rom or anything..and trust me i donate!! LOL
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I see who you are talking about. If you read the OP, at the bottom, he gives thanks to the devs on these ROMs. I don't think he's a developer at all. At least, his profile doesn't say so. I think he just finds all these ROMs and posts links to them. I could be wrong, and I apologize if I am if that person is reading this thread, but I don't see where the OP of the 5+ ROM threads is the actual developer for them. It's almost like he does the "announcing" for the devs of those ROMs.
And since it does appear that you do not have to be a developer to post in the standard DEV forum, then that makes even more sense.
I do know that in another forum I frequented a lot, you were given developer status and only developers could create new threads in the DEV/ROM forum. That was to prevent a lot of "spam" postings of ROMs.
Makes me wonder if that's what is happening here.
iBolski said:
I see who you are talking about. If you read the OP, at the bottom, he gives thanks to the devs on these ROMs. I don't think he's a developer at all. At least, his profile doesn't say so. I think he just finds all these ROMs and posts links to them. I could be wrong, and I apologize if I am if that person is reading this thread, but I don't see where the OP of the 5+ ROM threads is the actual developer for them. It's almost like he does the "announcing" for the devs of those ROMs.
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I wish you were correct but nope, he is the builder and maintainer. Trust me many more than 5+ when you include other carriers as well.. But not just the one, others have started as well... It's very frustrating that after 1 week, several messages of a very specific problem (not mine just someone i was helping) on different sites where they are posted.. I have to track down someone that i know can help but has NOTHING to do with any of these roms...and gets zippy cash.. Though he should..lol
Anyway, i truly value great developers and have learned who to support and who not to. I like to help people so the developers can build awesome stuff and its my way of keeping the simple crap of your plate so you can do just that..but when i can't even find the answer, the developer should be available.
Just saw your edit.. Yes i think that is happening too. I was always under the assumption that builders/maintainers did so for the actual devise and carriers they use.. I guess that's no longer the case.
Oadam11 is a builder of various roms for our G3's from source repositories available for anyone to build from, and anyone to commit to. He may or may not be doing any commits/merge requests - and even if he did those contributions might not be accepted into the various G3 forks.
In any case, he might not be in a position to contribute to feature requests or bug fixes. He might not be running his own builds of all these roms, past checking to see if they will boot and more or less work.
Say Team Vanir does a fork of their work for the G3, an official one. Ok, then you would ask for support from members of Team Vanir, sure, though you might not get much, depending on a lot of factors (including your attitude...) Then consider the possibility that someone just builds something like Commotio from publicly available sources, with just enough tweaks from somewhere to get it to compile and run, unofficially, on one or more G3 variants. I suspect that is where oadam11 is coming from. He doesn't create the roms, he builds them for G3's. He watches the repositories for each rom he has built for us, and when he sees that rom's devs have checked in and merged useful updates, then he rebuilds for us when he has time. Builds take a while. Then he makes them available for us users to download and install them, after some degree of testing.
The point is that he is in no way responsible for supporting the builds he produces of these team's work. It would be impossible for him to anyway. I am sure he gets permission and some degree of cooperation from any team project he builds from, but he is NOT a team member, or major contributor, for all of them. He is a noble builder and distributor, and you should expect nothing more from him than What he is already providing.
If you want to get a problem or new feature dealt with on any given rom, you must deal with the team's source contributers by raising issues on their gerrit or maybe working on an outstanding and team-prioritized bug as a contributor.
Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk
Thank you..you actually confirmed the point I was making. However, is the average person going to know all this? Of course not...should they do their research prior, of course but they don't... I see good teams being hurt by this as well.. Vanir just had an issue the other day.. Something is being lost in translation and by no means was i only referring to Adam.
I understand. It is interesting that in G+ just a little why ago someone asked David Kessler of Team Vanir who was their maintainer of the G3 Vanir and he replied that they don't have one.
There was also discussion about someone providing support, like answering questions. The idea of supporting a clueless user who had tried to flash TouchWiz onto a Vanir device, by beating the user over the head with an iPhone6+ was suggested. The devs have no patience with such users, generally.
That said, Holy Angel seems exceptional.
Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk
The problem I have, is that when a person POSTS a Rom, and are the OP, they need to support what they post, and help the people posting questions in the thread, or BOW OUT!!! There are people posting and dumping... DONT Post a ROM if you're not willing or able to help the team you are Posting links to... Dont post it and then say "Any problems, contact THEM"
THAT PERSON mentioned, has a lot of them, all as OP, none supported other than.."New build up"
Raising the age limit for COPPA
The amount of entitlement exhibited in this thread is phenomenal. Yes, by all means don't use a build if the developer (who has actually done some REAL WORK) won't support you to your liking.
That will really teach those mean developers a lesson.
Don't forget to complain about the slow speeds of free downloads as well.
It's also a good idea to stop using a build if the developer won't add features you want, and soon, too.
DeanGibson said:
The amount of entitlement exhibited in this thread is phenomenal. Yes, by all means don't use a build if the developer (who has actually done some REAL WORK) won't support you to his/her liking.
That will really teach those mean developers a lesson.
Don't forget to complain about the slow speeds of free downloads as well.
It's also a good idea to stop using a build if the developer won't add features you want, and soon, too.
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Just because you want a feature, doesn't mean it's a good feature to add. If you did that, you would end up with something that could eventually become impossible to maintain.
There are SO many bugs right now in the AOSP code that these devs are trying to fix to make it work on this phone. I would rather those get fixed first.
And, do you think you are the only one to ask for features?
I'm a developer, not for android, but I write code for a living. And what you are asking for is what we call "scope creep". We have to weed out the "must haves" with the "wants". Must haves are the things that they user must have in order to perform their job. This is usually adding functionality that isn't there currently that is needed to complete their job. The "wants" are "I would like to have the ability to clear out all background apps with a single button or swipe". That is NOT needed on this phone, but it's a nice "to have" option, but it doesn't affect the overall performance of the OS itself. Yes, you might say it does because you can clear out the background apps, but in reality, those apps are NOT running. I don't want to get into the specifics of android app management, but those apps you see in the "recent apps" history are NOT running. They are suspended and not taking up ANY CPU cycles, what-so-ever. If they happen to be, then it's a poorly written app, and it means the dev knowingly circumvented the Android OS app management process which is a big no-no. In that case, you should go back to the dev of the app and demand they fix that.
But, you are free not to install the ROM. That's fine and that's your choice, but it just irks me when I see people make complaints like this who probably have no idea what the software development life cycle is all about. To me, fixing bugs right now is the main issue, not adding pretty enhancements to the OS.
And who's to say they aren't working on what you ask, especially if you ask for fixes to major issues (such as battery life, radio, etc)?
Remember, these are UNOFFICIAL releases. They are based off of AOSP source which is pretty much device-agnostic except when it comes to Nexus devices since those are Google devices and therefore, the AOSP source is built for those type of devices.
Android is completely different from iOS. iOS is built for a set of hardware that doesn't have much variance like Android does. Hence, that is why Apple controls both the software AND the hardware of iPhones. It means less fragmentation across devices, but it also means, they decide what is best and you have no way of getting the source.
Google releases the source for Android so you CAN have these custom ROMs built. But, because one Android device has a different hardware configuration from another (CPU and GPU's being the biggest ones), then anything that can take advantage of the hardware architecture for a particular phone means having to change the AOSP source to use any of those "advantages" from that hardware. Which then means, that source no longer works on other phones, only for the phone they modified it for.
So, give the devs some slack, please. They are working hard on it and it's not one dev. If it were, then give the guy even MORE slack. The source for Android is over 12gb along. That is where it's not even compiled. And, compiling the android source generally takes about 90 minutes. So, each "fix" they do requires recompiling (90 minutes) and then testing.
Then, more than likely, the "fix" either didn't work or it possibly broke something else. That means, going back, determining the issue, fixing it, recompiling (wait another 90 minutes) and test again.
That all takes time, people. We developers are NOT magicians, even though it might seem like it.
So, try to imagine trying to fix all the big bugs that you know about, then have to come here, read through ALL the posts and then log those requests down, prioritize them based on all the other work you have, make those changes, recompile, test, etc. It's not a easy and it gets frustrating. But believe me, when we do fix an issue or are able to give the users what they want, we get an extreme amount of satisfaction knowing that we were able to satisfy the "customer".
So please, be careful what you state about devs. Those that do read here usually have thick skins, but complain enough, and they might just quit and then you have nothing.
I understand where people are coming from, but you've been blaming the devs when it's not their fault. Again, the android source is huge and it takes more than one person to work on it. Especially if they are responsible for more than one device. Some devs are working on source for more than just this phone. So, add that to what I already stated and hopefully, you can begin to understand what the devs are going through.
Hi,
I'd like to get some very important info from Remix OS dev team.
Users unrelated to the dev team or with no android-x86 OS dev experience, please DO NOT attempt to answer these questions.
Could you please make a thorough guide on how to report bugs, suggestions, feature requests and hardware incompatibilites?
Which tools should we use to report bugs or hardware problems - be precise please. Current feedback form seems very modest and inefficient.
Except for bug description and device info should we provide a full logcat, dmesg, per-app logcat - please point out the most effective way to report this stuff.
Where should we post feature requests or suggestions?
I personally think, that e-mails or forum threads are really inefficient for this. I'd recommend using Uservoice service (https://uservoice.com) or something familiar . Example of uservoice usage in practice: https://touchpal.uservoice.com/ There are plenty of web services like these and they are very powerful and efficient.
Perhaps there is a web service that would help making an official list of supported hardware?
Remix OS, Android-x86 and Phoenix OS all base pretty much on the same ground here, so they could share same list, but none of these actually has a nice, neat tool to report supported hardware. Except for a list of officially supported devices, it's a total mess.
I know that ChromeOS with android apps support and upcoming Android releases may be groundbreaking for whole Android-x86 related projects, but if we mobilize ourselfs and use all resources efficiently, I'm pretty sure Remix OS can become very popular and liked. Devs - help us, users, help you achieve that.
Right now it seems like you don't really care about other devices compatibility or about what people may report. If you did, you would provide better tools for that in order to do your work more efficiently. Don't take it as offense, it's just cirtical point of view.
Please optimize that - this will help speed up the development process and community contact a ton.
Please reply Remix OS, Jide, @RemixOS_Cameron , @RemixOS_Guannan , @RemixOS_Jason , @RemixOS_Josh , @RemixOS_Joshua , @RemixOS_Valentina , @AmoraRei
Hey Ventricle,
Thanks for the message and the suggestions!
Currently:
We have the help center setup for general inquires as well as leaving technical feedback here: http://support.jide.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
We also have a google form specifically set up for Remix OS for PC users: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1WMRbcwDqcoZ1vyUq68AJKCYvXBGvUIEvbgHhuySrUUc/viewform
On products like Remix Mini, clicking on the power options will allow you to "Report a problem" and then "Submit feedback". This will also send a user log along with the report.
We also actually read through almost every one of these threads for bug reports and feature requests. As for hardware incompatibilities, we accumulate a list based on the comments here as well as in our google group (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/remix-os-for-pc). However, these incompatibilities are much trickier to tackle as the hardware configurations are so varied and diverse.
However, I will admit that the user feedback process can be better. We'll work on a more streamlined process, write up an easy to follow guide and then we'll post it here in XDA as well as other channels.
Thanks again for your comments. We clearly need the support of our user community as we grow. Sometimes, in the process of growing as a young company, processes need to keep getting better or else we fall behind. Appreciate the reminder and I'll drop you a note after we've created the guide.
Best,
Jason
@RemixOS_Jason that's great, thanks. I'm looking forward to your actions.
A little overhaul in this part of Remix development can have a powerful impact and spare so much time both for the devs and the users.
Wysłane z mojego Nexus 4 przy użyciu Tapatalka
@RemixOS_Jason I've just checked how feedback for Phoenix OS looks like and they're ahead of you! Anyway, this is what I think is better than just e-mails, forms and forums - http://www.phoenixos.com/feedback/page/1
Unfortunetly they don't have everything translated to English yet, but I hope this will change.
Just a suggestion from my side.
UPDATE:
Phoenix is definitely not ahead, so I take my words back. The feedback page is still a mess and all bushy (Chinese).
Ventricle said:
@RemixOS_Jason I've just checked how feedback for Phoenix OS looks like and they're ahead of you! Anyway, this is what I think is far better than just e-mails and forums - http://www.phoenixos.com/feedback/page/1
Unfortunetly they don't have everything translated to English yet, but I hope this will change.
Just a suggestion from my side.
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I fail to see how that is any better that Jide's feedback forms form1/form2 or the submit a request
That page from PhoenixOS looks just like a nonsensical mess that there team would need a crystal ball to decipher what the posters 'issues' are.
HypoTurtle said:
I fail to see how that is any better that Jide's feedback forms form1/form2 or the submit a request
That page from PhoenixOS looks just like a nonsensical mess that there team would need a crystal ball to decipher what the posters 'issues' are.
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It's true that the page looks a bit chaotic and as if people don't suggest anything useful (technical) to devs - but THATS BECAUSE THERE ARE NO GUIDELINES. And of course it looks like alpha state feedback page which isn't even translated to English yet. The description text area in Remix feedback form is like those suggestions on Phoenix feedback page - it's simply bad, because it doesn't hint people how they should describe things and what should be mentioned.
I didn't say Phoenix feedback is perfect, I'm only suggesting what direction is good in my opinion. TouchPal uservoice page looks awesome and you can see that devs read these reports and they let you know wheter they will add something or fix it. Also it lets community decide which things should be dealth with first - by upvoting them.
The forms you mentioned seem quite inefficient to me (except the booting problems one - it's great) - you can only describe a bug or a problem, you can't attach any error files and the forms don't ask what camera, audio, bluetooth devices you have. What's important - after you send it, you will never get a notification about anything coming to life - you can only hope that the next OS release will include fixes you need.
I've spoken to few devs and they usually need logcats dmesg files and as much HW info as possible. This form is just too poor to provide nice information and a gazzilion of people can report the same thing.
Instead, I'd rather visit f.e remixos.uservoice.com search if someone has the same problem as me and then if I find it, I'd upvote it and maybe add a comment. In other case, I'd post a new "ticket" following specially written guidelines on how to report/suggest stuff.
To sum up, feedback needs:
1. Guidelines on how to report (error files, which apps to reproduce etc.)
2. Anti-redundancy filter - upvoting existing feedback reports
3. More direct contact with devs - by them replying to feedback when it's a major or very popular issue (then it's not a waste of dev team's time, because it's like replying to hundreds or thousands of people) and ITS PUBLIC.
4. After a new version of system is released, the devs should also point volunteer testers to what they should focus on in testing.
Trust me, this may seem like devs will have to focus on community instead of real work, but actually if this is better designed and more efficient, they will eventually spend way less time on it then they might now.
Also using Google Groups to get to the community is a mediocre measure in my opinion. I get that it's free, has google class stability and requires almost no time to maintain or set up, but it's hugely inefficient, chaotic and inconvenient.
Remember, I only want to help improve Remix, so I suggest what may be better. I'm on Jide's side, specially now when they have Android-x86 founder working with them.
Ventricle said:
Hi,
I'd like to get some very important info from Remix OS dev team.
Users unrelated to the dev team or with no android-x86 OS dev experience, please DO NOT attempt to answer these questions.
Could you please make a thorough guide on how to report bugs, suggestions, feature requests and hardware incompatibilites?
Which tools should we use to report bugs or hardware problems - be precise please. Current feedback form seems very modest and inefficient.
Except for bug description and device info should we provide a full logcat, dmesg, per-app logcat - please point out the most effective way to report this stuff.
Where should we post feature requests or suggestions?
I personally think, that e-mails or forum threads are really inefficient for this. I'd recommend using Uservoice service (https://uservoice.com) or something familiar . Example of uservoice usage in practice: https://touchpal.uservoice.com/ There are plenty of web services like these and they are very powerful and efficient.
Perhaps there is a web service that would help making an official list of supported hardware?
Remix OS, Android-x86 and Phoenix OS all base pretty much on the same ground here, so they could share same list, but none of these actually has a nice, neat tool to report supported hardware. Except for a list of officially supported devices, it's a total mess.
I know that ChromeOS with android apps support and upcoming Android releases may be groundbreaking for whole Android-x86 related projects, but if we mobilize ourselfs and use all resources efficiently, I'm pretty sure Remix OS can become very popular and liked. Devs - help us, users, help you achieve that.
Right now it seems like you don't really care about other devices compatibility or about what people may report. If you did, you would provide better tools for that in order to do your work more efficiently. Don't take it as offense, it's just cirtical point of view.
Please optimize that - this will help speed up the development process and community contact a ton.
Please reply Remix OS, Jide, @RemixOS_Cameron , @RemixOS_Guannan , @RemixOS_Jason , @RemixOS_Josh , @RemixOS_Joshua , @RemixOS_Valentina , @AmoraRei
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Hey Ventricle,
Again, thanks for your comments on our communication channels. I've consolidated our feedback channels into their core functions and how one can access them. In short, we're constantly trying to improve so we'll take a step back and evaluate how this can be done better. As of now, here is the short guide on how to communicate with us most effectively:
Feedback/bugs channels
Remix OS for PC: Google form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeqaTBTPzHgjwUKtn08zUDusKTYXQtG8mLczmo7D6bDgd_17A/viewform
Remix Mini: Go to power options, select â??Report a problemâ?
Remix Ultratablet: Go to power options, select â??Report a problemâ?
Feature requests/suggestions
Help Center: http://support.jide.com/hc/en-us/requests/new
Official list of supported hardware
Remix OS for PC
Google group: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/remix-os-for-pc
Thanks and I hope this helps,
Jason
Could we have a development road map somewhere please? I would like to know what the devs are working on and where we are heading. I would like to know what to expect in a future release. At least what's the plan in general terms. I feel it's a bit too quiet when we talk about future releases/versions/patches.
Still no improvement?
@RemixOS_Cameron , @RemixOS_Guannan , @RemixOS_Jason , @RemixOS_Josh , @RemixOS_Joshua , @RemixOS_Valentina , @AmoraRei
Still no improvement in how you gather feedback and still no guidelines for reporting issues and giving the feedback. Why is that? This is as important as education is for a country - no education means slow or no development.
If you invest just a little more effort and time into what I suggest, I guarantee you huge improvement in feedback value and that will result in faster development. Also this will truly involve users in the development and make them want to support the idea even more.
If you don't like the Uservoice methods then I suggest you making a seprate repository on GitHub called f.e Remix OS feature requests, Remix OS problem reports, Remix OS hardware incompatibilities etc.
In these repositories, people could make Issues that your actual devs could assign to future builds or at least they would acknowledge them - people would actually feel like devs really read their feedback!
This way, people would also be able to sign under existing issues instead of duplicating them. Just like here:
https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues/878
Look just how awesome this can be:
https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues
I honestly can't understand why you neglect this part of Remix OS.
It's beyond my imagination how a company like this uses such inefficient feedback tools.
I know you use Zendesk for feature requests, but doesn't it have an option to make requests public? It'd avoid duplication of requests. Maybe it's possible to view all reports; both feature requests and problem reports? But users just don't know about it?
It could be so much better with the tools I mentioned. Come on... use them!
Please reply and let me know what you think of my suggestions.
dag u done tagged everybody ?. I see u and I forward ur message.
Ventricle said:
@RemixOS_Cameron , @RemixOS_Guannan , @RemixOS_Jason , @RemixOS_Josh , @RemixOS_Joshua , @RemixOS_Valentina , @AmoraRei
Still no improvement in how you gather feedback and still no guidelines for reporting issues and giving the feedback. Why is that? This is as important as education is for a country - no education means slow or no development.
If you invest just a little more effort and time into what I suggest, I guarantee you huge improvement in feedback value and that will result in faster development. Also this will truly involve users in the development and make them want to support the idea even more.
If you don't like the Uservoice methods then I suggest you making a seprate repository on GitHub called f.e Remix OS feature requests, Remix OS problem reports, Remix OS hardware incompatibilities etc.
In these repositories, people could make Issues that your actual devs could assign to future builds or at least they would acknowledge them - people would actually feel like devs really read their feedback!
This way, people would also be able to sign under existing issues instead of duplicating them. Just like here:
https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues/878
Look just how awesome this can be:
https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome/issues
I honestly can't understand why you neglect this part of Remix OS.
It's beyond my imagination how a company like this uses such inefficient feedback tools.
I know you use Zendesk for feature requests, but doesn't it have an option to make requests public? It'd avoid duplication of requests. Maybe it's possible to view all reports; both feature requests and problem reports? But users just don't know about it?
It could be so much better with the tools I mentioned. Come on... use them!
Please reply and let me know what you think of my suggestions.
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@Ventricle - After receiving your message, I shared your suggestions with our PMs, engineering team and customer support. Long story short is, they are trying to work out the feasibility, the timing and the execution of your suggestions. Although I cannot confirm at this time if and when these changes will be made, I can tell you that it's not something they haven't thought of. It does come down to the internal planning, human resource allocation and execution. Thus, please give me a few days to reply to you about your suggestions. Thanks again for pushing us to improve!
Jason
Sure thing @RemixOS_Jason ,I understand it completely. Just you saying that gives the community the sense that improvements are coming.
I'm looking forward to your follow up on this issue.
Some high hopes there!
Cheers,
Karol
UPDATE:
Got a very informative and valuable quote from @RemixOS_Jason here:
RemixOS_Jason said:
@alz_uk - Wow! It's pretty clear you have it in your mind that we are quite an evil, greedy company! Not sure if I can make a dent in your opinion, but I thought it prudent to give you a transparent answer:
As @Vioner and other users have pointed out to us, they'd like to see a different user feedback system. However, we designed it because we in the International (meaning outside of China) PR, marketing and customer support team is two full time staff and 2 part time interns. This means that our resources are limited.
Thus, the way the system is currently designed is for us to:
1) gather feedback - this is what this form is for: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1cZNesOmnmO2esilFpvMzFZ874rvwsiKgWIX2fo9QsDk/viewform
2) organize the feedback regularly - once a week, my colleague organizes all the feedback into topics and sections and prioritizes them based on volume of reported bugs, issues, and compatibility with specific devices. This includes issues like the audio over HDMI, black screen, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, gaming, app specific, etc. Device specific is numerous, but consider this: currently we support roughly 65% of the PCs out in the wild. This means that there will be 35% of the PCs that just don't work for one reason or another yet. That also means that for every person with a PC that doesn't work, there are around 2 people whose PC does work. With a small dedicated engineering staff as well, we try to tackle these issues from a platform point of view. Thus, you've seen in some updates the fact that we worked on GPUs that were vendor or brand specific, rather than only tackle one specific set of hardware components in a reported device. This is where the feedback form helps us to gather data so that we focus on fixing the issues that affect the widest range of users first.
3) send the feedback to the engineers - when it reaches the devs, they tweak our prioritization order based on what's feasible and what's not in the short and long term. Thus, you can be certain that we know about outstanding audio issues (we all dogfood our prodcuts and so, there are colleagues who's Remix OS for PC machines also don't have audio coming out). However, if we haven't update with this fix, you can be certain that whatever we've tried haven't passed testing, or is in the process of testing. Thus, there are two layers of what we do with feedback: count them, and then see which ones we can actually fix.
4) The fixes we do come up with must pass internal and external testing.
5) If they do pass, they are put into updates.
The installer issue was pretty simple. Most 3rd party installer do work, but as we gathered feedback from back in Remix OS for PC based Lollipop, our product manager noticed a trend where some of the OTA issues were due to 3rd Party installers. Thus, we put out the message that we couldn't promise that 3rd party installers would work 100% to support future OTAs.
Releasing fixes take time because they need to be tested. If a fix worked for some, but might cause issues for others, we don't release that fix for a stable release. Let's take the black screen issue during installation as a case example. We gathered around 65 users' emails who had this issue during installation. When we had a fix, we sent out emails and a testing ROM just for these folks with the potential fix. After around a week, most reported that their issue was fixed and that they didn't experience any other significant issues after being able to boot Remix OS (outside of some minor app compatibility issues). Thus, after a few more days of testing internally in parallel with this tester group, we rolled into that update. If you didn't see the fix applied in an update yet, it's probably because it didn't pass testing internally, or with their related testers, meaning though some folks' issues got fixed, many did not, or it caused other significant issues.
With limited resources, we do tackle issues from a platform (CPU, GPU, broadcom wireless chip, etc.) and not focus on your device, or his device or her device specific. We also work with the patches that are given out by the Android-x86 team (of which their founder, Chih-Wei Huang actually is our tech lead on Remix OS for PC) as can be evident by the update that integrated their latest release (rc2). In fact, we are small enough as a startup that we welcome our user developers assistance. So much so that I'm trying to work on making GitHub a place where interested developers can work on projects with us (where applicable since most of Remix OS is closed source). This is how much we actually need your development help!
In the end, I beg you to consider that people in general post 4-7 times more likely if they have outstanding issues, and not because we fixed any of their issues. Thus (and I know this all too well as the manager of our forums here) it can seem like everything is terrible, that Remix OS for PC just doesn't work for anyone and that no improvement has ever been made, ever. However, I just need to remember that for every 1 person with an issue that we're still trying to resolve, there are many more where the fixes we've implemented have made a difference.
As a startup, having the amount of users we have is a blessing. As a startup, having the amount of users we have with the limited resources, I mean engineers and folks like myself who communicate with the community, has been challenging. But, I ask that instead of giving up on us or spiting us for being a "mind game" playing, evil, greedy company, that you work with us to make a difference.
It wasn't that long ago that we had users who called us out on forums and tell we needed to improve our feedback system, and they're right. I'm working on improving it to offer more transparency into the process without increasing our workload to the point where it's not sustainable. Those same users who called us out are now working with us to improve through our Ambassador program. So, the challenge is, can you help us rather than just spite us? Running a startup in the industry we're in isn't easy, but it's something we're passionate about. Clearly we can still get better. Please help us.
Thanks,
Jason Zheng
Head of International PR, and Community Management at Jide Technology
I'm also frequently on our Facebook page and Twitter page
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