[Libreoffice-qa] minutes of ESC call ...

[Cor Nouws]

Hi Stephan,

Stephan Bergmann wrote (28-11-12 10:06)

>> Can one of you please tell me if there is a different result when one
>> does what you did and between manually copying the user profile to the
>> new versions' user directory?
>
> You mean, "rm -rf ~/.config/lodev/4 && mkdir -p ~/.config/lodev && cp -a
> ~/.config/libreoffice/3 ~/.config/lodev/4"?  This can be problematic for
> various reasons:

thanks for the explanation (and warning for my personal use ;-) )

>>> IMHO, the question is if we really need to spend resources on special
>>> dialog or special support. Note that we do not migrate configuration
>>> between minor releases. So this testing is needed only once every few
>>> years.
>>
>> On the other hand, also between minor release there may be differences
>> that interfere with the user-profile.
>> Therefore testing it with a new and with the existing user profile make
>> sense, IMO.
>
> Indeed.  One more reason why I think it is better to have QA people know
> the underlying mechanisms so they can make educated decisions how to set
> up their tests scenarios, than to try and have an automated mechanism
> for LOdev builds.

Still, we may not expect from all people doing tests, that they will (be 
able/willing to spend time to) understand/learn that.

   [Jumping to an earlier mail]
Stephan Bergmann wrote (24-11-12 11:40)

> Whether a given installation should try to migrate from certain existing
> user profiles, should start with a fresh user profile of its own, should
> reuse some existing user profile, etc., certainly varies depending on
> what you want to do/test with that installation.

ok... but as we have very clear from the above, there is a difference 
between LOdevs for a minor/micro and those for a major release.

> Given that testing migration from existing user profiles generally

(there is the other scenario beside migration ... see further below)

> requires manual activity anyway (to remove potentially existing MIGRATED
> flag files from existing user profiles), I wonder whether it would not
> make most sense to drop LOdev's special handling of user profiles

Special in the sense that is uses a special path?
(Sorry, I missed that)

> and instead educate people on how to manually set up an installation's
> user profile behavior to suit their specific needs:
>
> * If the installation should use a private user profile of its own,
> adapt the UserInstallation URL in the bootstrap ini-file to point to
> some private location.
>
> * If the installation should test migration of existing old profiles,
> remove any existing MIGRATED flag files from old profiles.

And in the case of a minor/micro release, another scenario is the re-use 
of the current user profile.

And isn't this what is the point in the discussion, to provide an easy 
way (i.e UI) in those LOdevs to import the existing profile for testing 
minor/micro releases?
I agree that at this point we have to consider the gain (more testers 
can easily try LODevs with existing user data) against the costs.

> up their tests scenarios, than to try and have an automated mechanism
> for LOdev builds.

(Side note: I expect that most do testing without automated mechanisms.)

Cheers,

Cor


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