fluff v0.90 bugs

[jur]

All tcl3.6rc3:

1. fluff closes when using an empty clipboard to paste
2. fluff fails to copy & paste hidden files such as .conkyrc. from one mounted drive to another. (Booted from usb stick, wanted to get my .conkyrc from /mnt/sda5.)
3. The edit button disappears when the relevant file is a shell script. How am I going to edit the file?
4. The Paste button greys out when changing drives after pressing to copy button, but paste still works (IF the file isn't a hidden one).




EDIT: Edited title to more accurately reflect the issue, as there was no change to fluff in 3.6rc3

[MikeLockmoore]

Jur: Thanks for the reports.  I will try to reproduce and fix as many as I can for TC 3.6.  I don't have TC 3.6rc3 installed yet, but I guess that these issues will still appear under TC 3.5.1, so I will start there.

Some clarifications, if you could help me understand more fully:

1. How do you use Paste if the clipboard is empty?  EDIT: I noticed a crash if I use Ctrl+V keystroke combo.  It should be fixable. 

3. Did you loose a file association for the shell script file type?  Right-click the status bar and select "Filetypes".  Do you still see shell script in the list?  If you open the "Associations" do you still have an edit command defined?  If not, can you add one?

4. What does "changing drives" mean more precisely?

[jur]

1: Right-click on right panel and select Paste - -> crash.
3: I think it might be handy if the edit command stayed by default for most/all file types, and file actions could be added. At last for shell scripts, the edit button could remain.
4: Click on say sda2 in left panel, select a file for copying, press copy, Paste button become active, now click say sdb1 in left panel, Copy button is greyed out.

[edit]All of the above behaviour I saw while booted from the usb stick. Last night I checked when booted from the HD but could not reproduce the behaviour. I will have to check again later using the usb stick.

[Guy]

I don't want to be discouraging or critical. I think fluff is an improvement to Tiny Core. Keep up the good work.

However, when I have used fluff, I have experienced things not working properly. So I gave up using it, and use xfe.

I saw on another page, there is a newer version of fluff available. Consider updating to that.

I then think there should be much more testing of fluff.

I don't remember much of the details, as I gave up using it. Just going from memory.

Copy and paste is one example. Sometimes it does not work properly.

Sometimes fluff closes unexpectedly.

I think "use sudo" does not work. I think it is best to remove it. People who want to use sudo, can start it using "sudo fluff."

I suggest, update to the latest version, and fix the bugs you know about.

Then encourage people to test it.

[MikeLockmoore]

Hello Guy.  I am trying to fix the bugs I know about.  Like all software, developer(s) can more quickly and more thoroughly fix bugs if they have good, specific information from users, especially if the user is able and willing to provide concise instructions for reproducing the problem.  I very much appreciate it when people like Jur take the time and effort to post their problems and information about how it happened.  I have already identified a flaw in the Fluff code that leads to the segfault problem Jur reported in the first item of the list.  I expect to post a new version that fixes at least this one problem within a few days.  Maybe I can also reproduce and troubleshoot the other problems too.  We shall see.

More general reports of problems or dislikes, such as the things you wrote, are taken as feedback, and will be considered when I work on things.  But typically the level of effort I put into troubleshooting and fixing a problem is commensurate with the amount of detail that is reported.  "Copy and paste is one example. Sometimes it does not work properly" is a quick comment this does not motivate me much to dig in and hunt for a bug or design flaw.  Copy and Paste works fairly well for me right now, so I need more detail to understand and fix a situation in which it does not work.

By the way, the 'use sudo' option clearly does work (at least for me) in some circumstances.  I don't know why it does not work for you. 

Yes, I want people to test Fluff! And post descriptions of anything that is broken, misleading, or unexpected.  Also general feedback and suggestions.  But I'm mostly working on it alone, so I can't do everything suggested, of course.

The Core Team decided to include Fluff in the base.  I agreed to that and tried to support that choice by quick turn-around of fixes and suggestions.  But it's true that Fluff is not at mature as some file managers out there, despite the higher visibility.  But it will get more mature more quickly with detailed, high-quality feedback.  Right?

I hope that sounds reasonable.   

I think I've posted many times that I think XFE is a good file manager.  I used it extensively before I got Fluff to the point it was working well for me.  Keep using it if it is what you like and works for you.
--
Mike Lockmoore

[MikeLockmoore]

All of the above behaviour I saw while booted from the usb stick.

Jur: Yes, I hope you try again and let me know if the USB stick session behaves differently.  Do you have any insight as to why?  Maybe file ownership/permission issues?

[jur]

Mike, I booted again from that usb stick but am unable to repeat the paste bugs.  I tried a few things but no, everything works (except for the segfault).

All I can conclude now is that what Guy said seems to be the case.  I definitely had problems, because I tried many times, and finally resorted to using rox. But now, no problem.   

[MikeLockmoore]

Jur:  I appreciate the effort to retry.  Maybe during the earlier problem, the USB stick was mounted in a way that prevented writing?  If it comes up again, maybe try some command-line equivalent commands and see if they work even if Fluff does not.  But if they don't work either, maybe something is going on with the file systems.  If it is a bug in Fluff, it seems sporadic, so it will be hard to catch and fix!   

New Fluff version 0.9.2 prevents paste from happening at invalid times.  I also (re?)added a default edit file association for shell script files.  I will pass this to the core team.  If it is not too late, I hope it will be released for testing in another 3.6 release candidate, 3.6-rc4, speculatively.  The source code is available now at http://retrospectiva.krautsoft.de/projects/useful-lightweight-software/browse/fluff/trunk

[jur]

Mike, I found another obscure bug, encountered when running fluff for the first time:

In a terminal delete (or rename) .fluff.conf. Now open fluff. Right-click on status bar, select file types. Click in the Filetype Name box (which will be empty). Type any character, fluff closes.

I was wondering if the earlier problems I saw was also to do with opening fluff for the first time... so I again deleted .fluff.conf, opened fluff, and tried to reproduce the paste bugs, no success.

[jur]

Another bug:

I am using openbox wm and tint2 panel. When minimising fluff, it closes instead. Same happens when I switch desktops.

[MikeLockmoore]

Jur: Thanks again for the problem reports.  The filetype name bug should be fairly easy to fix.  

For the closing under openbox, are you saying the Fluff stops running (the process disappears)?  Can you tell if it segfaults? (Launch Fluff from a terminal and repeat your test.)  I'm using FLWM, so I don't have much insight into alternative WM issues. Maybe Jakob B. can help me?  Or anyone else who works with a *box WM?

UPDATE: The filetype name bug is fixed.  To create a new filetype, I had intended the user to first click the “Add Type” button, which will pre-fill the type name field. Before the user clicks on “Add Type”, there is not a selected type, so Fluff tries to apply the changed (new) name to a type that does not exist, resulting in a segmentation fault. The fix is to disable the filetype name field and the filetype hint fields whenever the dialog box is first opened, before a hint is selected. Now the user is forced into the sequence I intended if they want to create a new type.  The change will be in Fluff version 0.9.3.  Available now at the same retrospectiva repository http://retrospectiva.krautsoft.de/projects/useful-lightweight-software/browse/fluff/trunk.

[jur]

There were no messages in terminal. It just closes - it is no longer listed under 'ps'.

I suspect is not compliant to the opendesk standard?

[edit] freedesktop.org. not opendesk

[OldAdamUser2]

FWIW -- I think Fluff is coming along beautifully. It is now developed to the point where it entirely replaces emelfm for me, but I still do find times when I prefer mc. The double panels of mc make copying files from one place to another as easy as it is possible to be (though copy-and-paste with Fluff is not much harder)-- and the file-search function in mc is also important.

That said, Fluff has clearly earned its place as the default file manager in TC.

[jur]

2 more fluff bugs:

1. When closing the editor using ctrl-Q, fluff also closes (if there were several editor instances open, this happens on the last one to close).
2. Fluff flickers annoyingly and files in rh panel lose focus when directories are dynamically changing. Good example is while loading an extension, with the focus on /tmp/any-file-in rh-panel.

[Guy]

Here is a fluff bug which you should be able to reproduce.

While running Tiny Core from a usb, or cd, I tried to delete the boot directory of the hard drive.

It cannot be deleted.

It contains a file with root:root owner and rrr permissions.

If I have xfe installed and run it as root, the boot directory can be deleted.