Now that Alpha 1 is out the door the different bits are starting to come together. We’ve got the compiz-based Unity in people’s hands, now it’s time to start the feature work and testing.
The Desktop Experience team is building the base; but there are plenty of other parts that need to be done. Keep in mind that these parts are just as important and a critical piece of the entire user experience.
When you pick up a Fender Geddy Lee Jazz Bass everything is as It Should Be(tm). The attention to detail is evident in every part of the bass. No one wants a cool looking instrument that sounds like slop, and no one wants an instrument that sounds amazing but can’t stay in tune. The person who does the seemingly unimportant part of polishing the neck takes their job as seriously as the person choosing the wood, or the person wiring the pickups. When you add all that up you get something magical. So what does this have to do with Ubuntu?
For developers we’re kicking off a Bitesize Bug campaign. Over the next few months we will be specifically finding small, easy to digest bugs that are just as important to the experience as the person doing the plumbing. This list will continue to grow and will contain not only fixes, but feature work as well, now’s the time to get involved if you want to get involved. Here’s a sample of some of the type of bugs we’re looking at:
- Bug 677577 - Clicking on a launcher icon does not raise most recent window
- Bug 646740 - indicators are mis-aligned
- Bug 683241 - Recycle bin icon is empty when there are items in the bin
- Bug 683466 - There are 2 Quit menu options in Quicklist
- Bug 599716 - having “unity —replace” would be nice
- Bug 681428 - scrolling does not work on the sound menu
So how can people fix these?
- Run Natty. You can either do this by running Alpha 1 on your bare metal or creating a USB key for this purpose. I’ve added documentation to that page so you can install a development environment on it so you can hack on code and keep the entire updated Unity environment on the key itself.
- Pick a bug from the list.
- Follow these instructions.
- Your work will be reviewed by someone on the DX team, after they review your code they will instruction you on what to do next.
- Celebrate!
- Go to step 1.
Expect regular weekly progress reports from me on the rock star craftspeople working on these bugs. The list of bugs will continually be updated, and now that Alpha 1 is out the door expect a nice steady stream of bitesize bugs that people can contribute fixes to.
Need help? Find us on #ayatana on Freenode, or the ayatana-dev mailing list.