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Outdated Official PortableAppsSubmitted by scriptdaemon on June 23, 2009 - 3:55am
Pre-Release: Outdated: Not Planned: Note: Comments will be deleted as they are addressed ( categories: )
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Audacity
Audacity, though y'all don't like beta, even if it's in name only. But Audacity 1.3.x is solid stuff, actually works better than 1.2.x. But hey, isn't Platform 2.0 Beta 3 more viable for most people than Platform 1.5.2? Just sayin.
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What Beta Means
If it's not stable/complete/done in the eyes of the Audacity team (which is what 'beta' means), then we won't update to it either.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Fair enough
Fair enough, since it's trivial enough and perfectly legal to get the latest 1.3.x build running portably. I think it's just a matter of swapping out the files in the app\audacity folder for the ones in the ZIP release, the launcher still works fine.
In any case, what beta is supposed to mean and how it's used are two different things. The latest beta of the Platform is totally ready for prime time and its features over 1.5.2 are worth more than any of its added shortcomings (are there any?) take away. (Same with Audacity.) Microsoft is supposed to be one of the best with versioning and whatnot, but while their betas and RCs need work, so do their retail releases. XP was no good until Service Pack 1. SP1 made Vista a lot better, though still not good enough for my computer. And I suspect Win7 is going to be no better at retail than its beta.
And what if something stays in beta for years, despite being perfectly fine? VLC did this (with sub-1.0 version numbers) and it's been preferable since 0.7, I think, to a lot of media players.
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At this point
Audacity 1.2.6 is 3 years old.
I haven't bothered with the version on our site for a long, long time.
There have been seven 1.3.x releases since the last 1.2.x release, and all of them have, in reality, been more stable (i.e., less crash-prone, faster, etc) than any 1.2.x release.
I rely on Audacity for both school projects and work projects, and wouldn't think of using 1.2.6, since it doesn't even have simple features such as a digital time display! - oh, and it tends to crash.
I understand your philosophy, but I can't possibly wait until the Audacity team finally decides to release 1.4 to upgrade! Seriously, I'd be surprised if that happens before 2011.
So it looks like I'll be using their zip release as portable. Even if I do the swaparooney that Nathan suggests, it's probably not going to be as clean and portable as it would be if a PortableApps.com developer did it correctly, but I really can't afford to wait another 2+ years.
Harmony and understanding; sympathy and trust abounding;
Mystic crystal revelations and the mind's true liberation.
Perpetual Beta
Yeah, I'm not a fan of perpetual beta. It's a cop out.
From the Audacity site:
So, for our purposes to end users, we can't switch to 1.3.9 as official. I spose we could make the beta available as well. But it won't hit with the updater, since the updater will be using 1.2.x.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Not just a cop-out
It's not really a cop-out at all. It's an unregulated system (versioning) that means different things to different people.
For Audacity, from that quote, it seems like they're only willing to update their documentation and translations every 4-5 years, and their better, more feature-rich, more stable releases get the beta tag, when it's not really appropriate.
I agree with the idea of having beta releases. Obviously you don't want to do all the Firefox nightlies, that's fine, but for something like Audacity it would be appropriate. (And I'm using 1.3.7, I guess it's not even the latest version, so I'll have to update when I get home, but no hurry, this one does all I need, 90% of which is making ringtones.)
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Translations
The biggest issue would be around translations... much moreso than documentation. Having the app not fully translated is a disservice to the non-English users.
So, like I said, we can probably do it alongside the official stable release, but it won't be the one pushed to users by default or work with the updater since the updater would be pushing the 1.2.x version.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Update translations
Wouldn't translating it be mostly trivial since the previous version is already translated? I have a basic idea of how translating works. You have a file which is named for the language it's supposed to be in, with a list of words and phrases, followed by the translated version. App calls file, file provides translated word, app displays word in the local language. Fairly simple. So couldn't we take something like WinMerge, see what's been changed, and rather than put up the whole file for PA.c's translators, just put up the new parts. Then delete the new parts out of the translation file (breaking it), and add the new parts as they get translated. Would that work?
The lack of updater support would be fine. Most of us don't use the updater now. Those that do are working on it, and a few bleeding-edge users. And a couple casual users. The impact of the updater won't be nearly as significant until it's in the platform. Besides, if you know enough to know you want a beta or unsupported version, regardless of how good it may be, you know to look a little harder.
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.
Umm, most stable opensource apps aren't fully translated either. The big and popular ones are, like Firefox, OpenOffice, Thunderbird (there are localized builds). Others (Dia, Notepad++,...) are >90% translated and the smaller ones have less translated strings. The translations are always behind, cause of new features, settings ....
That's my experience with german locales (and German is considered as a major locale), other locales have much less strings translated.
That's life John. IMHO missing translations isn't a showstopper for an app release.
And I'm sorry, but I have to say it:
Forcing users to use an incomplete, bad translated version of an app is a disservice to the non-English users too. And the PortableApps.com platform does that by default.
Feel free to delete this comment.
Difference
Bart.S, there is a huge difference here. Audacity beta isn't even attempted to get the translations done because they wait for a stable version. It's called a beta for a reason.
As for your yet-another-chance-to-take-my-cheap-shot-at-language-switching snark, let it go, dude. It's only you, no-one else. It's not related to this discussion here. It's just you clinging to this idea that it's horribly broken. It's fine for everyone else. It's already disable-able for people who don't like it. It's just you. Stop trying to inject your opinion on this unrelated topic into other discussions. Period. End of story. No reply necessary. No new topic necessary again. No new loop of illogic. Done.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Beta is just a name
The Audacity team declared it as beta because it's a work in progress and not come with complete documentation/translations. You said the biggest issue would be around translations.
Every app is a work in progress and incomplete translations aren't a showstopper, that's what I say. And the other guys said that Audacity 1.3.x is far better than the old "stable" release:
Thus a portable Audacity 1.3.X release would be great.
As for your second paragraph, why are you beating a dead horse and permanently apply all my comments to a past discussion? Remember, you're the one who revive it again and again and again ...
No offense John
Reviving
Bart.S, you plainly said:
You even followed it with stating that a mod can delete your comment if they want. You were reviving the topic, again, in an unrelated thread, again. And you knew you were doing it. Stop it. Keep the Platform out of this. Keep the language switching out of this. Do not bring it up again in your reply to this comment. That part of this discussion is officially over in this thread. You've hijacked dozens of threads in the past trying to do this exact thing and you were told, unequivocally, to stop. Please stop right now. If you're going to mention it again in your reply, at all, in any way, shape or form... do not reply.
As for the beta, if the team behind the app themselves calls it a beta and plainly states that it is only for 'advanced users' (their language) whereas the stable version is for all, then we will absolutely choose the stable version as our main version and always recommend it over the beta. In the case of audacity being a perpetual beta, then I said we could make an exception here and do a 1.3.x release, but that it would not work with the updater when released and the 1.2.x version would be promoted to users over the 1.3.x version.
Keep this on-topic of talking about Audacity 1.3.x beta.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Off-topic
I wrote "Feel free to delete this comment" because this whole Audacity discussion is off-topic, isn't it? The topic is "Outdated Official PortableApps" and Audacity Portable is up-to-date.
And again, feel free to delete this comment.
Peace!
Cleanup
No offense - and apologies to JTH for quoting the part of his post you took issue with - but your English is better than that of most native speakers, though as I understand learning English in Germany is mandatory...? So, why is it an issue? Not the app-switching stuff, let's leave that tangent alone. I mean, I know it's arrogant, as an American, to suggest "everyone learn English", but if you can read this site enough to work with it, are the translations really all that big a deal? I am pretty sure I can set just about any app's language to German and still use it. Well, some of the menu stuff might confuse me, but a lot of programs use icons, and those are almost universally understandable.
Audacity does have a lot of complex options, though, but even if the old translation were used, it should still cover most of it.
I couldn't agree more. Video games used to be the exception, but with the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, even games get bug fixes and updates (aside from downloadable content like maps and songs - Rock Band 2, e.g., just got an update to sort songs by score). The difference between a beta and a work in progress is that a beta is a work in progress which has known problems and/or is incomplete. I strongly feel that this does not apply to Audacity 1.3.7. (Didn't get around to updating to 1.3.9 yet.)
No, it isn't off-topic, because whether Audacity Portable is up to date is in question. Realistically, it is outdated by the current beta, which has been reported to be more stable, and has newer features people want. Technically it is not outdated because the official PA version is the last version listed as "stable" by the Audacity team, even though that is less than wholly correct.
This topic gets purged of replies every so often, so it will be done, I would imagine. Once JTH makes an official portable release of the latest beta, or decides against it, all the comments about Audacity are likely to disappear. It has been purged once or twice before.
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It's a multilingual world!
and we're not talking about me!
(And I'm not talking about the platform or the language switching. *waves to John*)
Say you're a multilingual user speaking language A, B, C (and more). You have different apps:
What is your choice? Say you're an A native and prefer B over C, you choose maybe:
App 1 in A, App 2 in B, App 3 in C, ... . Ergo, you don't choose all apps in the same language.
It's a multilingual world and it will never be an english only world. That's a fact!
Although...
Although the English (and later English-speakers) spent considerable resources to make it so.
Semi-related tangent: the beloved but canceled sci-fi show Firefly. America and China end up dominating the world (I'd like to think they saved it from something and were appointed, rather than they teamed up and took over), which became overpopulated, so they set off to find other worlds. While all characters speak both English and Chinese, they speak English mostly (because it was an American show, I believe) but they put it best when they said English is the language of trade.
While a lot of tech companies operate out of Japan, they must include English because America, Australia, the UK, and other English-speaking places are too big to pass up, though most of their electronic toys don't leave their country. (Some we might want, some we don't, and some we can't legally import.)
What I'm getting at, I'll never hold it against a program for not supporting other languages. I think it's admirable when apps support many languages (being a big fan of the concept of world peace, which requires communication), but I would never consider the lack of a translation a barrier to get it in its native language. (Inversely, if it's only in German or French or Japanese or whatever and it is that damn good, those who don't speak the language can figure it out until the translation is done.)
It is a multilingual world, but it's a world made up of individuals, and most individuals only know one language. Many know two. I would say those who know three or more are in a minority, albeit a commendable one.
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...
Alright, so where are the Tipp10 Portable testers?
Sorry for going completely off-topic (and for the self-promotion)
Back to the Audacity discussion
We've gone a bit off-topic, and nearly off the right side of the page.
It seems that JTH had an acceptable compromise, but when the issue of translations in beta versions came up, we kind of fell down a rabbit hole with a discussion of the merits of translating software.
As far as I know, PA.c isn't responsible for providing the translations of the original SW, we use whatever the original developer has seen fit to provide.
And so if we choose to release a beta version, with all the caveats that go with a beta version, we wouldn't be responsible for including more translations than the original developer provides.
As for Audacity, if you read their site, there is an ongoing project to translate the current 1.3.9 beta version - in anticipation of the someday release of the 1.4 series.
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/community/translation
By my count, it's already got over 40 languages, and explicit instructions on how to install the language files, or to create a language file if your language is not represented (they are looking for volunteers!).
So, the bottom line is, will we release Audacity 1.3.9 as a beta alternative to 1.2.6?
Harmony and understanding; sympathy and trust abounding;
Mystic crystal revelations and the mind's true liberation.
Yes
We're gonna do Audacity beta but it won't be the suggested download (an alternate).
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!
Yay ...should be fairly easy
Yay
...should be fairly easy since they've introduced native portability in the latest betas.
Quamquam omniam nescio, nec nihil scio.
Exciting
This is very exciting. Thank you (for when I finally see it).
Awesome
Can't wait.
I am not my signature.
Yay!!!
can't wait. Long time coming.