[OpenLayers-Dev] [c.e.m.harrison@cemh.eclipse.co.uk: RE: OpenLayers 2.8 RC2]

Wed May 13 17:51:03 EDT 2009

In the future, please send these things to the list.

----- Forwarded message from C E M Harrison <c.e.m.harrison at cemh.eclipse.co.uk> -----

From: C E M Harrison <c.e.m.harrison at cemh.eclipse.co.uk>
To: Christopher Schmidt <crschmidt at metacarta.com>
Date: Wed, 13 May 2009 22:36:28 +0100
Subject: RE: [OpenLayers-Dev] OpenLayers 2.8 RC2
Reply-To: c.e.m.harrison at macfh.co.uk

Chris,

Sorry, but AFAIAC, I have major concerns about Open Layers at present, not
all of which can definitely be pinned down on RC2, but they are serious
enough to impact my applications, and therefore, I feel they need to be
addressed as part of or before v2.8.  My concern in a nutshell is that, as
far as my applications are concerned, RC2 may be introducing as many or more
bugs than it's fixing.

In all that follows, I am concerned about the behaviour of the two major
applications using OL that I have written, both now using RC2, which show
directional markers on a Google and/or (in the UK) an Ordnancee Survey map.

The first is my Satellite Alignment Calculator that shows where to point a
dish to receive a given satellite:
	http://tinyurl.com/o62x3d
... standing in for ...

http://www.macfh.co.uk/JavaJive/AudioVisualTV/SatelliteTV/SatelliteCalculato
r.html?iWhereHow=C&iUKPost=rg6+4aw

The second is a similar, but of necessity of more complex coding, UK
Terrestrial TV Aerial Alignment page:
	http://tinyurl.com/qq5ylh
... standing in for ...
http://www.macfh.co.uk/Test/UKTerrestrialTVTest.html?iRxWhereHow=C&iRxPost=r
g6+4aw&iRxHeight=10&iTxWhereHow=C&iTxSel=SU527568

Both of these pages have notes to explain the various browser limitations on
their use, which I hope you will read, and the worrying thing is that these
notes are getting longer, not shorter ...

The former page has been running for about six months now.  When I first
published it, using v2.7 (/api/), I tested it exhaustively, so I know for
certain that everything worked flawlessly in FF3, but there were certain
well defined problems in IE6&7 with the Google baselayers shifting as
described in http://trac.openlayers.org/ticket/2078, which I fixed by
disabling all DHTML before creating any maps in IE6&7.

But since then, things seem to have got worse.  I'm certain that all the
following are new problems:

1)	The shifting Google baselayers problem is now cropping up all over the
place.  Something new has definitely been broken.  My latest discovery is
that, at least under RC2, it is invariably caused by using the Print Preview
in FF3, but directly printing the pages has no such effect (work that one
out if you can, it seems totally illogical and bizarre to me).

2)	If you choose to print only selected pages in FF3, the maps are blank,
but if you print the entire document, they print properly.

3)	Still in FF3, in the Satellite Calculator, if you print the Hybrid Base
Layer, the marker is broken  -  literally, it prints in several sections,
which seem to coincide with different tiles, and which may not be colinear
or even all point the same direction!  However, if you reload and select the
Satellite Baselayer, that prints correctly, just as the Hybrid Base Layer
used to do.  Again, the logic of that completely escapes me.

4)	In IE6 (and therefore probably 7), particularly in the more complex
Aerial Alignment Calculator, with either api or RC2, with the Satellite Base
Layer at maximum zoom, you may not even get a marker in print preview,
though if you do it will probably print.  If you do, and if you change
transmitters (likely local ones are Crystal Palace, Guildford, Hemdean,
Midhurst - select them using the mouse, being careful for this test not to
select any others in between, though of course in real life a user may well
do this), the marker is increasingly unlikely to appear in the print
preview, and ultimately may not even appear in the map proper.

5)	There is also the scrolling bug problem, which can very definitely be
ascribed to RC2.  It doesn't happen under 2.7:
	http://trac.openlayers.org/ticket/2054

However, RC2 does fix some of the buggy vector markers problems, though I
find I still need to remove it, destroy it, and recreate it when the Google
Base Layer is changed.

In summary, as far as I am concerned, there seem to be more problems using
OL maps now under RC2 than there were six months ago under 2.7, though how
much is due to say, poorly tested FF version updates, and how much to RC2, I
can't say for sure.  But I desparately need RC2 to deliver much needed
greater reliability, not less.

Not what you wanted to hear, no doubt, but then it wasn't exactly good news
for me, either.

Regards, Charles.

www.macfh.co.uk

>     -----Original Message-----
>     From: dev-bounces at openlayers.org [mailto:dev-bounces at openlayers.org]On
>     Behalf Of Christopher Schmidt
>     Sent: 02 May 2009 23:27
>     To: dev at openlayers.org
>     Subject: [OpenLayers-Dev] OpenLayers 2.8 RC2
>
>
>     The OpenLayers Development Team is proud to announce the
>     second release
>     candidate of OpenLayers 2.8!
>
>     RC2 closes an additional small number of bugs in the 2.8 Release.
>     We invite you to help us test the 2.8 release candidate! To
>     test 2.8 in
>     your applications, include the following tag in your
>     OpenLayers-powered
>     page:
>
>      <script
>     src="http://openlayers.org/api/2.8-rc2/OpenLayers.js"></script>
>
>     As always, the source is available at http://openlayers.org/download/.
>     Bug reports can be filed in Trac, under the 2.8 version and milestone.
>
>     For information on possible changes that will need to be made between
>     this version of OpenLayers and previous versions, please look at the
>     Release notes, available at the Release Notes information[1].
>
>     We look forward to your feedback on this release.
>
>     [1]
>     http://trac.openlayers.org/wiki/Release/2.8/Notes#CompatibilityNotes
>
>     Regards,
>     --
>     Christopher Schmidt
>     MetaCarta
>     _______________________________________________
>     Dev mailing list
>     Dev at openlayers.org
>     http://openlayers.org/mailman/listinfo/dev

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
Christopher Schmidt
MetaCarta