Options for patching older Gramps version

Development
1

@codefarmer asked a good question after a patch created by @kku was posted to MantisBT as General type Addon. (Thanks Kari!)

He asked whether it would have been better to post as a PR rather than as an patching Addon?

And, at first glance, that seems the ‘right’ way because it will be a permanent fix. But there are several drawbacks:

  1. there is a long leadtime for bug fix releases for the core application and longer yet for enhancements.
  2. only a small portion of the community can build a Gramps installation from source. So a narrow cross-section of users
  3. the patch will only be applied to active branches. (So users stranded on old versions will not have access to PR-based fixes.)

So perhaps a new testing protocol is warranted? If a change can be posted as a “beta” status Addon, the first step could be to release as an Addon for the current general release. After it passes some field testing, it can be submitted as a PR. And also as a “stable” status addon for as many versions of Gramps as viable, but that the PR will cannot reach.

This would have an added benefit. It will give developers experience creating a GENERAL type addon.

Reference:

  • 0013146: Manage Family Trees dialog does not re-focus on selected tree after Sort (key column or direction) change
2

Re: [1] (I took the liberty of inserting numbers for easy reference), I agree with your observation about the time lag, but that should not preclude creating the PR for Gramps core and I would encourage that in this case.

Implementing @dsblank’s suggestion of moving to faster releases, and even nightly builds would alleviate the lag between PR and release.

If you’re proposing to test a fix/enhancement as an addon first (if it were indeed possible) and then get it ready for Gramps core, feels like a lot of effort, and will require two implementations. I would not be in favor. Apart from the effort issue, back-porting a fix to older builds as an addon (when possible) is a nice strategy!

Ideally, with the pace of enhancements coming in Gramps 6.x, I would imagine that our community would want to move to the newer releases rather than stay with the old even though I understand some people may hold out for various reasons.

3

Thanks. Revised to use numbered list rather than bullet points.