Mega Gripe Concerning at Least the Last Three Builds

[Agent-0013]

Not gonna worry about font or text size at this time, as that has no importance to me. What I will be worried about is the foreseeable future of what used to be a well coded modeling program, which I used to enjoy immensely. I have been upgrading to newer builds as they were released, only to find I have to uninstall them because they are far too glitchy! I'm currently using Wings 3D 2.2.4 (also glitchy), even though I had upgraded to the more recent ones as they were released. The more recent ones were even more glitchy.

Now I have just about decided to go back to 1.5.4 (I have the installer ready to go on my hard drive, as installers for programs of this type are kept in a special folder). Yes 1 5.4 is a bit glitchy, but nowhere near what the latest builds are presenting me with.

Examples of problems include but are not limited to:
:@Select and Deselect - Faces, Edges, and Vertices often get deselected after being selected, and this is not due to any mistake I may supposedly make. I have my methodology very well established by now, as I have been using Wings 3D since version 1.4.1! When I deselect Faces, Edges, or Vertices, they often get re-selected; again through no action of mine.
:@Weld - This one just popped up recently in 2.2.4. I use the Loop cut command to separate an object into parts I can turn into rooms aboard a spacecraft I'm modeling. I then do the needed work to ensure that each section will weld back together once I have achieved the task of making rooms. Next I select all in Object mode and do a Cleanup for good measure. While still in object mode I then use the Weld command. In all builds before this one, the weld goes off without any problem at all. In 2.2.4 the weld causes the perimeter sections to completely vanish, leaving only the hub section! To be sure I was not the cause I did undo and redo several times, getting the same results every time. I then shut down and opened a fresh session of Wings 3D 2.2.4 and started all over again. When I got to the point of doing the weld again, I got the exact same result. Frustrated does not begin to describe the way I feel about that! So I decided to start fresh yet again, and changed my workflow slightly, which finally yielded the results I wanted; BUT, now another problem pops up before I can save my progress!
:@SPASTIC GEOMETRY - After achieving what I had worked so hard to achieve, I deselect the whole model. I separate out my windows to harden certain edges, and create a window material. As soon as I deselect that and bring the other part of the craft back, one click anywhere on the model causes an unfix-able SPASTIC GEOMETRY glitch! I'm talking about the whole model goes wonky to the extreme! Nothing I do allows it to return to its correct state! This kind of thing has occurred far too often in this and later versions of Wings 3D.

Conclusion! I don't care who is doing the coding for Wings 3D now, nor do I care if they think I'm being cruel creating this report and review. What I care about is having something that does not constantly glitch on me and mess up my schedule! People that don't know what they are doing with something should not be doing it, period! Obviously someone does not understand coding as well as they think they do! I'm betting that I am not the only person have these and other problems with the latest builds of Wings 3D. I say if your going to do it, do it right, and stop wasting other people's valuable time!

[micheus]

Quote:What I will be worried about is the foreseeable future of what used to be a well coded modeling program, which I used to enjoy immensely

You don't need to worry about that if you want the tool to grow. That predictability means keep the tool stagnant. That changed from v1.5.4 when a new UI was chosen; in v2.1 when the render system was changed to embrace the new PBR tendency; and for making that happen, a lot of changes in the main core has been made - it was a process. It's almost impossible not get some bugs in a huge change like that.

And yes, the latest one still has some issues to be fixed (already done), but you may not have noticed there is a session called Patches/Fixes for Wings3D where I use to make available - at least - the main fixes for every version as soon as the fixes are available.

Just remember that to get things fixed, first of all we need to be informed about that. There is a Bug Report session for this too.
It's interesting that many bugs usually reported are not related with any change in the latest release - they were there; quiet; and because a new release someone just stumble on them.
You can see in my signature that the Wings3D team is very small - I help them too, so sometimes I may introducing some bugs. If you don't think they are doing the right thing you probably need to read the Wings3D presentation page.

Anyway, different from optigon's age, currently there isn't a beta tester for Wings3D - we code and test, which is not the best practice. So, we need the community to report their finds in order we can look for a solution.

About your "problems"...
:@Select and Deselect - the default behaviour can be changed in the preferences (post of Oct/2012).
Go to the Preferences dialog; General tab; Highlighting groupbox and check the option "Conditional Deselection". Now - after you choose one mode - deselect will keep you in the same mode until you hit the deselect key twice.

:@Weld - best option would have made a question in Interface Usage and attaching some images/video in order to help anyone who wants to help understand your problem. I used Cleanup and Weld and never faced something like this, so it's almost impossible I understand your situation without see it.
just remember that Cleanup requires a edge length tolerance value which may be too high depending on your object scale, and that can result in some elements to "disappear".

:@SPASTIC GEOMETRY - I have not idea about what exactly that would means (that is one of that cases which an image can help).


I will not comment your conclusions - it belongs to you.
You made posts in only two threads here in the forum and after read these complains that makes me think you are a not habitual forum follower. So, although I don't think you also care about this, I'm going to share here all the hard work that has been made since v1.5.4 (highlighted in red the big changes).

What is new
2.0

• Added Invert command to edge/hardness;
• Added a new YafaRay plugin;
• Added a file merge dialog so the user can choose what to import.
  

2.0.2

• Added help content to Yafaray Export dialog;
  

2.0.4

• Added possibility to cut and connect 2 or 3 vertices through faces with Connect MMB.
  

2.1

• Added a new Subdivide(RMB) command to be side-by-side with Smooth (Catmull Clark) command;
• Added a new bridge(RMB) with reference points;
• Added new connect and slide command for Connect RMB in Edge mode;
• Added edge loop nth selection command.
  

2.1.2

• Add show/hide toolbar option in preferences;
  

2.1.5

• Added Make Normal-Map command, in outliner;
  

2.1.6

• Added Spanish Translation;
• Added the hotkeys "F2" and "Delete" for rename and delete operations respectively;
• Added a dialog to allow user to decide if an unsaved file must be recovered;
  

2.17

• Implemented importer and exporter for GL transfer format (*.gltf|*.glb);
• Added support for (some) .dds image files;
• Added more texture types (currently not used);
  

2.2.1

• Visualisation of PBR material in Geometry window;
• Added a test version of Boolean commands (does not handle coplanar faces);
• Added new image commands to the outliner;
• Create image from channel, to enable usage of single channels from example combined metallic roughness textures;
• Invert channel, create a new image with one channel (or image in case of gray scale) inverted;
• Added the PLY importer;
  

2.2.3

• Isometric view command;
  

2.2.4

• Added a fail-safe if OpenCL crashes during start, which will disable OpenCL for future runs;
  

2.2.5

• Added wings_convert script for batch conversion of models;
• Added an exporter to OpenJSCAD file format (.jscad);
• Added a minimal warp mouse camera workaround see 'Options/Misc/' tickbox. Enable it and test again if you have problems (sometimes useful when using a tablet);
  
  

What was removed
2.0

• The View->Shaders menu is gone again for now;
• Removed the deprecated YafRay plugin;
  
  

What was changed/improved
2.0

• Setting/removing keyboard shortcuts have changed - see Windows->Help;
• Preview rendering is always on;
• Right Click menu icons have been removed;
• The menus for Saved Camera views and Selection Groups have been reworked;
  

2.0.2

• Rewrote the internal rendering to use vbo instead of display lists (Changed the OpenGL usage so hopefully it should have a smaller memory footprint and be faster);
  

2.0.4

• The German translation has been updated by Roy;
• Update French translation;
• Improved connect cut command to work in more cases;
• Improved EPS/SVG Exporter;
  

2.0.5

• Added logic that allow the Yafaray - after the engine path be provided - get its render option available under File->Render option without need to restart Wings3D;
• Added a message dialog that shows to the user the message about the constraint that just has been set;
• Updates to the Japanese translation;
  

2.1

• Large GUI rewrite. Convert all windows to be real windows instead of OpenGL drawn. Windows can be attached and detached from main window;
• Collada (.dae) improvments (Importer implemented and Exports vertex normals);
• Povray improvements;
  

2.1.2

• Auto scroll outliner when dragging images;
• Press SHIFT to disable docking window when moving;
• Rework drawing edges and selection to fix problems on some graphic cards and drivers, i.e. Macs with old Intel gfx cards;
• Improved dialog handling on Mac;
• Improve camera and mouse drag performance;
• Various redraw & refresh improvements;
  

2.1.4

• Performance improvements;
  

2.1.5

• Code cleanup and Optimisations;
  

2.1.6

• Added new Window->Snap and removed the old Tools->Snap command;
• Improved PS/EPS importer;
• Dialogs will now be shown near to the mouse pointer;
• The AutoUV Editor option to show/hide the background image is back;
• Optimised the rendering code, large models works better now. All rendering is now shader based, bump maps and normal maps are now visible in "two lights" mode and lighting is improved;
• Large code rewrite for further optimisations, which might have caused new issues, please report;
  

2.1.7

• Improved importer, now it can more often create "objects" instead of separated faces when importing models;
  

2.2.1

• Materials have been changed to have roughness and metallic parameters instead ambient, specular and shininess. BRDF emulation with background images when rendering materials
  and using camera light or scene lights (PBR view) - see the release notes for a full explanation about this changes;
• Export normals for collada (dae) format;
• Added export/import vertex color support for gltf files;
• Improve import of file formats;
• Enabled the Flatten command to be repeatable in edge mode;
• Made gltf and collada import more robust;
  

2.2.2

• Improved STL importer;
• Worked some more on the boolean operations;
• Upgraded to erlang/otp-21.2 (windows, mac) which should improve performance on large models;
• General Mac improvements, menues and material viewer;
  

2.2.3

• Improve rendering of transparent faces in smooth preview;
  

2.2.5

• Allow image drag'n'drop from outliner to autouv to change background image in autouv;
• Rewrote "Text" primitive, it can now handle more truetype formats, collection files (.ttc) and opentype (.otf) files;
• Add more search dirs for fonts;
  
  

What was fixed
2.0.2

• Fixed Transparency Refraction option in the Yafaray plugin;
• Fixed the background color exported when a Ambient light is used;
• Fixed a crash caused by editing an old projects that a material can contain
  modulators with values out-of-range;
• Fixed a bad path formation caused by a missing condition in the routine to
  get relative paths used by POV-Ray plugin;
• Fixed the sub-menu location for the "Drop picked object" option;
• Fixed the cause of Wings3d crash when 'Enable Develop Menu' was
  enable/disable;
• Fixed the missed control over the transparency color of magnet
  in the Tweak tool;
• Fixed the missed dialog prompt action before override a file;
• Fixed wrong beharviour when trying to save an untitled file;
• Fix autouv texture generation and add new shaders;
• For two mouse buttons settings the menu was ignoring the combo CTRL+RMB
  and was acting just like a RMB;
• Fixed various other bugs reported on the forum;
• Fixed keyboard handling on mac.
  

2.0.4

• Fix memory duplication when opening face/edge menu. [dgud]
• Fixed a crash caused by the format_hotkey routine when an error was
  handled in wings_hotkey module;
• Fixed the crash/hang caused by the slide color control;
• There was a strange black line being drawn in the background starting from mini axis;
• Fixed fragment shader code for Marble and Noise that was causing render crash in texture creation;
• Fixed tweak information line and hotkey handling back to as it in previous releases.
  

2.0.5

• Fixed a hotkey issue that was not enabling replace a previous binded key as well as it was ignoring the hotkey deletion;
• Fixed the problem with crash in the Ambient Occlusion plug-in;
• Fixed the bad text formatting in the module wpc_constraints that was causing Wing3d crash;
• In OSX, when merge dialog is shown the mouse cursor becomes a clock;
• Handle filename with unicode characters;
• Moving the mouse over 'Various Plans' dialog icon was causing Wings3d crach;
• Fixed other hotkey issues;
  

2.1

• Most issues from test release (pre-2.1);
• Fixed a crash caused by bad formated text for "How To Define Hotkeys";
• Fixed a crash caused by renumber routine;
• After execute a merge action the title was not showing the file was changed and a save action is required;
  

2.1.2

• Tweak magnet adjust did not stop when key was released;
• Indicate used magnet type, and fix status bar issues on Mac;
  

2.1.3

• Fix dragging images in outliner on mac and linux;
• Fix Octotoad scaling during creation;
• Fix hotkey handling of keys F1-F15;
• Fix displaying selections in secondary selection mode;
  

2.1.4

• Fix crash in autouv when doing geometry changes from the autouv
  window via keyboard shortcuts;
• Bridge-RMB was crashing for two faces selected in the same object;
• After select multiple views and activate the RMB Wings3d crashes;
• It was impossible to define hotkeys in Sculpt mode;
• Fix selection display in ortho mode (and autouv);
• Fix Olive Green theme;
• Fix crash at start if username contained unicode chars;
• In Geometry Graph if user accidentally put the folder name in edit mode and then cancel it Wings3D was displaying a wrong message;
• The Geometry Graph window closes unexpectedly in some folder/item
  operations;
  

2.1.5

• Keyboard shortcuts could sometimes be invoked twice;
• Outliner could get keyboard focus after some commands though the window was not marked as focused. Fixes focus issues;
• Choosing 'Loaded Font Glyphs' from Development menu was causing Wings3D crash;
• Fixed the visualization of Tweak "Show Magnet Influence" was not working;
• Invalid ps/eps file (absent or invalid token) was causing Wings3D crash;
• Fixed broken TGA image loader, wx's targa loader, fails with RLE encoding, bug is fixed but not released workaround by using wings own tga loader;
• Fixed loading files from root dir on Windows;
  

2.1.6

• Object count for each folder in Geometry Graph was missing;
• Fixed PS/EPS importer which was not importing files properly;
• The option in Preferences to disabling the toolbar to be shown was not working;
• Fixed a crash in Lightwave exporter when there is wrong UV info;
• When all faces of one object that was combined with other is hidden, when user separate them that object cannot be seen anyway;
• When collapsing faces, edges, or vertices around holes, the
  hole faces could be deleted, but still be marked as holes;
• Fixed some mouse focus issues;
• Fixed some exporter unicode problems;
  

2.1.7

• Fixed Autosave, and other minor bugs;
  

2.2.1

• Fixed a bug causing wings to not find relative image files when file and subdirectory had moved;
• Check for EXT or ARB framebuffer extension, both works, but for some old cards/drivers only EXT is available;
• Fixed the crash in Put On command (LMB option) when no destination was selected;
• Fixed the cause of Wings3D crash after a combination of hole and Cleanup command;
• Fixed the cause of Select By Short Edge be crashing when there was an active selection;
• Fixed the window docking feature for multiple monitors systems;
• Fixed the wrong dialog location when user has multiple monitors;
• Fixed the hard crash when creating a texture;
• The information line was showing a wrong value for the edge difference and angle info was also missing;
• Fixed a issue which was allowing locked objects be moved if them were previously selected;
• Moving any object to a folder was causing a crash;
• Floating windows was growing each time Wings3D was started;
• Combined objects in a folder were moved outside the folder;
• Fixed the problem that was causing geometry state rollback after save a project in Sculpt mode;
• By starting Sculpt with a geometry window in Wire mode would make the sculpt never get back to Shading mode;
• Workaround for linux Wayland support;
• A bunch of more bug-fixes we have stumbled on;
  

2.2.2

• Fixed crash when zooming to a negative distance;
• UV mapping windows are displayed in the same monitor as the first was;
• Fixed hard crash caused by malformed faces;
• Fixed the EPS/SVG plugin exporting back edges;
• Fixed the crash caused by Tighten in AutoUV window;
• Changing to a saved view in the middle of a vector input operation was causing Wings3D to crash;
• Wings3D was crashing when a material was selected by using it's color icon;
• Selection groups has not been saved for hidden/locked objects;
• Importing a .gbl project was causing a crash;
• Select similar material isn't working properly in AutoUV;
• Moving a light and using translation was causing Wings3D to crash;
• Alpha channel of a diffuse texture was drawing in black;
• Fixed opencl crash on old ATI cards;
• Fixed image handling crash;
• Fixed exporting lights to plugin;
  

2.2.3

• Boolean fixes;
• The submenu in 'AutoUV Segmentating' was shown in the wrong display for multiple monitors layout;
• Minor fixes in Outliner and Geom Graph windows;
• Select an element with non latin character was causing Wings3D to crash;
  

2.2.4

• Fixed View/Show Texture;
• Fixed transparent rendering;
• Select by Material in Outliner window was not working in accord when in body selection mode;
• Fixed some UI color settings;
  

2.2.5

• The option "File->Save Selected" was saving images not used by the selected object(s);
• Fixed rendering bug when editing materials with vertex colors;
• When exporting ".gltf/.glb" swap_y_z and scale options was ignored;
• Fixed updating mipmaps when updating dds files;
• Fixed importing non-square 'dds' textures with mipmaps;
• Fix lost text focus in dialogs;
• Fix ttf text plugin error handling;
  
  Ref: Announcements 2.0, 2.0.2, 2.0.4, 2.0.5, 2.1, 2.1.2, 2.1.3, 2.1.4, 2.1.5, 2.1.6, 2.1.7, 2.2.1, 2.2.2, 2.2.3,2.2.4, 2.2.5

[dgud]

Sigh I had almost finished written a long and nice reply and closed the tab.

Short version.

Me and Micheus are same the people working on wings during 1.5* releases as working on 2.* releases,
sure we are older and have grey hair now.
(and might forget a thing or two and thus be worse coders).

The 2.* series consists of mainly of gui and screen-rendering work, the base functionality such as
'commands', 'selecting' and 'undo' are still the same, some bugs fixed here and there but basically
the same code as 15 years ago.

So help us instead, figure out when things go wrong and write good bug reports that help us fix
the bugs.

If we shall have any chance of fixing a bug we need to be able to recreate the problem on our computers.
If you supply a model with selections and tell me what command you used and what problem you got, it should be "easy" to fix the bugs.