The test tank

Can we have it back? Everything is so disorganized now what with half of the EDT leaving and the new forums/mmf2 coming out- we need to get back into the old system and get some extensions released.

I think we may need to consider public testing of extensions.

Every tester we have lined up right now also has access to this forum.

I am also open to suggestions -- I didn't think the test tank did that good of a job but maybe it did?

No, it really didn't. What if we paid the testers $0.50 up to $1 for every bug they find? Surely then they would be finding tons of bugs :P.

"Pst... LIJI... Can you please insert some bug for me? I'm saving for something." :P
I actually like the test tank. :)

Personally I think the test tank did a good job, but never mind then.

They found bugs but they were horribly slow and inefficent... I know many of my extensions went a long time without feedback and even then a lot of the bugs didn't get caught.

The test tank was a good idea, but I agree it was slow and inefficient. It was also cyclic with active times and dead times.

I can't see paying beta-testers or even setting-up a system to compensate them somehow. In the past, we used to reward both devs and testers, (who were very active) with free upgrades or new versions of MMF.

Jeff and I both are not sure what we are going to do yet with extensions and testing, though we have mentioned some options for both in the past.

I am sorry that we are still procrastinating about this, but a time will come when some decisions are made. We have other, more pressing issues to attend to in the near future.

For now, continue as you choose to.

If I were a new "outsider" extension developer I would feel kinda unwelcome if all other extension developers had access to help in a hidden forum. All other communities are completely open about development about their extensions and everybody interested can peek in and see whats going on. I don't see why this shouldn't be the way Clickteam would do it. I understand some extensions could be made by contract for Clickteam so betas couldn't be posted in public space but then the EDT here is good I guess (users signing a contract not to leak info about it and all that stuff)

I don't think it's a problem if people try to use experimental and unfinished extensions, in the end it's their own bad choice not something we should try to prevent. We can only encourage them to wait for the final releases before they use them for any serious work.

I can still see benefits to having this area private. Preventing pirates from gaining extensions, and protecting devs from being bugged by eager clickers are two strong reasons.

Public betas are ok, but we need better ways to control them that minimize confusion.

I didn't say the private forum should go away, just that I felt that a "Public beta testing forum" would be a good idea.

With a category name like that "Public extension beta testing" or similar then I can't imagine people getting confused. If all extension developers put a popup at the time the extension is dropped i the frame (very easy to do) then I say that would be enough. (I don't like those runtime popups, they discourage people from testing the object because it's annoying)