What do I download for Testing?

• Sep 14, 2020 - 10:30

I opened my manager and found these...
manager.png
If I want to test... I pick the development branch?

Attachment Size
manager.png 53.31 KB

Comments

• Sep 14, 2020 - 16:38

You don't have to be on Telegram to test, but you can talk to developers there if you find something you don't understand or simply want to discuss. Play with the development (nighly) build. The worst that will happen is that it will crash and at the moment that's likely to happen a lot (compared to a 3.x build). BTW, the master builds are the ones that will some day become version 4. If you test a 3.x build to see if some of the fixes work as advertised it should not crash. If it does there definitely needs to be a bug report.

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• Sep 14, 2020 - 18:54

Mike's opinion is that testing 3.x nightlies would be more beneficial at the moment. They're supposed to work right. The 4.0 program is still early enough in development that unless someone were to ask for certain features to be tested I wouldn't know what would help them. The reason for this is that programmer A may be working on part of the feature while programmer B is working on a different aspect of the same feature. Until both parts are merged it may just not work. If you watch the forums you will start seeing more bug reports for 4.x dev. I would follow this lead to let me know that it's probably stable enough to start testing. The 3.x builds have the benefit that you can test it on real work and use it in a stable build if you want to.

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• Sep 14, 2020 - 20:06

I need to make a clarification here - master builds are nightlies. There are "master" nightly builds that will eventually (after many months) morph into MuseScore 4, and also 3.x nightly builds that will soon (hopefully within days) morph into 3.5.1, and then (presumably in a few months) morph again in 3.6. Right now, while we are pushing to get 3.5.1 out, testing 3.x nightlies is most valuable. After that, neither will all that useful really until we get closer to a release, but there might be points along the way where someone says, either 3.x or master is in a particular state we are anxious to get feedback on.

I have no idea whatsoever what the thing was shown in your picture, though. There is no 3.5.1 release, so it's telling a lie, and I wouldn't be inclined to trust that particular download. It's possible some enterprising package maintainer thought it might be useful to grab a random 3.x snapshot and call it 3.5.1, but I think that was a big mistake, it will just lead to confusion.

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• Sep 14, 2020 - 20:07

Also, I have no idea what AUR is, never heard of it, wouldn't trust that either. Nor would I trust any build that claims to be the "git" version and yet is marked 3.2.

Basically, everything about that window is why I urge people to only install the AppImages we build and supply ourselves.

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• Sep 14, 2020 - 20:54

Ah, OK. Then it would certainly be the set of packages I would trust second0most after the AppImage, except for the other points I mentioned. In particular, 3.2 is over a year old; offering only outdated versions is exactly one of the sorts of ongoing problems the AppImages solve. But on top of that, only the AppImages are actually guaranteed to have built correctly and to have been tested.

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• Sep 14, 2020 - 20:32

If you're not interesting in a specific MS4 feature currently in development and following up closely with the development process, then I'd advise you to not use the "master" nightlies currently.
I'd suggest to wait at least until an Alpha build is available before diving in master without experience. You almost certainly will lose work made with current master nightlies.

Use the 3.x nightlies to help test out stability of the upcoming version and bugfixes. Consider looking in the issue tracker for issues which are marked "fixed in 3.5.1" to verify them.

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• Sep 14, 2020 - 21:15

Oh ok ... So should I start with 3.5.1 builds or later 3.x builds?

Btw I kind of dislike how .Appimage is not considered like any other software but instead it is just a file... That's a detail I know... But I would like to make it have the Musescore icon and appear in my window manager's toolbar..

But if you say it's the best right now then I don't mind...

I just hope I can contribute something, even by testing, like finding bugs and such.

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• Sep 14, 2020 - 21:21

As far as I know there are no 3.5.1 builds yet. They will only come into existence hours before the actual release. 3.x is the branch that will become 3.5.1, that is the set of nightly builds you should be concerned with. Quite a few of the changes that are planned for 3.5.1 are already present on that branch, so it's definitely worth testing now. A few more changes are still pending.

If you follow the instructions for installing the AppImage (run it with the "install" option) and it should get an icon and all other OS / window manager integrations.

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• Sep 14, 2020 - 22:04

If you prefer needing to find the file in your file manager or desktop and double-click it, the AppImage certainly gives you that power. But as you note, it's nice to have the icon and other integrations. So as the installation instructions for the AppImage on this site make clear, you can do that by running it from the command line with the "install" option. From then on it is fully integrated.

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• Sep 17, 2020 - 17:41

Do I download the latest 3.x? Or there is a reason to why older versions exist... I mean: does every build have different stuff? If so which do I choose? Btw... why is it called 3.x? Does x refer to >5 ?

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• Sep 17, 2020 - 17:56

3.x is generic so we don't have to rely on someone updating the name. There's also the issue that after 3.5.1 the next planned release is 3.6 but there is no guarantee that there won't be major bugs found in 3.5.1 that will lead to 3.5.2 which will happen if it makes sense.

For the development builds, everything in the builds from Sep 16 will be included in the builds for Sep 17 and so one backwards. There are people who download every build onto their system and use these as a tool to discover which build (and program changes) introduces a bug. This is a very useful debugging tool rather than stepping through the entire program to find out where a bug might be.

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• Sep 17, 2020 - 18:27

I think I'll just download the latest... I mean if I had the option to download only 1 then that would probably be the last I suppose... But yes I understand the concept now. I think I'll try to be on the latest... maybe that's wrong idk...

So... to sum up, I just report my "findings" on Issue trucker right? And before that I just need to be certain that nobody else has posted something similar.

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• Sep 17, 2020 - 18:37

Okay... When I get some time I'll try writing something in the build and if I find a bug i'll just submit a post...
But perhaps just waiting for bugs to appear is not a big help... How can I get developers to tell me what they want me to test? You mentioned telegram but there's no alternative?

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• Sep 17, 2020 - 18:45

That's the best place. A few developers watch the forums but most just look for existing bugs to fix in the issue tracker. Telegram is a place to talk to developers and see what's being put into the nightlies. There is one programmer I've been working with to test some things that haven't been merged yet.

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• Sep 17, 2020 - 19:07

So you mean that, if I want to do the job of a tester really well, then I SHOULD make an account in telegram right...? Or else, just waiting for bugs to appear while making scores, would be hardly called "contribution"... or not? Maybe completing a score could mean something.

I have a nice suggestion... Not sure if you will like it... We could have a discord group for that, and for many other things... or it's too much trouble?

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• Sep 17, 2020 - 19:16

I don't know what else to tell you. I contribute by answering questions in the forum and being a PITA for programmers at times. I do offer my services to help test PRs, especially ones that are more complex and require development or download and test I nightly because a PR that interests me is marked as fixed in the issue tracker. The issue tracker is also a good way to contribute. If you find an issue, make sure it hasn't been reported then add it to the issue tracker so programmers will know that it needs fixed. If an existing issue you find hasn't been updated in a while, add your own comment to it to move it up on the list.

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• Sep 19, 2020 - 17:48

FWIW, as one of the many programmers who works on MuseScore, I value the contributions of people like @mike320 very highly. Not just because of his work helping people here on the forum, but also precisely because he is sometimes a PITA for us developers :-). I mean that in the best and most respectful way possible. Sometimes we get stuck seeing things the way they are rather than the way they could be. Lots of well-intentioned suggestions are made by users, sometimes very astute, other times perhaps a bit naive. It takes a special skill to sort through these suggestions, mix them with one's own observations, and present them to to developers in a way that challenges their assumptions and gets them to consider alternatives. We might not always agree in the end, and that's OK, different people can have different opinions. But it is that ability to be the "right" PITA that helps improve the product.

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• Sep 19, 2020 - 14:07

Watch the forums and the issue tracker and you'll see how the future of the program develops. You won't ever get an email that says we're now totally focused on 4.0 but you can be pretty sure that after 3.6 is released focus will be on 4.0 unless some major bugs are found in 3.6 that can't wait for several months of 4.x testing.

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• Sep 19, 2020 - 17:53

I would expect someone to post something in the Development forum when "master" builds reach a point where we would want to encourage additional testing. It's conceivable there might be email too, but more likely not. Maybe from my own mailing list - see https://mastering-musescore.ck.page. I send out pretty regular notifications to people who want to keep up, and provide a number of other resources like a weekly live stream videos where I do demos, preview new feature still in development, etc.

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• Sep 19, 2020 - 19:07

That would be cool... I mean, have an address send some important notifications for developers or testers... well right now the only notification I can think is that one. I think I won't join the list, might have a lot of mail coming in my address which will sure be interesting to read... but no time for that. So I'll do what mike said instead, just look at Development forums. But he said that there's no need for that as master will gain focus after 3.6 as he said again I suppose. Lol I'm restating your words..

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• Sep 17, 2020 - 20:01

From my perspective, the best thing you can do is test builds (3.x for now, master when that starts to be the more logical choice, and no I don't know when that will happen). Ifthings don't work as expected or you have questions, post to the Development and Technology Preview. If we agree it's a bug and one not already being worked on (sometimes in master especially there might be builds in which we know a feature is not working completely yet), then submit to the issue tracker.

In other words, do exactly what you or anyone else would be doing otherwise, except instead of using 3.5 and posting potential issues to the Support forum, do exactly the same thing but with nightly builds and the Development and Technology Preview forum.

Regarding Discord, we're spread pretty think already. Feel free to have discussions of your own there all you want, but if you want the results to do any good, please post your findings here on the forum and/or to the issue tracker, the official places we follow.

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• Oct 7, 2020 - 16:50

I don't think I'll get any time those days... What comes next though?

Also, if I create something in master builds, will I be able to post it in musescore.com or the site isn't ready for it?

By the way I sent a mail to midi.org (?) I think about standardising straight mutes... But got no answer, then I discovered that MIDI 2 is already made(?). I'm not sure how I or where I can talk about the thing I have in mind ;_;

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• Oct 15, 2020 - 09:39

Wait... did the way Linux dev builds are shown, just changed? What's the difference between testing and nightly ones? Testing ones might need testers while nightly not so much? Maybe what I just said is stupid xD

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