The university where I work doing computer support is almost finished migrating to Zimbra. I find it hard to sell people on using the web client because I feel like I'd be lying to people if I said it was great or even good. The best I can manage is "it is OK, but a bit buggy."
I typically wouldn't use a product that was so buggy--I feel like an alpha tester. I've personally encountered dozens of bugs and issues (and, except for a couple of cases, they have been in the course of trying to use Zimbra rather than trying to find bugs).
It's not my job to log bugs in bugzilla, so I haven't logged any of the ones that aren't already there. Nevertheless, I wonder why Zimbra is so buggy?
1) Are the programmers lousy?
2) Is any QA testing done?
3) Are new features more important than a solid base product?
Let me choose issue that I think falls into each category.
1) The advanced query language has a "size:" keyword. The help says "Specifies messages whose total size, including attachments, is a specified number of bytes, kilobytes, or megabytes." Now I don't see any use for "size:1111b" but since that's its job, it should work. It doesn't. If I use "size:>1110 size:
2) The help says you can tag items by dragging them to the tag. Except if you happen to be using the calendar month view. The month view mysteriously doesn't allow dragging of items. Sorry, I said 1, but here's another similar one: The help page "Assigning Tags to messages and other items" says "Select all the items to be tagged using Control-Click or Shift-Click." This doesn't work with calendar items.
3) I find the calendar so useless, that I'm forced to use the Outlook Connector, but I'll pick a different issue.... I've used lots of desktop and web e-mail clients and can't remember another message list view where every column isn't sortable. Hence, while I personally would never have implemented any column sorting unless all column sorting would be implemented, obviously other priorities prevented this from occurring with Zimbra. (The advanced search feature does mitigate this issue somewhat; the lack of column sorting, though, effects the user experience.)
Why is Zimbra so buggy?
Why is Zimbra so buggy?
edwin.arneson,
Welcome to the Zimbra Community. I am sorry that your first experience with Zimbra was negative. I have been around the product for about 3 years now and I do admit that earlier editions (pre-5.x) did seem a little lack luster, the release of 5.x and soon 6.x has brought many great improvements and unique features to Zimbra.
I have been a Microsoft engineer for 15+ years now. I have been fortunate to be a part of many diffrent types of infrastructure builds from the small 10 node LAN to the global, multi-datacenter GAN as I call it (gargantuan area network) that comprises thousands of servers and 300,000+ active nodes. However about 5 years ago I started really doing things in the COSS and FOSS worlds and I now do more Linux than I do Microsoft.
The reason I went into that is to offer a different perspective on the things you mention. As most any Microsoft person in the world, I have worked with Exchange quite a bit. From 5.5 to the most recent. The one thing that I see people do when they are first introduced to a product like Zimbra is just because its based upon Linux, is become hyper-critical and take any little bug that they may see and make it a show-stopper. I call this the 8,000lb Gorilla syndrome. Exchange is not perfect by any means. It has issues with OWA, it even has issues with Outlook and they are produced by the same company. But the one thing that a boss will never say if you recommend Exchange is "your fired, you wanted this Exchange product and look at the problems". In fact they would say "its Exchange, why doesn't work, get Microsoft on the horn". But, if that same person choose a lesser known, and in my humble opinion better product, such as Zimbra, the first time the smallest things happens (cause it will, Zimbra is no different than any other software, it has some bugs) then the boss say "what is this Zimbra product you put in, you means its not Exchange, your fired". So you can see that just because Exchange is more well known and a larger company, the bugs are overlooked to a large degree. That doesn't mean it doesn't have any by any means.
So with that being said, the things you mentioned in my mind are not big issues by any means. The first one you mentioned is not even accurate, in my install at least. Give Zimbra a chance. I think what you will find is that Zimbra is a secure, robust, scalable, feature rich collaboration server.
God Bless,
Marty
Welcome to the Zimbra Community. I am sorry that your first experience with Zimbra was negative. I have been around the product for about 3 years now and I do admit that earlier editions (pre-5.x) did seem a little lack luster, the release of 5.x and soon 6.x has brought many great improvements and unique features to Zimbra.
I have been a Microsoft engineer for 15+ years now. I have been fortunate to be a part of many diffrent types of infrastructure builds from the small 10 node LAN to the global, multi-datacenter GAN as I call it (gargantuan area network) that comprises thousands of servers and 300,000+ active nodes. However about 5 years ago I started really doing things in the COSS and FOSS worlds and I now do more Linux than I do Microsoft.
The reason I went into that is to offer a different perspective on the things you mention. As most any Microsoft person in the world, I have worked with Exchange quite a bit. From 5.5 to the most recent. The one thing that I see people do when they are first introduced to a product like Zimbra is just because its based upon Linux, is become hyper-critical and take any little bug that they may see and make it a show-stopper. I call this the 8,000lb Gorilla syndrome. Exchange is not perfect by any means. It has issues with OWA, it even has issues with Outlook and they are produced by the same company. But the one thing that a boss will never say if you recommend Exchange is "your fired, you wanted this Exchange product and look at the problems". In fact they would say "its Exchange, why doesn't work, get Microsoft on the horn". But, if that same person choose a lesser known, and in my humble opinion better product, such as Zimbra, the first time the smallest things happens (cause it will, Zimbra is no different than any other software, it has some bugs) then the boss say "what is this Zimbra product you put in, you means its not Exchange, your fired". So you can see that just because Exchange is more well known and a larger company, the bugs are overlooked to a large degree. That doesn't mean it doesn't have any by any means.
So with that being said, the things you mentioned in my mind are not big issues by any means. The first one you mentioned is not even accurate, in my install at least. Give Zimbra a chance. I think what you will find is that Zimbra is a secure, robust, scalable, feature rich collaboration server.
God Bless,
Marty
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Rich Graves
- Outstanding Member
- Posts: 687
- Joined: Fri Sep 12, 2014 10:24 pm
Why is Zimbra so buggy?
If your clients continue to use Outlook, be sure to upgrade them to Office 2007 SP2 (or at least the February Outlook 2007 rollup) to avoid a number of annoying bugs. Zimbra wiki: Outlook 2007 February 2009 cumulative update and Office 2007 SP2
SP2 is behind schedule (this is not unusual, nor is it unique to Microsoft), but is currently expected to ship April 28th.
SP2 is behind schedule (this is not unusual, nor is it unique to Microsoft), but is currently expected to ship April 28th.
Why is Zimbra so buggy?
[quote user="edwin.arneson"]The university where I work doing computer support is almost finished migrating to Zimbra. [[/QUOTE]I assume you're using the NE version?
[quote user="edwin.arneson"]It's not my job to log bugs in bugzilla, so I haven't logged any of the ones that aren't already there.[/QUOTE]How do you expect software to improve without any feedback via the bug reporting system? Have you raised any support cases for these 'problems'? If you haven't I'd suggest you contact whomever is responsible in your organisation for support then filing support cases outlining the problems you've encountered.
[quote user="edwin.arneson"]It's not my job to log bugs in bugzilla, so I haven't logged any of the ones that aren't already there.[/QUOTE]How do you expect software to improve without any feedback via the bug reporting system? Have you raised any support cases for these 'problems'? If you haven't I'd suggest you contact whomever is responsible in your organisation for support then filing support cases outlining the problems you've encountered.
Why is Zimbra so buggy?
Most of the features, and more, have been rolled into ZVS V6 which should be out later this year. Perhaps if people have a read through Product Portal :: Guns 'n' Roses V6 and [url=Zimbra Collaboration Suite 6.0 Beta (Codename: Guns N’ Roses) » Zimbra :: Blog[/url] they will see some of the exciting enhancements coming very soon 
-
edwin.arneson
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2014 12:23 am
Why is Zimbra so buggy?
Thanks for the reply, Protack. My experience with both Zimbra and Exchange is an an end user. I'd like to be able to like Zimbra more than I do, but I can't. It is really the difference between a program having bugs, and a buggy program. By "program" I mean the net user experience in the client for Outlook/Exchange and Zimbra web client/ZCS since the back-end is invisible to me (and for Zimbra the browser is an extra variable which could be the source of a problem).
I'm no fan of Microsoft and of course TCO is a huge issue, but in my experience, Outlook works well and I don't know of any specific bugs that I need to think about when using it (I recall an earlier version that would hang trying to download an attachment that didn't have an extension--I had to modify my UNIX script so at least I wouldn't hang my own Outlook session).
As for the specific issues I mentioned, I was just trying to pick short easy ones that I though fell into the various categories I mentioned. So, it isn't a matter of one or two or five or ten issues, but dozens. It is a mystery to me how "size:1111b" could work in your installation and not work in the one here.
I'm a technical person, and support a variety of users, hence, I consider things an issue if I think it may be confusing or misleading for less technical users. Here's more issues I've encountered in 5.0.8 through 5.0.15 (since June last year) which have been logged in an internal wiki where support people have been discussing our Zimbra implementation. Summarized when possible. I may note things that have been fixed by 5.0.15 since there are so many I haven't the time to see if every issue noted since 5.0.8 has been fixed. Also, primarily tested with Windows XP/Vista and Firefox 3, but having encountered an issues I often also test with Safari/IE on Windows, and Safari/FF on Mac OS X.
I don't expect anyone to read them all, so let me indicate a couple of highlights. And, as previous mentioned, these are all in the course of using Zimbra, not testing it (although (41) is an exception; as is (5) since I don't have any folders with more than 100 subfolders, but I support users who do). Up to (56) there are 3 data loss bugs (14, 41, 45). Some items are trivial label issues like (47) and (56)--not getting a label correct screams sloppy, and the inaccuracy of (56) seems dangerously misleading. Item (53) is one of the most bizarre bugs I've ever seen in any program.
e-mail
1) switching signatures usually works but may not sometimes (e.g. IE7 and HTML signatures; a previously saved draft; deletion of white space between body & signature)
2) opening an e-mail message does not cause it to be marked a read
3) Compose, click "To:", get "address selection dialog", "Show names from" pick list is set to "Global Address List", error message "Not all results were returned (too many results were found). Please be more specific in your search criteria." The list appears to display up to 100 entries. It is not apparent why there are greyed out "Previous" and "Next" buttons below the list if they can't be used to navigate through the search results.
4) Contacts don't have to have an e-mail address. Compose, click "To:", get "address selection dialog", "Show names from" pick list is set to "Contacts". Contacts with no e-mail address will appear as a blank row in the list. If the entire page of 100 entries is such contacts, the page will say ""No results found."
5) Folder with >100 subfolders. Advanced search/"Folders" filter, 100 folders will be displayed followed by "+ Show remaining folders." Clicking on "+ Show remaining folders" does nothing. Click on the check box to include all the hidden folders in the search... you get "Unable to parse the search query" error message.
6) If your preference is set to "Always compose in new window" and you use a keyboard shortcnt (N, C, N M) to compose a new message, a new window is not opened. Apparently "always" means something different to the Zimbra than to normal English speakers.
7) Usually when you delete a Mail folder, the folder is moved to the Trash folder and the Trash folder is expanded, possibly changing the scroll position of the folder pane. However, the behaviour isn't consistent. Another behaviour that occurs randomly is the folder-delete operation collapses all expanded folders in the folder pane. Also, when this collapse occurs it also collapses all expanded folders in the other applications (normally expanded folders are remembered when you switch between applications). A common trait of this behaviour today is it occurs consistently when deleting folders containing at least several hundred unread messages and a total of over 1000 messages. This random close-all-folders behaviour has also been observed when permanently deleting folders from the Trash.
8) If you receive a message from "Filemaker, Inc." then Zimbra displays it as, "Inc. Filemaker."
9) New-folder dialog-box-behaviour bugs. Suppose you have a hierarchy of Mail folders with lots of branches and leaves, and you are adding new leaf folders. If you have a particular folder open in Mail, and you click the "New Folder" button, the open folder will be the default parent for the new folder. If you right-click on a folder and select "New Folder" then that folder will be the parent of the new folder. If you click the "New Folder" button after you've right-clicked to create a new folder, then it remembers the folder and the scroll position. Now for the bugs: 1) if you decide, why not use the keyboard (N F=New Folder) instead of mousing to the "New Folder" button... the window still remembers the scroll position, but the top-level folder is selected, not the previously selected folder, and 2) suppose you've opened the new folder window and either Zimbra has changed the parent folder, or you change the parent folder, or you change the scroll position, then click the "Cancel" button... the next time you open the new folder window, Zimbra will remember what you thought were the cancelled scroll position/folder selection.
10) It may be a site specific issue, but my e-mail account has: e-mail batch imported by IT from an old e-mail system, as well as via Thunderbird/IMAP. Because I was using POP, I have duplicate e-mail messages. The body of the e-mail always has the correct date. The received date column (which is how I can sort and search) may differ by up to 2 weeks. Some messages I imported just before daylight savings time ended in November and some just after--the received times differ by 1 hour. This is an enormous head-ache for duplicate deletion.
11) If you log in to Zimbra and impatiently click on, say, the New button, before Zimbra has completely loaded it may happen that your Zimbra session may be adversely effected in some weird way. The slower your computer/browser, the more likely this is to happen.
12) Create a new message and Save Draft. Go to the Drafts folder, open that message, edit it, and Save Draft again. Now, delete that message. The message counts in the Folders pane update (Drafts--, Trash++), but the message is still there in the message list pane. You can still open the message and sent it, or if you Save Draft, it saves a new copy in the Drafts folder, and you see 2 messages there even though 1 really is in the Trash. If you delete the same message again, the message count in the Folders pane is updated again (Trash--), and you can still open the message and edit it and send it, but if you try to Save Draft this time, you get a Zimbra error ("No such message exists") and associated error stack.
calendar
13) Can't print an appointment
14) Data loss bug. Day view. Create an appointment add a note, save. Mouse over the appointment and you see the note. Open it, and the note is there. Click on the "Print Calendar" icon. Mouse press appears to work (the icon changes), but print action may not occur. Mouse over the appointment and you see the note. Open it, and the note is *GONE*. If you save, it's really gone. Cancel and it is still there.
15) Can't move an all-day item by dragging.
16) The slower the browser, the more noticable this is. In the Month view, open an item. Close the item. Quickly select another item, right click on it and you get the contextual menu. While the contextual menu is open, the Zimbra refresh will occur and the selected item will be unselected. Usually the contextual menu will be left open (occasionally it closes), but now it has no item to act on.
17) Rare but occasional feature. Week view. Click an appointment and drag it quickly (perhaps back and forth as you decide where to put it), release mouse button and the item disappears. Go to Month view and find item moved to a different week.
18) Tag a calendar item with short duration (c. 30 minutes), then the time which appeared before the tag was added and for which there was lots of space for it to be drawn, it no longer visible (it's been moved to the next line for no apparent reason).
19) Mouse over the bottom edge of calendar item and wait for the double-headed arrow to appear. Click and drag down a small amount... what appears to be 5-10 minutes... the box grows a bit. Mouse over the appointment or open the appointment and the time/duration is unchanged. Refresh or what have you, and the box goes back to the previous size (which matches the unchanged duration). If you do it again without refreshing, the box appears larger, but the double-headed arrow appears where the time says the edge is, not where the box edge is drawn.
20) Mouse over the top edge of calendar item and wait for the double-headed arrow to appear. Click and drag up or down a small amount and the bottom edge moves down; the effect is particularly pronounced with short appointments. The bottom edge may stay drawn in the wrong place, but the bottom time of the appointment hasn't changed.
21) One of the help documents titled "Making appointments" specifically says that appointments are different than (all day) events (which are both different from a meeting). Other parts of the documentation are sloppy regarding this distinction and the contextual menu that allows you to create an all day event says "New All Day Appointment."
22) If you display your calendar in the Schedule view, and you click on the "Print calendar" button, you get an offer to print the Day view and not the Schedule view.
23) If you print the calendar Day view, the hyphen that seperates the start and end times is positioned so low that it appears to be an underscore character. The cause appears to be the start and end times are formated with style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: top;" whereas the hyphen only has valign="top".
address book
24) If you create a new address book, the dialog box allows you to specify the colour and the picklist has a default colour. If you change the colour or create a top level address book, the specified or default colour will be used. If you create a nested address book, the specified colour will be used, but if you leave the colour as the default colour, then the colour of the address book's parent will be used instead of the expected default colour.
25) An address book may be made to be one of several colours (with a specific associated colour value). That colour is displayed in the address book hierarchy on the left side as well as behind the person's name in the content pane and in the editing pane. Except for grey. The grey of the address book hierarchy is colour value #BBBBBB and the grey behind the person's name is colour value #E9E9E9.
26) Suppose you import an address book entry that has just a Full Name and and e-mail address. The Full Name will be used as the title for the entry. If make any change to the address book entry, or even save it with out modifying it, the Full Name will be lost and it will appear in the Address Book as "".
27) Full Name and names in general, here are three places where you can search for a contact:
1) The search box at the top
2) The "To" field as you type
3) The search field in the "Select Addresses" dialog box
If the Full Name field contains "John Smith" then the three places to search exhibit three behaviours:
Search 1) will search the Full Name field as words. "John" or "Smith"
Search 2) will search the Full Name field as initial sub-string. "J", "Jo", ... "John Smi", but not "Smith."
Search 3) will not search the Full Name field
28) Given the same three places to search as the previous item.
Given a compound name firstname="Mary Joe" lastname="Smith":
Search 1) will find words only. "Mary Joe", "Mary", "Joe", "Smith"
Search 2) will find initial field sub-strings. "Mar", "Mary", "Mary J", "S", "Sm", but not "Joe"
Search 3) will find initial word sub-strings: Same as Search 2) plus "J", "Jo", "Joe"
29) Export Thunderbird address book/import into Zimbra. Thunderbird records have the "nickname" field populated. Search box at the top will find records based on the field, but the "To" field won't, nor will the search field in the "Select Addresses" dialog box. If you edit the record, nickname isn't a visible field in Zimbra, so you can't see the value, nor can you delete it.
30) Twenty contacts, 8 do not have an first or last name--those 8 entries appear at the beginning of the list (list view) tagged with "." Modify the first or last name of one of the entries that does have a first name or last name and modify it in such a fashion that the contact should change its place in the sort order. The first entry in the list jumps to the 19th position in the list!
31) Sort order of the "" entries isn't apparent.
32) Click and drag 1 contact and release the mouse button when position is invalid (red box) and the animation shows the item returning to its original positon. The item is now frozen and can't be selected or acted upon. If the box was checked, it remains checked. If you shift-select items before the frozen contact and after it, it appears to select the frozen item, but you can't perform any actions on the selected items.
33) A scrolling list of contacts may not update correctly when moving one contact up or down via the cursor keys. The behaviour in FF3 and IE7 is different. In IE7, the scroll position didn't change. In FF3, the behaviour is more complex. Given an Address Book with enough entries to add a scroll bar (the more the merrier and having the maximum (100) will make the effect more obvious), and moving to the end of the list via the cursor keys, eventually, the highlighted item will no longer be visible in the list. If you change the scroll position so that you can see the item, the next cursor move will cause the scroll bar position to move back to the wrong place. Mail and Tasks can do this correctly.
34) Import records and the sort order isn't the order they were imported, it isn't the order if sorted by last name, it isn't the order if sorted by first name, and it isn't the order if sorted by e-mail address. It appears to be the reverse of the order they were imported. If you examine each record, they all say "File As: Last, First." Also, if "Always show search string" is enabled, the search box says in:folder and it you actually do that search, then the records appear in the expected (Last Name) order. Record changes that change the sort order can also leave the records in the wrong place.
35) Contacts in the Trash can be added to a Contact Group since they appear in the "Add Members to this Group" list.
36) Contacts in the Trash do not print. Do a contact search that includes at least one record in the Trash. You will then have the opportunity to "Print selected contact(s)" and "Print Results." Regardless of whether you have selected contacts that are in the Trash or the search results contains records in the Trash, Zimbra won't print items that are in the Trash.
I'm no fan of Microsoft and of course TCO is a huge issue, but in my experience, Outlook works well and I don't know of any specific bugs that I need to think about when using it (I recall an earlier version that would hang trying to download an attachment that didn't have an extension--I had to modify my UNIX script so at least I wouldn't hang my own Outlook session).
As for the specific issues I mentioned, I was just trying to pick short easy ones that I though fell into the various categories I mentioned. So, it isn't a matter of one or two or five or ten issues, but dozens. It is a mystery to me how "size:1111b" could work in your installation and not work in the one here.
I'm a technical person, and support a variety of users, hence, I consider things an issue if I think it may be confusing or misleading for less technical users. Here's more issues I've encountered in 5.0.8 through 5.0.15 (since June last year) which have been logged in an internal wiki where support people have been discussing our Zimbra implementation. Summarized when possible. I may note things that have been fixed by 5.0.15 since there are so many I haven't the time to see if every issue noted since 5.0.8 has been fixed. Also, primarily tested with Windows XP/Vista and Firefox 3, but having encountered an issues I often also test with Safari/IE on Windows, and Safari/FF on Mac OS X.
I don't expect anyone to read them all, so let me indicate a couple of highlights. And, as previous mentioned, these are all in the course of using Zimbra, not testing it (although (41) is an exception; as is (5) since I don't have any folders with more than 100 subfolders, but I support users who do). Up to (56) there are 3 data loss bugs (14, 41, 45). Some items are trivial label issues like (47) and (56)--not getting a label correct screams sloppy, and the inaccuracy of (56) seems dangerously misleading. Item (53) is one of the most bizarre bugs I've ever seen in any program.
1) switching signatures usually works but may not sometimes (e.g. IE7 and HTML signatures; a previously saved draft; deletion of white space between body & signature)
2) opening an e-mail message does not cause it to be marked a read
3) Compose, click "To:", get "address selection dialog", "Show names from" pick list is set to "Global Address List", error message "Not all results were returned (too many results were found). Please be more specific in your search criteria." The list appears to display up to 100 entries. It is not apparent why there are greyed out "Previous" and "Next" buttons below the list if they can't be used to navigate through the search results.
4) Contacts don't have to have an e-mail address. Compose, click "To:", get "address selection dialog", "Show names from" pick list is set to "Contacts". Contacts with no e-mail address will appear as a blank row in the list. If the entire page of 100 entries is such contacts, the page will say ""No results found."
5) Folder with >100 subfolders. Advanced search/"Folders" filter, 100 folders will be displayed followed by "+ Show remaining folders." Clicking on "+ Show remaining folders" does nothing. Click on the check box to include all the hidden folders in the search... you get "Unable to parse the search query" error message.
6) If your preference is set to "Always compose in new window" and you use a keyboard shortcnt (N, C, N M) to compose a new message, a new window is not opened. Apparently "always" means something different to the Zimbra than to normal English speakers.
7) Usually when you delete a Mail folder, the folder is moved to the Trash folder and the Trash folder is expanded, possibly changing the scroll position of the folder pane. However, the behaviour isn't consistent. Another behaviour that occurs randomly is the folder-delete operation collapses all expanded folders in the folder pane. Also, when this collapse occurs it also collapses all expanded folders in the other applications (normally expanded folders are remembered when you switch between applications). A common trait of this behaviour today is it occurs consistently when deleting folders containing at least several hundred unread messages and a total of over 1000 messages. This random close-all-folders behaviour has also been observed when permanently deleting folders from the Trash.
8) If you receive a message from "Filemaker, Inc." then Zimbra displays it as, "Inc. Filemaker."
9) New-folder dialog-box-behaviour bugs. Suppose you have a hierarchy of Mail folders with lots of branches and leaves, and you are adding new leaf folders. If you have a particular folder open in Mail, and you click the "New Folder" button, the open folder will be the default parent for the new folder. If you right-click on a folder and select "New Folder" then that folder will be the parent of the new folder. If you click the "New Folder" button after you've right-clicked to create a new folder, then it remembers the folder and the scroll position. Now for the bugs: 1) if you decide, why not use the keyboard (N F=New Folder) instead of mousing to the "New Folder" button... the window still remembers the scroll position, but the top-level folder is selected, not the previously selected folder, and 2) suppose you've opened the new folder window and either Zimbra has changed the parent folder, or you change the parent folder, or you change the scroll position, then click the "Cancel" button... the next time you open the new folder window, Zimbra will remember what you thought were the cancelled scroll position/folder selection.
10) It may be a site specific issue, but my e-mail account has: e-mail batch imported by IT from an old e-mail system, as well as via Thunderbird/IMAP. Because I was using POP, I have duplicate e-mail messages. The body of the e-mail always has the correct date. The received date column (which is how I can sort and search) may differ by up to 2 weeks. Some messages I imported just before daylight savings time ended in November and some just after--the received times differ by 1 hour. This is an enormous head-ache for duplicate deletion.
11) If you log in to Zimbra and impatiently click on, say, the New button, before Zimbra has completely loaded it may happen that your Zimbra session may be adversely effected in some weird way. The slower your computer/browser, the more likely this is to happen.
12) Create a new message and Save Draft. Go to the Drafts folder, open that message, edit it, and Save Draft again. Now, delete that message. The message counts in the Folders pane update (Drafts--, Trash++), but the message is still there in the message list pane. You can still open the message and sent it, or if you Save Draft, it saves a new copy in the Drafts folder, and you see 2 messages there even though 1 really is in the Trash. If you delete the same message again, the message count in the Folders pane is updated again (Trash--), and you can still open the message and edit it and send it, but if you try to Save Draft this time, you get a Zimbra error ("No such message exists") and associated error stack.
calendar
13) Can't print an appointment
14) Data loss bug. Day view. Create an appointment add a note, save. Mouse over the appointment and you see the note. Open it, and the note is there. Click on the "Print Calendar" icon. Mouse press appears to work (the icon changes), but print action may not occur. Mouse over the appointment and you see the note. Open it, and the note is *GONE*. If you save, it's really gone. Cancel and it is still there.
15) Can't move an all-day item by dragging.
16) The slower the browser, the more noticable this is. In the Month view, open an item. Close the item. Quickly select another item, right click on it and you get the contextual menu. While the contextual menu is open, the Zimbra refresh will occur and the selected item will be unselected. Usually the contextual menu will be left open (occasionally it closes), but now it has no item to act on.
17) Rare but occasional feature. Week view. Click an appointment and drag it quickly (perhaps back and forth as you decide where to put it), release mouse button and the item disappears. Go to Month view and find item moved to a different week.
18) Tag a calendar item with short duration (c. 30 minutes), then the time which appeared before the tag was added and for which there was lots of space for it to be drawn, it no longer visible (it's been moved to the next line for no apparent reason).
19) Mouse over the bottom edge of calendar item and wait for the double-headed arrow to appear. Click and drag down a small amount... what appears to be 5-10 minutes... the box grows a bit. Mouse over the appointment or open the appointment and the time/duration is unchanged. Refresh or what have you, and the box goes back to the previous size (which matches the unchanged duration). If you do it again without refreshing, the box appears larger, but the double-headed arrow appears where the time says the edge is, not where the box edge is drawn.
20) Mouse over the top edge of calendar item and wait for the double-headed arrow to appear. Click and drag up or down a small amount and the bottom edge moves down; the effect is particularly pronounced with short appointments. The bottom edge may stay drawn in the wrong place, but the bottom time of the appointment hasn't changed.
21) One of the help documents titled "Making appointments" specifically says that appointments are different than (all day) events (which are both different from a meeting). Other parts of the documentation are sloppy regarding this distinction and the contextual menu that allows you to create an all day event says "New All Day Appointment."
22) If you display your calendar in the Schedule view, and you click on the "Print calendar" button, you get an offer to print the Day view and not the Schedule view.
23) If you print the calendar Day view, the hyphen that seperates the start and end times is positioned so low that it appears to be an underscore character. The cause appears to be the start and end times are formated with style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13px; vertical-align: top;" whereas the hyphen only has valign="top".
address book
24) If you create a new address book, the dialog box allows you to specify the colour and the picklist has a default colour. If you change the colour or create a top level address book, the specified or default colour will be used. If you create a nested address book, the specified colour will be used, but if you leave the colour as the default colour, then the colour of the address book's parent will be used instead of the expected default colour.
25) An address book may be made to be one of several colours (with a specific associated colour value). That colour is displayed in the address book hierarchy on the left side as well as behind the person's name in the content pane and in the editing pane. Except for grey. The grey of the address book hierarchy is colour value #BBBBBB and the grey behind the person's name is colour value #E9E9E9.
26) Suppose you import an address book entry that has just a Full Name and and e-mail address. The Full Name will be used as the title for the entry. If make any change to the address book entry, or even save it with out modifying it, the Full Name will be lost and it will appear in the Address Book as "".
27) Full Name and names in general, here are three places where you can search for a contact:
1) The search box at the top
2) The "To" field as you type
3) The search field in the "Select Addresses" dialog box
If the Full Name field contains "John Smith" then the three places to search exhibit three behaviours:
Search 1) will search the Full Name field as words. "John" or "Smith"
Search 2) will search the Full Name field as initial sub-string. "J", "Jo", ... "John Smi", but not "Smith."
Search 3) will not search the Full Name field
28) Given the same three places to search as the previous item.
Given a compound name firstname="Mary Joe" lastname="Smith":
Search 1) will find words only. "Mary Joe", "Mary", "Joe", "Smith"
Search 2) will find initial field sub-strings. "Mar", "Mary", "Mary J", "S", "Sm", but not "Joe"
Search 3) will find initial word sub-strings: Same as Search 2) plus "J", "Jo", "Joe"
29) Export Thunderbird address book/import into Zimbra. Thunderbird records have the "nickname" field populated. Search box at the top will find records based on the field, but the "To" field won't, nor will the search field in the "Select Addresses" dialog box. If you edit the record, nickname isn't a visible field in Zimbra, so you can't see the value, nor can you delete it.
30) Twenty contacts, 8 do not have an first or last name--those 8 entries appear at the beginning of the list (list view) tagged with "." Modify the first or last name of one of the entries that does have a first name or last name and modify it in such a fashion that the contact should change its place in the sort order. The first entry in the list jumps to the 19th position in the list!
31) Sort order of the "" entries isn't apparent.
32) Click and drag 1 contact and release the mouse button when position is invalid (red box) and the animation shows the item returning to its original positon. The item is now frozen and can't be selected or acted upon. If the box was checked, it remains checked. If you shift-select items before the frozen contact and after it, it appears to select the frozen item, but you can't perform any actions on the selected items.
33) A scrolling list of contacts may not update correctly when moving one contact up or down via the cursor keys. The behaviour in FF3 and IE7 is different. In IE7, the scroll position didn't change. In FF3, the behaviour is more complex. Given an Address Book with enough entries to add a scroll bar (the more the merrier and having the maximum (100) will make the effect more obvious), and moving to the end of the list via the cursor keys, eventually, the highlighted item will no longer be visible in the list. If you change the scroll position so that you can see the item, the next cursor move will cause the scroll bar position to move back to the wrong place. Mail and Tasks can do this correctly.
34) Import records and the sort order isn't the order they were imported, it isn't the order if sorted by last name, it isn't the order if sorted by first name, and it isn't the order if sorted by e-mail address. It appears to be the reverse of the order they were imported. If you examine each record, they all say "File As: Last, First." Also, if "Always show search string" is enabled, the search box says in:folder and it you actually do that search, then the records appear in the expected (Last Name) order. Record changes that change the sort order can also leave the records in the wrong place.
35) Contacts in the Trash can be added to a Contact Group since they appear in the "Add Members to this Group" list.
36) Contacts in the Trash do not print. Do a contact search that includes at least one record in the Trash. You will then have the opportunity to "Print selected contact(s)" and "Print Results." Regardless of whether you have selected contacts that are in the Trash or the search results contains records in the Trash, Zimbra won't print items that are in the Trash.
-
edwin.arneson
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2014 12:23 am
Why is Zimbra so buggy?
next bunch:
documents
37) Notebook pages are unmovable.
38) Create a new notebook page. Click on the "Insert Files" icon. Insert a file--Zimbra creates a hyperlink to the file and uploads the file to notebook folder that the notebook page is in. Save new page (or not, it doesn't matter). The uploaded file isn't visible in the Documents application and it isn't visible in the Briefcase application. Delete the notebook page, and the inserted file isn't deleted. You can see the file if a search finds it or if you use the URL, otherwise, it's invisible.
39) Documents does not seem to have the concept of a selected document. If you are viewing a particular Notebook, the "Print" button is ungreyed. Since no document is selected it isn't apparent what you'll get as the mouse-over text says "Print document." Clicking on the "Print" button doesn't print any document... it prints the table of contents of the currently displayed Notebook.
40) Search Documents so that you find at least one document. Right click on any document and you get a contextual menu with three items. Tag item--works. Delete--works. Print--fails. You don't get the select item printed, you get the table of contents of the last Notebook that was displayed. If you search right after you login having never displayed a Notebook then nothing happens when you click print.
41) Data loss bug: A Documents applications seems to allow you to enter very long filenames and will save the document with the specified name... except if it happens to be greater than 128 characters then you get a "A network service error has occurred." message. If you get this message after clicking the "Save" button, no harm done. If you get this message after clicking the "Close" button and then clicking on "Yes" to the "Do you want to save changes?" dialog box, then any changes will, in fact, be lost.
42) Three Notebooks named "aaaaa", "bbbbb", and "CCCCC". I'd expect to see the folders displayed in that order... alphabetical order. And so they are. I might reasonably expect three same named documents contained in 1 Notebook folder to be similarly ordered. Sadly, it isn't the case... they are displayed "CCCCC", "aaaaa", "bbbbb".
43) If you are viewing a Notebook's contents or a document on the toolbar there is a mystery button: "Browse..." There is no tool tip, nor does it appear to be documented in the help. What it apparently does is an unqualified search of the currently selected Notebook folder (which you can see if you have "Show advanced search language in search toolbar" turned on). So, for instance, if you are in the default Notebook named "Notebook" or you are viewing any document in the Notebook "Notebook" then clicking the "Browse..." button does (in advanced search syntax) this search: in:Notebook. But such a simple thing it still does wrong: 1) if you have a Notebook named "abc" which contains a Notebook named "def" and you are viewing "def" then clicking on the "Browse..." button needs to do a in:"abc/def" search, whereas it actually does a in:def; which finds nothing and displays the error message "No such folder exists." 2) if you have a Notebook named "my notebook" and you are viewing "my notebook" then clicking on the "Browse..." button needs to do a in:"my notebook" search, whereas it actually does a in:my notebook; which finds nothing and displays the error message "No such folder exists."
44) Notebook pages exhibit an odd behaviour where occasionally and randomly the "Modified on" date of a document will be turned into a hyperlink. If you mouse-over the hyperlink, you get a pop-up showing calendar events for that day (just like the mini-calendar) and clicking on the hyperlink switches to the Calendar application and displays the corresponding day.
45) Data loss bug: Edit a notebook document. If you use the mouse to navigate away, you will be asked if if you want to save your changes. If you happen to use the keyboard to navigate away (for instance, if neither the page name nor content are currently where the cursor focus is and you press "N" for "New Document") then you will get a new document, any changes to the previously open document are lost.
46) Navigate to any notebook in Documents. Click on the "History" action for a document and the document's history will be displayed. Click the "Close" button on the tool bar and the document's history will be closed, but you will not see what you expect. You now will be viewing the default Notebook, but no pages will be visible in the table of contents; notebooks will be visible. Secondly, instead of the usual "New/Refresh/Edit/Browse... etc." tool bar, the tool bar will still have "Revert" and "Close" buttons. And, if you navigate to a notebook in the table of contents it will display the contents of the notebook including the expected notebooks/documents, but the "Actions" column will be missing. Thirdly, if you now navigate to a notebook in the Notebook folder list (including the default notebook), the table of contents will be displayed correctly. But, the "Actions" hyperlinks (Edit/Delete/History) may not work. They randomly seem to work in the default notebook, but always don't work for all other notebooks. Some unidentified activity in Zimbra may clear this contition; logout/login always will.
briefcase
47) The pop-up message when you mouse-over a folder should say how many files you have in that folder, but it says "Folders."
48) If you have a folder with files and a subfolder, the subfolder appears with the files (explorer, detail, and column views). You'd expect to be able to drag items to the folder, but it doesn't work. You have to drag items to the sidebar folders to move the items to another folder.
49) Two top level folders and one subfolder in the second top level folder. Three items in the second top level folder. Drag item to the subfolder. The pop-up "folder/file" file count has updated, but the icon still appears in the top level folder. Click on the item and it's preview appears. Click on the subfolder, it is empty. Logout/login and the file now appears in the correct location.
50) Load a file in to the Briefcase... for example, abc.gif. Zimbra will identify the file type (in this example) as a "GIF Image." Now e-mail the file to yourself and click on the "add to briefcase" hyperlink. The file may be identified correctly, or it may say "Unknown Binary."
preferences
51) 'The maximum number of characters for a signature is 1024. If you exceed this limit, then you get an error message when you try to save the preferences. Suppose you are creating an HTML formatted signature and, having encountered this error, you wish to edit the signature to make it less than 1024 characters. Having previously clicked "Done" the signature is sitting there in the window. Clicking the "Edit" button often gives blank signature content. So, you can't edit it as the content has been thrown away. But, not only that, if you click in the signature field, the cursor doesn't appear and it doesn't appear to accept typing (clicking on a formatting toolbar icon will clear this state and allow text entry).
52) Leave a auto-reply message enabled with Start Date and End Date enabled. The Start Data and End Date checkboxes may become unchecked and Zimbra starts sending the message again
53) Psychotic Zimbra signature behaviour. Create and edit various signatures at various times using both text and HTML. Login, go to the Preferences/Signatures page and see particular signatures, compose a message, Zimbra will display those particular signatures upon request. Llogout/login and go to my Preferences/Signature page now I see different signatures. Every time I login I don't know what signatures I'll get. Zimbra appears to be storing old versions signatures and displaying them randomly.
54) "Save" a search string. The pop-up window allows you to name and save your search string. The default location is the "Searches" folder. If you save your search in the default location, it appears in the left-hand list, the advanced search, and Preferences/Shortcuts/Saved Search Shortcuts. If you save your search in some random folder, it appears in the left-hand list, the advanced search, but not Preferences/Shortcuts/Saved Search Shortcuts.
55) Preferences/Shortcuts/Saved Search Shortcuts says you can "Assign numeric shortcuts to Saved Searches." In fact you can't. What you can do is assign numeric shortcuts to saved Mail searches. Any other application's saved searches don't appear in the "Choose Search" list when you click on the "Browse..." button.
more than one application
(56) Mouse-over the trash icon in Tasks and Calendar the message says "Move selected item(s) to Trash."
documents
37) Notebook pages are unmovable.
38) Create a new notebook page. Click on the "Insert Files" icon. Insert a file--Zimbra creates a hyperlink to the file and uploads the file to notebook folder that the notebook page is in. Save new page (or not, it doesn't matter). The uploaded file isn't visible in the Documents application and it isn't visible in the Briefcase application. Delete the notebook page, and the inserted file isn't deleted. You can see the file if a search finds it or if you use the URL, otherwise, it's invisible.
39) Documents does not seem to have the concept of a selected document. If you are viewing a particular Notebook, the "Print" button is ungreyed. Since no document is selected it isn't apparent what you'll get as the mouse-over text says "Print document." Clicking on the "Print" button doesn't print any document... it prints the table of contents of the currently displayed Notebook.
40) Search Documents so that you find at least one document. Right click on any document and you get a contextual menu with three items. Tag item--works. Delete--works. Print--fails. You don't get the select item printed, you get the table of contents of the last Notebook that was displayed. If you search right after you login having never displayed a Notebook then nothing happens when you click print.
41) Data loss bug: A Documents applications seems to allow you to enter very long filenames and will save the document with the specified name... except if it happens to be greater than 128 characters then you get a "A network service error has occurred." message. If you get this message after clicking the "Save" button, no harm done. If you get this message after clicking the "Close" button and then clicking on "Yes" to the "Do you want to save changes?" dialog box, then any changes will, in fact, be lost.
42) Three Notebooks named "aaaaa", "bbbbb", and "CCCCC". I'd expect to see the folders displayed in that order... alphabetical order. And so they are. I might reasonably expect three same named documents contained in 1 Notebook folder to be similarly ordered. Sadly, it isn't the case... they are displayed "CCCCC", "aaaaa", "bbbbb".
43) If you are viewing a Notebook's contents or a document on the toolbar there is a mystery button: "Browse..." There is no tool tip, nor does it appear to be documented in the help. What it apparently does is an unqualified search of the currently selected Notebook folder (which you can see if you have "Show advanced search language in search toolbar" turned on). So, for instance, if you are in the default Notebook named "Notebook" or you are viewing any document in the Notebook "Notebook" then clicking the "Browse..." button does (in advanced search syntax) this search: in:Notebook. But such a simple thing it still does wrong: 1) if you have a Notebook named "abc" which contains a Notebook named "def" and you are viewing "def" then clicking on the "Browse..." button needs to do a in:"abc/def" search, whereas it actually does a in:def; which finds nothing and displays the error message "No such folder exists." 2) if you have a Notebook named "my notebook" and you are viewing "my notebook" then clicking on the "Browse..." button needs to do a in:"my notebook" search, whereas it actually does a in:my notebook; which finds nothing and displays the error message "No such folder exists."
44) Notebook pages exhibit an odd behaviour where occasionally and randomly the "Modified on" date of a document will be turned into a hyperlink. If you mouse-over the hyperlink, you get a pop-up showing calendar events for that day (just like the mini-calendar) and clicking on the hyperlink switches to the Calendar application and displays the corresponding day.
45) Data loss bug: Edit a notebook document. If you use the mouse to navigate away, you will be asked if if you want to save your changes. If you happen to use the keyboard to navigate away (for instance, if neither the page name nor content are currently where the cursor focus is and you press "N" for "New Document") then you will get a new document, any changes to the previously open document are lost.
46) Navigate to any notebook in Documents. Click on the "History" action for a document and the document's history will be displayed. Click the "Close" button on the tool bar and the document's history will be closed, but you will not see what you expect. You now will be viewing the default Notebook, but no pages will be visible in the table of contents; notebooks will be visible. Secondly, instead of the usual "New/Refresh/Edit/Browse... etc." tool bar, the tool bar will still have "Revert" and "Close" buttons. And, if you navigate to a notebook in the table of contents it will display the contents of the notebook including the expected notebooks/documents, but the "Actions" column will be missing. Thirdly, if you now navigate to a notebook in the Notebook folder list (including the default notebook), the table of contents will be displayed correctly. But, the "Actions" hyperlinks (Edit/Delete/History) may not work. They randomly seem to work in the default notebook, but always don't work for all other notebooks. Some unidentified activity in Zimbra may clear this contition; logout/login always will.
briefcase
47) The pop-up message when you mouse-over a folder should say how many files you have in that folder, but it says "Folders."
48) If you have a folder with files and a subfolder, the subfolder appears with the files (explorer, detail, and column views). You'd expect to be able to drag items to the folder, but it doesn't work. You have to drag items to the sidebar folders to move the items to another folder.
49) Two top level folders and one subfolder in the second top level folder. Three items in the second top level folder. Drag item to the subfolder. The pop-up "folder/file" file count has updated, but the icon still appears in the top level folder. Click on the item and it's preview appears. Click on the subfolder, it is empty. Logout/login and the file now appears in the correct location.
50) Load a file in to the Briefcase... for example, abc.gif. Zimbra will identify the file type (in this example) as a "GIF Image." Now e-mail the file to yourself and click on the "add to briefcase" hyperlink. The file may be identified correctly, or it may say "Unknown Binary."
preferences
51) 'The maximum number of characters for a signature is 1024. If you exceed this limit, then you get an error message when you try to save the preferences. Suppose you are creating an HTML formatted signature and, having encountered this error, you wish to edit the signature to make it less than 1024 characters. Having previously clicked "Done" the signature is sitting there in the window. Clicking the "Edit" button often gives blank signature content. So, you can't edit it as the content has been thrown away. But, not only that, if you click in the signature field, the cursor doesn't appear and it doesn't appear to accept typing (clicking on a formatting toolbar icon will clear this state and allow text entry).
52) Leave a auto-reply message enabled with Start Date and End Date enabled. The Start Data and End Date checkboxes may become unchecked and Zimbra starts sending the message again
53) Psychotic Zimbra signature behaviour. Create and edit various signatures at various times using both text and HTML. Login, go to the Preferences/Signatures page and see particular signatures, compose a message, Zimbra will display those particular signatures upon request. Llogout/login and go to my Preferences/Signature page now I see different signatures. Every time I login I don't know what signatures I'll get. Zimbra appears to be storing old versions signatures and displaying them randomly.
54) "Save" a search string. The pop-up window allows you to name and save your search string. The default location is the "Searches" folder. If you save your search in the default location, it appears in the left-hand list, the advanced search, and Preferences/Shortcuts/Saved Search Shortcuts. If you save your search in some random folder, it appears in the left-hand list, the advanced search, but not Preferences/Shortcuts/Saved Search Shortcuts.
55) Preferences/Shortcuts/Saved Search Shortcuts says you can "Assign numeric shortcuts to Saved Searches." In fact you can't. What you can do is assign numeric shortcuts to saved Mail searches. Any other application's saved searches don't appear in the "Choose Search" list when you click on the "Browse..." button.
more than one application
(56) Mouse-over the trash icon in Tasks and Calendar the message says "Move selected item(s) to Trash."
-
edwin.arneson
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2014 12:23 am
Why is Zimbra so buggy?
[quote user="10330phoenix"]I assume you're using the NE version?
How do you expect software to improve without any feedback via the bug reporting system? Have you raised any support cases for these 'problems'? If you haven't I'd suggest you contact whomever is responsible in your organisation for support then filing support cases outlining the problems you've encountered.[/QUOTE]
I believe it is the Network Edition.
If I had a few weeks of spare time, then I'd be happy to be posting bugs to Bugzilla. At the moment it's not the case, though I suppose I should take the time to log the data loss bugs I've encountered.
How do I expect software to improve without any feedback via the bug reporting system? Well, I'd like to think that Zimbra actually does testing on their product. I can't imagine all these issues are site specific and many are really obvious--hence my original question asking for opinions as to why the bugs are there.
How do you expect software to improve without any feedback via the bug reporting system? Have you raised any support cases for these 'problems'? If you haven't I'd suggest you contact whomever is responsible in your organisation for support then filing support cases outlining the problems you've encountered.[/QUOTE]
I believe it is the Network Edition.
If I had a few weeks of spare time, then I'd be happy to be posting bugs to Bugzilla. At the moment it's not the case, though I suppose I should take the time to log the data loss bugs I've encountered.
How do I expect software to improve without any feedback via the bug reporting system? Well, I'd like to think that Zimbra actually does testing on their product. I can't imagine all these issues are site specific and many are really obvious--hence my original question asking for opinions as to why the bugs are there.
-
edwin.arneson
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2014 12:23 am
Why is Zimbra so buggy?
[quote user="uxbod"]Perhaps if people have a read through Product Portal :: Guns 'n' Roses V6 and [url=Zimbra Collaboration Suite 6.0 Beta (Codename: Guns N’ Roses) » Zimbra :: Blog[/url] they will see some of the exciting enhancements coming very soon [/QUOTE]
The release document is a bit of light reading currently with 2281 rows. I haven't read it, yet. I have regularly been reading the 5.0.x releases.
Release 5.0.15 is a production release. That's 15 bugfix/enhancement releases to 5.0.0. If nothing changes, I have no reason to think that 6.0 will won't be a bunch more features, with a bunch of bugs fixed that will still be buggy.
[/QUOTE]The release document is a bit of light reading currently with 2281 rows. I haven't read it, yet. I have regularly been reading the 5.0.x releases.
Release 5.0.15 is a production release. That's 15 bugfix/enhancement releases to 5.0.0. If nothing changes, I have no reason to think that 6.0 will won't be a bunch more features, with a bunch of bugs fixed that will still be buggy.
-
edwin.arneson
- Posts: 29
- Joined: Sat Sep 13, 2014 12:23 am
Why is Zimbra so buggy?
[quote user="nrc"]Since the OP wants to complain but can't be bothered to do anything about it, I've submitted Bug 37496 - Searching for specific size message does not work
[/QUOTE]
Thanks. My worry is if I post a few dozen bugs, they will generate too many requests for more info, some of which I can't answer since I don't have access to the back-end.
Edit: Also, Bugzilla seems like a bit of a black hole for some issues, so why spend a lot of time logging bugs if might never be fixed. For example, I need a calendar reminder to have a high probability of reminding me... which means it has to be in the operating system not hidden in a browser window. Bug #7899 is almost 3 years old. Random bit of poking in Bugzilla: #444 is almost 4 1/3 years old
[quote user="nrc"]
Of the things mentioned, that's really the only bug, ie something that doesn't work as intended because of a programming error. The others are simply features that work as programmed, but maybe not as you would expect or prefer.
[/QUOTE]
I think some of the others are bugs. For example, if the help says if you do "x" that "y" will happen, and for 9 cases out of 10 it is true. Then to me the 10th case is a bug, not an enhancement.
[quote user="nrc"]
The other two items point out problems with Zimbra, but they don't indicate lousy programmers or no QA.
[/QUOTE]
In production code, bugs should be hard to find, not easy.
[quote user="nrc"]
The first is a problem of maturity. Zimbra Collaboration Suite is just over three years old. They have not yet progressed to the point where everything is as complete and consistent as it needs to be. Progress has been rapid, but there is still work to be done.
[/QUOTE]
I'd rather Zimbra didn't have tasks, and documents and the briefcase and the desktop client and whatever, if it meant the core product was better.
[quote user="nrc"]
The second is that sometimes Zimbra lets their own point of view on the way email should work dictate what features they implement or how. On the column sort question, some within Zimbra might respond (as they have in bugzilla) that users should use search instead of sorting.
[/QUOTE]
I do like the advanced search a lot (except for the bugs). Nevertheless, having gotten the, say 20, search results, I'd still like to be able to sort by tag or attachment or priority and deal with the search results in an orderly manner.
[quote user="nrc"]
They've had similar blind spots with things like message priority and return receipts.[/QUOTE]
The calendar seems to be a blind spot, too. Particularly around reminders. It's so bad that I'm forced to use the Outlook Connector to ensure I have a useful calendar.
Thanks for your reply. I've only been using Zimbra for a relatively short time, and I was hoping for some insight from people who knew more about the product and its history than I.
[/QUOTE]
Thanks. My worry is if I post a few dozen bugs, they will generate too many requests for more info, some of which I can't answer since I don't have access to the back-end.
Edit: Also, Bugzilla seems like a bit of a black hole for some issues, so why spend a lot of time logging bugs if might never be fixed. For example, I need a calendar reminder to have a high probability of reminding me... which means it has to be in the operating system not hidden in a browser window. Bug #7899 is almost 3 years old. Random bit of poking in Bugzilla: #444 is almost 4 1/3 years old
[quote user="nrc"]
Of the things mentioned, that's really the only bug, ie something that doesn't work as intended because of a programming error. The others are simply features that work as programmed, but maybe not as you would expect or prefer.
[/QUOTE]
I think some of the others are bugs. For example, if the help says if you do "x" that "y" will happen, and for 9 cases out of 10 it is true. Then to me the 10th case is a bug, not an enhancement.
[quote user="nrc"]
The other two items point out problems with Zimbra, but they don't indicate lousy programmers or no QA.
[/QUOTE]
In production code, bugs should be hard to find, not easy.
[quote user="nrc"]
The first is a problem of maturity. Zimbra Collaboration Suite is just over three years old. They have not yet progressed to the point where everything is as complete and consistent as it needs to be. Progress has been rapid, but there is still work to be done.
[/QUOTE]
I'd rather Zimbra didn't have tasks, and documents and the briefcase and the desktop client and whatever, if it meant the core product was better.
[quote user="nrc"]
The second is that sometimes Zimbra lets their own point of view on the way email should work dictate what features they implement or how. On the column sort question, some within Zimbra might respond (as they have in bugzilla) that users should use search instead of sorting.
[/QUOTE]
I do like the advanced search a lot (except for the bugs). Nevertheless, having gotten the, say 20, search results, I'd still like to be able to sort by tag or attachment or priority and deal with the search results in an orderly manner.
[quote user="nrc"]
They've had similar blind spots with things like message priority and return receipts.[/QUOTE]
The calendar seems to be a blind spot, too. Particularly around reminders. It's so bad that I'm forced to use the Outlook Connector to ensure I have a useful calendar.
Thanks for your reply. I've only been using Zimbra for a relatively short time, and I was hoping for some insight from people who knew more about the product and its history than I.