[Bf-committers] Import scripts quality

[Bart]

For my VRML and X3D exporter i'm using 7 diffrent sites specific to 
Blender or VRML/X3D to get a
handfull of testers and some feedback. A lot of bugs i found myself (got 
a large experience in VRML/X3D too).
It is not easy to find testers for scripts.
Most bugs appear when you did not playing with - they appear in a real 
project.

But many thanks to Cam who gives me a very cool feedback in programming 
and did nice docs about
python programming!

Willian Padovani Germano schrieb:

> Alexander Ewering wrote:
>
>> (...) I feel the need to express some serious concerns about the 
>> quality of the bundled import scripts.
>
>
> That's welcome and needed feedback, of course.  Scripts in Blender 
> have been tested by their authors and other users, usually with 
> discussions at elysiun's Python & Plugins forum and also by me (only 
> to make sure they work, basically, actual users needing a script can 
> test way better).
>
> This is almost a controlled situation, because the author and forum 
> participants get to know what already works and how -- the scripts 
> work for them.  Surely we can't expect all Blender users to know that, 
> so both we need good, structured documentation and bug reports from 
> those who try the scripts in ways that the author hasn't yet or knows 
> that are not supported.
>
> Specifically about Paths Import (from JMS), not sure if that is your 
> problem, a common issue is that they import "paths" only, not other 
> SVG objects (it is not a standalone svg importer).  And for .ai it 
> seems not all versions are supported.  The svg part was updated for 
> inkscape 0.40, if that didn't work maybe you have an older version of 
> the script in your .blender/scripts dir (note that dir was changed, it 
> has subdirs now, scripts will fail with "Import Error" if you don't 
> update).
>
> But anyway, please all users report problems at the elysiun forum or 
> fill a bug report with a sample file you tried to import.
>
> ===
>
> To say what is being done:
>
> The quality of all bundled scripts is a concern.  We need them to have 
> the "boring parts" developed as well -- full documentation, proper 
> warnings error msgs for all problems, bugs fixed, improvements made.  
> Projects to help with this have been planned to start soon, along with 
> the rest of the helper stuff authors may need: an script installer, a 
> general gui script to report errors and warnings instead of using the 
> console.
>
> An specific project to make importers / exporters more robust and 
> documented in detail (per script: what is supported, important 
> details) is high on our TODO, but it will only work if we get reports 
> from those who actually need these convertors.  Adding important 
> missing convertors is also part of this project, I'll write about it 
> soon at elysiun and the bf-scripts mailing list.
>