Generate Requirement Specification Document - why HTML only?

[AndreyBess]

Hello!

Why it is not allowed to save Requirements in MS Office of Open Office formats?

My team of analytics is going to use TestLink as the tool to generate requirements for testers in, and later generate a file with those requirements.

Nowadays the behaviour is to generate an HTML view in the right panel, yet the Help text provided with TL 1.9.11 says the next, which is exactly what is needed:

Purpose:

From here you can print a single requirement, all the requirements within a requirement specification, or all the requirements in a test project.

Get Started:

Select the parts of the requirements you want to display, and then click on a requirement, requirement specification, or the test project. A printable page will be displayed.

Use the "Show As" drop-box in the navigation pane to specify whether you want the information displayed as HTML, OpenOffice Writer or in a Micosoft Word document. See help for more information.

Use your browser's print functionality to actually print the information.
Note: Make sure to only print the right-hand frame.

[fman]

>> Why it is not allowed to save Requirements in MS Office of Open Office formats?
because TestLink did not create REAL WORD or OPENOFFICE but JUST FAKE the browser with the application type used on DOWNLOAD.
This means that you will not be able to share documents with images because images are LINKS not embedded.

We will review this in future.

[AndreyBess]

>> Why it is not allowed to save Requirements in MS Office of Open Office formats?
because TestLink did not create REAL WORD or OPENOFFICE but JUST FAKE the browser with the application type used on DOWNLOAD.
This means that you will not be able to share documents with images because images are LINKS not embedded.

We will review this in future.

I do think that for most cases text and tables are OK. I.e. the same functionality which is allowed now for test reports.
Pictures and links could be replaces with some text.
Anyway, will be waiting...

[twelveeighty]

We performed a test upgrade from 1.9.4 to 1.9.11 today and now also realized that this feature is now gone. Unfortunately, that is one of our highest use capabilities, we use it to share requirements with customers that can't log into Testlink themselves, so this would block us from upgrading. Is there a way for us to "hack" the .doc export back in the "Print Requirements Specification" screen? Not having linked images in the doc was never an issue in our case. Or was there a substantial amount of code removed that would be difficult to put back in?

If not, what version was this removed? Maybe we can do a partial upgrade while we wait / contribute to get this feature back?

[fman]

last version with these feature is 1.9.10
you can add it with not LOT of effort, will we thing in what way re-enable it on 1.9.12

[twelveeighty]

Unless I wasn't doing it right, I didn't see the .doc export in 1.9.10 either, but it is in 1.9.9. I think we'll stick to 1.9.9 for now, if there are plans to reintroduce it in 1.9.12.

As always, thanks for your hard work on TestLink!

[fman]

>> As always, thanks for your hard work on TestLink!
Thanks, but support of any kind (donations, documents, testing time) will be welcomed.

http://mantis.testlink.org/view.php?id=6321

[twelveeighty]

Awesome - I just noticed the link to the patch for reintroducing the export. I'll test it as soon as I have a couple of hours to dedicate to it. I haven't pulled the GIT repo yet, so it'll take some time to get a development version up and running.

[twelveeighty]

As noted in the mantis ticket (for those only following this thread): a fix has been submitted and seems to work fine - I hope this makes it in 1.9.12 soon!

[fman]

regarding:
>> I hope this makes it in 1.9.12 soon!
do not seem users are interested to help to test it, make dev team a little bit easier.
Tweet asking for help was absolutely ignored, showing again that people is ready to get, to pretend buy not to give. (sadly)

[twelveeighty]

I can't speak for anyone else, but I tested it. I don't use Twitter, though.

@fman: is there a document describing things like the current branches / commit, push policy for TestLink on gitorious? It took me a while to figure out you are committing to the testlink_1_9 branch. Makes it easier to jump in for others if we can find a doc (it may be somewhere already, of course).

[fman]

IMHO there is no need of any document to understand that we are using branch 1.9 => testlink version is 1.9.x ,then how can be misunderstoo with master.
Experience shows that people is lazy, wants just to GET and not to give, and no matter amount of info is provided nothing will be done ALWAYS
I apologize if this comment sounds rude but is what i think (and I have checked on all these years)

[twelveeighty]

It's a catch-22, though. If I wanted to contribute, I would need to know what the "testlink dev" way is for that. Every FOSS project does that differently, so I'm not going to assume anything. If you don't want to tell us how you wish to receive patches, then I can't contribute. Just put a sticky post on the forum here somewhere with the basic "steps 1 through X" of how you want folks to send updates or pull requests.

I'm sure your complaints are 100% valid. Unfortunately, it's the nature of a project like this: some people can/will devote time to it when convenient, but then they move on to other jobs, priorities, etc. That's frustrating to the owners of the project, but it's inevitable.