Hey folks, thanks for checking this out and for considering sending in a bug report :)
To avoid having to ask for additional info, let me outline a few things you can do to make us developers life a lot easier. As you may imagine, the more specific you can describe when and where some issue occurs, the easier it is to fix the bug.
Please always assume that what you are experiencing is probably not all obvious on my end - if it was, I'd be fixing it :)
Be aware wikiloops is visited with very different devices (think: TVs, notebooks, desktop computers, tablets, phones and some even more weird stuff) which have very different screen sizes, and from a wide variety of mobile or computer operating systems, which again may be totally recent or windows 98 (remember that?).
On top of that, there is a garden full of different browsers (fireFox, chrome, safari, edge ... pale moon), some with add-ons like ad-blockers or privacy extensions... and of course in a bunch of different versions depending on peoples willingness to update their digital gear.
Bottom line, if you calculate the number of possible options, you'll understand why nobody could possible test all that, so you might be the expert on some kind of device setup.
So, please always include your operating system, screen resolution, choice of browser and ideally a link to the wikiloops page where the issue occurs (it might be only happen on one specific track, too! Which one?) and a description what seems strange.
If you want to make it even easier on me, please do take a screenshot (that's capturing what is on your screen in an image file, for those not familiar with the term - don't shoot your monitor, please).
To find out how to take a screenshot on your current device, please consult the internet, most operating systems have a keyboard shortcut to take a picture of your screen.
A picture says more than a thousand words, please attach one to your post if that is anyhow possible (it might be difficult on a phone, then do not bother).
OK, now, that being said, on to the second very important thing you can do to help:
Please keep in mind, it might be only you experiencing some error, and one cause of mischief might be the thing called "browser cache". What does it do? It keeps copies of images and browser instructions which are initially transferred from the wikiloops server in germany to your machine so you can see them. Second time you visit a page, most of the images are most likely coming from the cache instead of re-fetching them, which is nice as it speeds up things quite a lot.
However, there is a chance that your browser cache is serving you some outdated code which I have already fixed, but your browser thinks it holds what it needs in its cache...
so, please, at least shut down and reopen your browser once, that may be enough to fix the problem.
If that does not help, please head to your browsers settings and tell it to clear the cache - that guarantees you will get the fresh files from wikiloops on your next visit, and that might as well be the end of the issue.
On to level three :) This is where it get's a bit technical, fasten seatbelts:
Assumed it still does not work, and assumed you are experiencing the issue on a regular computer (as opposed to a phone), I will now ask you to enter the rabbithole of what a coder works with... drummroll... please meet: The developer console. What's that? It is a feature of your browser which you have probably never used before, but it is a common thing available in every browser. On windows, you can open and close it by pressing the F12 button, on Safari/Mac you can right click on the page and choose "Show page source" to open it. Feel free to do that right here while reading this post :)
What do we have here? Well, some ugly panel with some tabs at the top. These are labelled slightly different depending on the browser you use, and I do not know which one will be open by default for you. Also, mind same tabs may not be visible right away, depending on how wide the panel is displayed. Please locate and click on the "network" tab.
Now, please reload the page. You'll see a bunch of list items appear in the networks tab - those are files which are being transferred to your browser as the page loads, most of them will be images. Scroll down that list and watch out for any red-printed entries please - red indicates the file could not be loaded, please take a screenshot or tell me which file that was!
No such issue in the network tab? OK, then please head over to the "Console" tab. Reload the page again, and (if your issue requires clicking anywhere to happen), do as you would normally do. There is a good chance some red-printed error shows up, and if you could kindly take a screenshot of that, that would be most helpful to have. Congratulations, you just spotted an error in javaScript, who would have thought ;)
You will find an "X" button to close the developer console now that you have documented the cause of your issue.
Folks, thanks for following these guidelines when opening "tickets" for me, it does help so much to get some more info than just "doesn't seem to work"...
Dick attached the following image:
To avoid having to ask for additional info, let me outline a few things you can do to make us developers life a lot easier. As you may imagine, the more specific you can describe when and where some issue occurs, the easier it is to fix the bug.
Please always assume that what you are experiencing is probably not all obvious on my end - if it was, I'd be fixing it :)
Be aware wikiloops is visited with very different devices (think: TVs, notebooks, desktop computers, tablets, phones and some even more weird stuff) which have very different screen sizes, and from a wide variety of mobile or computer operating systems, which again may be totally recent or windows 98 (remember that?).
On top of that, there is a garden full of different browsers (fireFox, chrome, safari, edge ... pale moon), some with add-ons like ad-blockers or privacy extensions... and of course in a bunch of different versions depending on peoples willingness to update their digital gear.
Bottom line, if you calculate the number of possible options, you'll understand why nobody could possible test all that, so you might be the expert on some kind of device setup.
So, please always include your operating system, screen resolution, choice of browser and ideally a link to the wikiloops page where the issue occurs (it might be only happen on one specific track, too! Which one?) and a description what seems strange.
If you want to make it even easier on me, please do take a screenshot (that's capturing what is on your screen in an image file, for those not familiar with the term - don't shoot your monitor, please).
To find out how to take a screenshot on your current device, please consult the internet, most operating systems have a keyboard shortcut to take a picture of your screen.
A picture says more than a thousand words, please attach one to your post if that is anyhow possible (it might be difficult on a phone, then do not bother).
OK, now, that being said, on to the second very important thing you can do to help:
Please keep in mind, it might be only you experiencing some error, and one cause of mischief might be the thing called "browser cache". What does it do? It keeps copies of images and browser instructions which are initially transferred from the wikiloops server in germany to your machine so you can see them. Second time you visit a page, most of the images are most likely coming from the cache instead of re-fetching them, which is nice as it speeds up things quite a lot.
However, there is a chance that your browser cache is serving you some outdated code which I have already fixed, but your browser thinks it holds what it needs in its cache...
so, please, at least shut down and reopen your browser once, that may be enough to fix the problem.
If that does not help, please head to your browsers settings and tell it to clear the cache - that guarantees you will get the fresh files from wikiloops on your next visit, and that might as well be the end of the issue.
On to level three :) This is where it get's a bit technical, fasten seatbelts:
Assumed it still does not work, and assumed you are experiencing the issue on a regular computer (as opposed to a phone), I will now ask you to enter the rabbithole of what a coder works with... drummroll... please meet: The developer console. What's that? It is a feature of your browser which you have probably never used before, but it is a common thing available in every browser. On windows, you can open and close it by pressing the F12 button, on Safari/Mac you can right click on the page and choose "Show page source" to open it. Feel free to do that right here while reading this post :)
What do we have here? Well, some ugly panel with some tabs at the top. These are labelled slightly different depending on the browser you use, and I do not know which one will be open by default for you. Also, mind same tabs may not be visible right away, depending on how wide the panel is displayed. Please locate and click on the "network" tab.
Now, please reload the page. You'll see a bunch of list items appear in the networks tab - those are files which are being transferred to your browser as the page loads, most of them will be images. Scroll down that list and watch out for any red-printed entries please - red indicates the file could not be loaded, please take a screenshot or tell me which file that was!
No such issue in the network tab? OK, then please head over to the "Console" tab. Reload the page again, and (if your issue requires clicking anywhere to happen), do as you would normally do. There is a good chance some red-printed error shows up, and if you could kindly take a screenshot of that, that would be most helpful to have. Congratulations, you just spotted an error in javaScript, who would have thought ;)
You will find an "X" button to close the developer console now that you have documented the cause of your issue.
Folks, thanks for following these guidelines when opening "tickets" for me, it does help so much to get some more info than just "doesn't seem to work"...
Dick attached the following image:
