Hi guys,
> > This, after stating in the previous sentence that "We...acknowledge> that there may be problems", strongly suggests to me that you mean a > version _other than_ 0.5.0 No, I mean 0.5.0. Stable, after all, means "not moving". By nobody's (except, perhaps, the marketer's) definition does it mean "bugless". Of course, there have not been any "rock solid use this to guide your nuclear missiles" releases. That should be evident from the "0." prefix in the version number.And there will NEVER be such releases. There are NO GUARANTEES associated with the code. The point of 0.5.0 is that if you find a bug, we'll fix it and release 0.5.1 with only small bug fixes - no new features between 0.5.* so that we end up with stabler and stabler versions.
If I may, let me suggest that more is being read into my request than I intended with my original question. I certainly have no intention of guiding nuclear missiles with - or without!! - the excellent program and system that GZigzag is developing into.
Nor am I trying to pin down the work being done by the development team in Finland to a 'safety above all, make no daring changes, get it working at all costs' style of development. However, the users - among them myself, Ted, Marlene, and (I hope) many others now and in the near future - would like a usable text-entry and editing tool, and that a quote 'stable, branched version' (or something, I believe, very similar to that) was discussed and agreed to some months ago.
This branched version option was developed to address and resolve two problems: firstly, to give the biggest supporters of Gzz (including its inventor and designer, BTW) a 'usable' program, even during its pre-release stages; and secondly tp allow the coding and development team, which is comprised of a number of brilliant, idiosyncratic, and inner-directed individuals, a chance to explore a variety of options, in a variety of ways, based largely, though not entirely, on criteria of their own devising.
Were this branch structure to be successfully put into place it would allow the 'futuristic', leading-edge development threads and functionality to be folded into the 'stable version' on a case by case basis when these functions were ready - stable, from the user's point of view, in the sense of working well; working smoothly; and when there is a crash or hiccup, to fail gently and without destroying more than a smidgeon of user data when it does so.
Cheers, edward harterP.S. AJ, I think you may be confusing 'stasis' as in, 'we put him into the Chrono-Warp field for thirteen centuries, and when we finally released him from his stasis he hadn't changed or aged one iota'; with 'stable', as in 'the Gossamer Condor, though not as reliable as a 747-400 or an Airbus, was stable enough, and safe enough, to be pedaled across the English Channel by one man, thereby vindicating both the dreams of the inventor and the excellence of the engineering team who built this human-powered plane, in its triumphal flight.'