The issue forms are configured to request the contributor to test using the nightly build of Arduino IDE before
submitting an issue in order to make sure the bug or feature request has not already been resolved.
Some time ago, the repository's readme contained a table of download links. The links in the issue forms pointed there.
That table was replaced with a link to the official "Software" page in order to reduce unnecessary verbosity and
maintenance burden of the project's documentation content.
The issue form links were not updated at that time. The resulting additional link in the chain made obtaining the
nightly build less convenient for the contributor to obtain.
The links are hereby updated to point directly to the list of nightly build download links on the arduino.cc "Software"
page.
GitHub issue forms are used in this repository to facilitate the creation of high quality issues. These provide input
fields for each of the distinct classes of information which will be essential for the evaluation of the issues.
One of these fields is for the user's operating system. A dropdown menu is used for the selection of the high level
operating system type. Previously this only permitted the selection of a single option. A devoted contributor might have
made the effort to determine that the issue applies to multiple operating system types only to be met with the inability
to provide this information via the dedicated field.
The field also did not offer an option to indicate that the operating system was irrelevant to the issue (e.g., a
subject related to the repository assets).
Those issues are resolved by the following changes:
- Configure the field to allow multiple selections
- Add a "N/A" option to the menu
This project provides the contributors with templates for the fundamental categories of issues:
- bug report
- feature request
This is helpful to the maintainers and developers because it establishes a standardized framework for the issues and
encourages the contributors to provide the essential information.
GitHub's original issue template system is very crude, simply pre-populating the issue description field with the text
from the template file.
https://docs.github.com/en/communities/using-templates-to-encourage-useful-issues-and-pull-requests/configuring-issue-templates-for-your-repository#creating-issue-templates
The contributor may be confused by being presented with a mass of Markdown and placeholder
content where they expected a field to write their issue. They also may find it inconvenient to manuever around the
framework content and replace the placeholder content.
A far better system is now available with GitHub's recently introduced form-based issue templates:
https://docs.github.com/en/communities/using-templates-to-encourage-useful-issues-and-pull-requests/configuring-issue-templates-for-your-repository#creating-issue-forms
The user is now presented with a web form. These may include multi-line input fields that have the same formatting and
attachment capabilities as the standard GitHub Issue composer, but also additional elements such as menus and checkboxes.
The use of this form-based system should provide a much better experience for the contributors and also result in higher
quality issues.
