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Feedback 0001: Alpha release external review (Discord)

Reporter

Seven comments on the v0.1.0-alpha release, tried shortly after it went up. Recorded here as one batch since they arrived together in one message.

Items

1. .deb requires Qt 6.11, Debian has Qt 6.10.2 — app doesn't start

.deb requires Qt 6.11, while debian currently has Qt 6.10.2 → app doesn't start.

Status: Fixed

Confirmed, and it was a packaging mistake rather than a code bug: the .deb's Depends: line was generated with ldd + dpkg -S on the machine that built it — a rolling-release Arch box with a newer Qt than Debian stable ships. Fixed by rebuilding inside a debian:bookworm container. That also surfaced a second, previously-invisible bug in the script itself: dpkg -S does a literal path match, but ldd reports paths through /lib, a symlink to /usr/lib on usrmerge systems — every Qt6 library silently failed to resolve and got dropped from Depends entirely. Fixed with readlink -f first. Verified by installing the rebuilt .deb via apt-get install ./ase_*.deb in a fresh container and launching it successfully. See ADR 0045.

2. AppImage requires GLIBC 2.43 — doesn't start on older glibc systems

AppImage requires GLIBC 2.43 → doesn't start on older glibc systems.

Status: Fixed

Same root cause as #1: AppImages are conventionally built on an old base (Ubuntu 22.04-class) precisely so the glibc floor stays low — building on rolling-release Arch defeats that. Fixed by rebuilding inside an ubuntu:22.04 container; the bundled binary's glibc ceiling dropped from 2.43 to 2.34. Verified by actually running the rebuilt AppImage on a real X11 display, not just inspecting its symbols. See ADR 0045.

3. CMake can finish successfully while silently skipping the GUI when Qt6 dev files are missing

CMake can successfully finish while silently skipping the GUI when Qt6 development files are missing.

Status: Fixed

gui/CMakeLists.txt now raises FATAL_ERROR instead of message(WARNING ...) + return() when Qt6 isn't found, telling the user to either install Qt6 or pass -DASE_BUILD_GUI=OFF for the (unchanged, still-supported) headless build. Verified: a forced-missing-Qt6 configure now fails with that message, a normal configure still builds and passes 9/9 tests, and -DASE_BUILD_GUI=OFF still configures and builds cleanly. README's Building section updated to match.

4. README has an outdated/inconsistent statement about undo/redo

README has an outdated/inconsistent statement about undo/redo.

Status: Not a Bug

Checked the current README.md line by line: all three mentions of undo/redo (Status section, architecture diagram, Layout section) are consistent and describe it as implemented, with nothing hedged or contradictory. This looks like it was true of an earlier version of the README and has since been resolved as part of other edits. If a specific stale line turns up, reopen this with the exact quote — a concrete "the doc says X, the code does Y" is exactly the shape of report this log exists for.

5. Keyboard shortcuts panel is cramped and requires internal scrolling; nested scrollbar feels awkward

Keyboard shortcuts panel is cramped and requires internal scrolling; nested scrollbar feels awkward.

Status: Deferred

Confirmed at gui/src/help_panel.cpp:101: the panel is a fixed 480×420 single-column scroll area, which forces a nested scrollbar once the shortcut list is long enough. A two-column split was tried and actually verified to remove the inner scrollbar entirely, but it was reverted — not because the underlying observation is wrong, but because a single panel shouldn't get its own one-off layout redesign ahead of the rest of the editor's chrome. This is current visual identity, not a defect: every floating panel in the editor (docs/adr/0022) deliberately shares one compact, narrow-column language, and the Help panel matches it today. It's a real candidate for the next system-wide pass over that shared design (see the triage note), not an isolated patch to one panel — tracked, not forgotten.

6. Window control buttons look unfinished/placeholder-like

Window control buttons look unfinished/placeholder-like.

Status: Not a Bug

Checked gui/src/main.cpp: ase doesn't draw its own title bar or window control buttons at all — it's a plain QMainWindow with native OS window decorations, and FramelessWindowHint doesn't appear anywhere in the codebase. Whatever was seen is the reporter's own window manager's theme, not ase's UI — nothing here for us to change. Reopen if this refers to some other button (e.g. inside a panel) rather than minimize/maximize/close.

7. Build emits a tmpnam() security warning

Build emits a tmpnam() security warning.

Status: Fixed

Added target_compile_definitions(lua_runtime PRIVATE LUA_USE_POSIX) in core/CMakeLists.txt (POSIX-only build, matching how the rest of the project already treats Lua). Verified: a full clean rebuild produces zero occurrences of tmpnam in the build log, and all 9/9 tests still pass.