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Author Topic: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?  (Read 15854 times)

urlwolf

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issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« on: January 11, 2008, 12:03 PM »
I have been looking at fogbugz.com, and, while really cool, I don't feel like getting caught in large fees if my group ever gets any bigger.

I also don't like the fact that it doesn't integrate by default with my favorite dvcs, mercurial.

(If you don't know what an issue tracker is, watching the fogbugz.com video will fix that, and it's really funny).

Fogbugz has Evidence-Based Scheduling, which is pretty cool. It also integrates with customers mail and has a primitive forum.

These are features that don't exist in free alternatives, such as trac. But trac is open source, and it does integrate with mercurial.

Another free one that integrates with mercurial is Redmine.

A nice comparison:
Comparison of issue tracking systems

An easy way to try these systems without having to install them (pain) is jumpbox.com. It gives you a virtual machine running major OS projects (nice resource!).

Things that I want the system to do (quoting other people descriptions):

   All e-mail to [email protected] goes through FogBugz which is a huge huge time saver for me. I can turn e-mails into bug reports, file them away, respond, easily see previous e-mails from the reporter, and generally do everything I need to do when I’m wearing my support hat. It’s all easy and does what I need and want it to do.

    At Fog Creek, we typically create new cases for each bug and/or feature request in an email, leaving the original case available to follow the interaction with the customer wherever it goes. The convenience of linking new cases back to the original email makes it easy to see what prompted a certain case.

Thoughts?

tinjaw

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #1 on: January 11, 2008, 01:12 PM »
Jumpbox is something I bookmarked as "looks worth trying".

I use Mantis. You should be able to integrate Mantis with Mercurial via Scmbug.

housetier

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #2 on: January 11, 2008, 05:23 PM »
I was going to suggest mantis as well.

urlwolf

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2008, 05:50 PM »
What's so good about Mantis?
It doesn't look very pretty looking at the demo?

CWuestefeld

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #4 on: January 11, 2008, 08:31 PM »
You might consider Fortress, from the folks who brought you Vault:
http://www.sourcegea.../fortress/index.html

They have a free single-developer license if this is just for you.

f0dder

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #5 on: January 12, 2008, 07:14 AM »
What's so good about Mantis?
It doesn't look very pretty looking at the demo?
I guess prettiness wasn't a design goal - but openness and stability was?

I'm pretty wary of storing any of my data, especially important and/or large quantities in proprietary formats/systems.
- carpe noctem

tinjaw

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #6 on: January 12, 2008, 07:25 AM »
What's so good about Mantis?
It doesn't look very pretty looking at the demo?
I've never really give its appearance much thought. It does what I think a bug tracker should and it is open source, so I can modify it if my needs differ from the stock installation. It is also much easier to integrate an open source bug tracker with an open source version control system and an open source wiki (mediawiki - Matis integrates with it out-of-the-box as of 1.1).

urlwolf

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #7 on: January 12, 2008, 07:30 AM »
ok, I have finally decided to go for trac.
The collection of plugins, open-source, the fact that I have seen it working with mercurial already, and prettyness made me go for it. It's python, too.

f0dder

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #8 on: January 12, 2008, 08:29 AM »
Btw tinjaw, is integrating mantis + subversion easy? I'm thinking of automagicifying stuff, like auto-closing tickets based on svn commit logs?
- carpe noctem

tinjaw

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #9 on: January 12, 2008, 12:29 PM »
Btw tinjaw, is integrating mantis + subversion easy? I'm thinking of automagicifying stuff, like auto-closing tickets based on svn commit logs?

Yes. There are several places this has been done and notes kept:

edited to add another link.
« Last Edit: January 12, 2008, 06:39 PM by tinjaw »

f0dder

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #10 on: January 12, 2008, 01:03 PM »
Btw tinjaw, is integrating mantis + subversion easy? I'm thinking of automagicifying stuff, like auto-closing tickets based on svn commit logs?

Yes. There are several places this has been done and notes kept:

Okay, I will take a look at those later; did you do it yourself, so you can comment on how easy it is? :)
- carpe noctem

tinjaw

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #11 on: January 12, 2008, 03:08 PM »
It was a while ago and I used Scmbug. I don't remember how difficult it was.

justice

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #12 on: January 15, 2008, 05:18 AM »
I recommended FogBugz at work after reading a lot about the philosophy behind their reports, how cases are escalated etc. We've been using it for over a year on licenses for 3 people and it's worked really well for me and I like how I can integrate BugzScout (to send bugreports directly from software or web forms into the system) and how people orientated it is. (for both support and end users).

Before this we weren't using anything.
« Last Edit: January 15, 2008, 10:43 AM by justice »

urlwolf

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #13 on: January 15, 2008, 10:20 AM »
justice can you post a link to bugScout? google returns nothing of interest...

justice

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #14 on: January 15, 2008, 10:43 AM »
Sorry for misspelling..

BugzScout FogBugz 6.0 Online Documentation
BugzScout is a simple API which allows you to send new bugs directly to FogBugz simply by submitting an HTTP post. This is a great way to automatically report bugs into your database from any website or application with access to the Internet.

BugzScout allows your program to report bugs back to your FogBugz server. For example, when your code is in beta, you can gather data about crashes and let users send you feature requests.

Catherine Sea

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #15 on: January 31, 2008, 03:43 AM »
Hi,

At Dynamsoft, we have Issue Tracking Anywhere. It can meet your requirements. It is built on ASP.NET and is a web-based issue tracking system designed for issue/work item tracking, bug/defect tracking, customer support and project management. It has two editions: Standalone and Hosted. Here is the home page of Issue Tracking Anywhere:
http://www.dynamsoft.com/Products/
bug-tracking-issue-tracking-anywhere.aspx
There is also a 5 minutes quick overview video. You can sit back and watch:
http://www.dynamsoft...AVideo/ITAFlash.aspx

For Issue Tracking Anywhere Hosted edition, 3 Users Free Hosting Plan is available:
http://www.dynamsoft.com/products/
bug-tracking-issue-tracking-anywhere.aspx
Thanks.

Catherine Sea
----------------------------------------
www.dynamsoft.com
the leading developer of version control and issue tracking software
 
« Last Edit: May 08, 2008, 12:19 AM by Catherine Sea »

lethean

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #16 on: January 31, 2008, 11:32 AM »
Does Issue Tracking Anywhere integrate with mercurial?

PPLandry

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #17 on: March 16, 2008, 09:15 PM »
I've been using Mantis for the last few months for SQLNotes. I did some customizations of the UI (colors, changed some listing to tables, added categories, added edit links, etc: anyone interested can get these changes free, just PM me.).

I'm very pleased with it and so are beta testers. They can enter bugs and feature request and see progress. Roadmaps and release changelogs provide documentation. Sorting and filtering are easy to use. Unlimited number of notes can be added.

It is fast and reliable using MySQL (I tried to get it going on SQL Server but did not succeed). I downloaded the MySQL ODBC driver and can see all tables in Access and perform queries and batch updates. SQLNotes can even pull the data from the MySQL database and display the issues, allowing users a much more responsive and flexible UI.

Flexible permission settings (albeid not always obvious to understand how it works). Anonymous login (read-only) is also possible.

I highly recommend it (plus it's free!).

http://mantis.sqlnot...t/changelog_page.php
Real generosity toward the future lies in giving all to the present -- Albert Camus -- www.InfoQube.biz

ctrager

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #18 on: March 17, 2008, 09:51 PM »
The topic of which <a href=http://ifdefined.com/bugtrackernet.html>issue tracking</a>/<a href=http://ifdefined.com/bugtrackernet.html>bug tracking</a> system to choose comes up frequently on the web.   I've put together a page of links to <a href=http://www.ifdefined.com/blog/post/2007/10/Links-to-other-comparisons-of-issue-trackers.aspx>issue tracker comparisons</a>, if you need more choices.   FogBugz, Trac, and Mantis are all worthy choices.  Trac seems to have a big community.

If you like the style of FogBugz, you might want to try <a href=http://ifdefined.com/bugtrackernet.html>BugTracker.NET</a>.   (I'm the author).   It's free and open source.    It does not have a Wiki or any sort of time tracking/scheduling, but it does have similar email integration and is more configurable than FogBugz.   Does not integrate with mercurial yet, but it has good <a href=http://www.ifdefined.com/doc_bug_tracker_subversion.html>integration with Subversion</a>

f0dder

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #19 on: March 17, 2008, 10:25 PM »
ctrager: welcome aboard :). Small gripe about your site: your links to the three commercial trackers you have advertisements for go through "1.aspx" - is this to hide some referral scheme? Also, you'll definitely want to post some more easily-accessible screenshots.
- carpe noctem

ctrager

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #20 on: March 17, 2008, 10:48 PM »
f0dder -   Regarding screenshots, there's a working instance of BugTracker.NET at http://ifdefined.com/btnet.   You can play with some features as a guest, more if you register.  The documentation at http://ifdefined.com/README.html shows what some of the administration pages look like and explain some of the configurability.   But my demo is only one way BugTracker.NET can look.   Here's another way (although I'm sure they changed some C# code too):  http://frap.cdf.ca.g...zard/btnet/bugs.aspx

Regarding the ads, I'm not hiding anything.  The three commercial trackers do pay me to publish their advertisements on my site.  "1.aspx" is my script for keeping track of stats.   I don't have access to raw server logs from my hosting provider, so I have to track the stats myself so that I can report them to the advertisers.   Is what I'm doing not ok to you?

f0dder

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Re: issue trackers: do you use one? What's the best?
« Reply #21 on: March 17, 2008, 11:08 PM »
ctrager: what you do is just fine :), I don't have a problem with advertisements as long as people don't do "nasty stuff" (like posting TinyUrls at forums with hidden referrals - I'm not referring to you here, btw). I just thought "1.aspx?u=id" was a bit curious name, if you had names it "stats.aspx?app=id" I wouldn't have asked :)

Gave the demo a quick spin, looks like an OK product really - the layout/style might be a bit rough, but the most necessary features seem to be in place. I have to run bugtracking in a linux ecosystem though, so it's not for me.
- carpe noctem

kartal

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