Bug Tracker - How to Submit Bug Reports and Feature Requests

[mouser]

We are going to install a bugtracker system at DonationCoder, to make it easy to submit and track bug reports and feature requests.
Anyone want to suggest their favorite (open source) tool for this?

Here's one brotherS was telling me about on irc channel, seems pretty good:
http://bugs.miranda-im.org

The tracker will be used by all software on our site and provide a uniform interface for tracking issues on all of our programs.

[brotherS]

Even more than that bug tracker I like that you are going to set one up for DonationCoder.com 

[Jibz]

I recently saw a site using trac .. have no experience with it though.

[AbteriX]

I don't know anything about this tools...

just want remind to
http://www.bugzilla.org/

[mouser]

http://robert.accettura.com/archives/2004/01/01/i-didnt-go-with-bugzilla/

i think we will probably go with Mantis

[brotherS]

I don't know anything about this tools...

just want remind to
http://www.bugzilla.org/

Then http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_Tracker might be interesting for you.

@mouser: good choice! 

[mouser]

I've updated the forum button bar to have a button for "TRACK BUGS" now
and the bug tracker will now also let you login anonymously so its even easier to submit bugs.

Please submit bugs and FEATURE REQUESTS to this when possible; if you are one of the "power users" here and you see someone post a bug report or feature requests that's not on the tracker, please post it to the tracker.

Its 100x more motivating to fix bugs and features entered in the tracker, so i definitely encourage you to submit bugs and requests there, where I will give them high priority.

[Carol Haynes]

Can I report a bug in the bug tracker

When I try to post I get:

APPLICATION ERROR #12

This account is protected. You are not allowed to access this until the account protection is lifted.

Please use the "Back" button in your web browser to return to the previous page. There you can correct whatever problems were identified in this error or select another action. You can also click an option from the menu bar to go directly to a new section.

[mouser]

hahaha.

damn it.
working on it.

this mantis is very powerful but there are about 999999 options.

[mouser]

strange, i just logged in anonymously and posted a bug fine..

can you be more specific about what you did/tried to do.

[Carol Haynes]

I clicked "Track Bugs" "Report Issue" sleceted Process Tamer in the list, Select Project ... and this time it works !!! Go figure ...

[mouser]

maybe it will only let 1 anonymous user in at a time.. let us know if it happens again.

[brotherS]

Just want to add that if you are really interested what happens to your bugs and feature requests you should create an account first. Mantis offers excellent features for bug tracking, using email.

[Carol Haynes]

Mouser - are you working on integrating logging in between all these new features so that we only register once - and stay logged in from page to page?

Don't know whether this is possible or too time consuming to track down but you may be able to set up a new page of your own for signing up/logging in/out from the site, and then hide the routines in DMF/WIKI/Tracking a use a script from the login page to register new users and adiminister signing in and out by calling the relevant functions in all modules.

One other thought - shouldn't the new buttons be on the top bar of each page so that they are common throughout the site - rather than embedded in the forum?

[brotherS]

Mouser - are you working on integrating logging in between all these new features so that we only register once - and stay logged in from page to page?

I believe he is - but the "stay logged in" option is very helpful too, you just need to register once first.

[mouser]

i do want to integrate the wiki and bug tracking logins - but i'm afraid to start on that until i have done a round of updating the programs, so it is on hold for now.  after a month of site scripting the programs are calling for updates.

its an interesting idea to put forum buttons on all pages.. it does make a lot of sense for some of those buttons at least..
let me think about that.

[Carol Haynes]

Great I look forward to the integration - but do you think it should be done sooner rather than later to avoid confusion with people registering three times with different details etc. I wonder if the SMF user database could simply have the relevant info (user ID  and password would be sufficient) copied to the wiki/bug tracker DBs so that all three have the same credentials registered. If that was scripted it could be automatically updated daily using cron to allow people to at least use the same details until the proper integration is working. Just a thought.

No I wasn't thinking put all the forum buttons on top, just Track Bugs and Wiki which are unrelated to the forum and have a potential site wide  interest. If someone downloads a program and finds a bug they are more likely to post in the forum than in the Bug Tracker if they have to come to the forum in order to find the bug tracker ... if it was at the top of every page it would be linked directly from the download page which they may well have bookmarked.

IRC Chat could also go up there too (but that is probably more forum specific anyway).

It might well be worth having a 'Site Map' page on the top bar too with details of what is expected to be found/posted where to avoid duplication and scattering of material.