Bug tracker at Sourceforge

[Edward_Lii]

Hello all,

By default there's a Bug tracker enabled on the sourceforge project pages.
This has been used twice already.
My question is, should we close it -OR- use it for bug reports instead of this forum.
The downside is that you'll need an Sf account in order to place bug reports.

What to do?

[Knitter]

A bug tracker is, to me, more useful as it makes it easier to manage issues/bugs. You can keep accepting bug reports in the forum, as a way to filter them and then create a properly written report in the tracker if you wish to keep it simple for the users. I would, however, suggest that you activate Trac, even if you just use the issue tracking component, it offers much more features than the default tacker offered by SF.

From the experience I gain over some projects I've developed I think users will generally got to the forum first and only those that are already active on SF will think of searching for a bug tracker there, most of the time a user comes to the forum makes a report of something that went wrong and doesn't think about issue/bug trackers . Having a bug tracker will be helpful to those developing, but not that much used by those reporting.

[Edward_Lii]

Hello Knitter,

A bug tracker is, to me, more useful as it makes it easier to manage issues/bugs. You can keep accepting bug reports in the forum, as a way to filter them and then create a properly written report in the tracker if you wish to keep it simple for the users. I would, however, suggest that you activate Trac, even if you just use the issue tracking component, it offers much more features than the default tacker offered by SF.

Sounds good, a bug tracker would make it easier to keep track of which bugs are done and which aren't.
BTW, do you recommend using the bugtracker also as a sort TODO list?

From the experience I gain over some projects I've developed I think users will generally got to the forum first and only those that are already active on SF will think of searching for a bug tracker there, most of the time a user comes to the forum makes a report of something that went wrong and doesn't think about issue/bug trackers . Having a bug tracker will be helpful to those developing, but not that much used by those reporting.

You're right, I also have the feeling that creating an account on a forum is something an user would rather do than creating an account on Sf.

[Knitter]

Sounds good, a bug tracker would make it easier to keep track of which bugs are done and which aren't.
BTW, do you recommend using the bugtracker also as a sort TODO list?

I recommend using the tool for whatever makes sense to you . I use Trac in all my SF hosted projects and I use it as both as bug tracking and TODO listing. My process is to put everything in the issue tracker, that way I have a place where I register every idea that is suggested, all the issues that users had, and all the tasks I'm working on. I then filter them using milestones and components and with all this I find it easy to plan the tasks I'm going to do and I don't "loose" issues in forum pages. Also it makes it easier to restrain the discussion around the bug using the comments in the bug tracker and allows a more easy going discussion on a forum thread where users generally derail from the topic (like I'm doing now ).

You're right, I also have the feeling that creating an account on a forum is something an user would rather do than creating an account on Sf.

As a user base grows, most users are not developers, they have no idea what a bug tracker is or why it's important. Most of the times the forum is the only thing they are familiar with and they came here to ask for help. Sometimes they have found a real bug, other times it may be a configuration problem so the forum may help filtering out and providing some support. If the bug is real it would be easy for a developer to add it to the tracker with the relevant information.

But again, this is just what I do. It's just the way I organize my work.

[Edward_Lii]

Hello Knitter,

But again, this is just what I do. It's just the way I organize my work.

Thanks for your replies.
I'm going to enable Trac and see if I like it.

[KroArtem]

If you enable Trac, be sure to close SF tracker
As for me, Trac is rather useful, I use it to monitore supertuxkart's progress and open tickets there.

[Edward_Lii]

Hello KroArtem,

If you enable Trac, be sure to close SF tracker
As for me, Trac is rather useful, I use it to monitore supertuxkart's progress and open tickets there.

I will, it seems that Trac is almost up.

[Edward_Lii]

Hello all,

It is up!
https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/meandmyshadow/

[KroArtem]

Hello Edward_Lii,
I think it's time to close SF tracker now

Also I think roadmap can be moved to trac from wiki.

[Edward_Lii]

Hello KroArtem,

Hello Edward_Lii,
I think it's time to close SF tracker now

Done!

Also I think roadmap can be moved to trac from wiki.

I'll do that when I find some time.

[Edward_Lii]

Hello all,

I'll do that when I find some time.

Done, I've added the roadmap to the issue/bug tracker.
https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/meandmyshadow/report/1

It made me realize that we still have eight releases to go, 0.2 excluded and if we maintain a +0.1 release schedule.
We need to think of at least one task per release.

[aspidites]

It's been a while since I've run trac, which is why I'm asking:
Do devs get emails when a new ticket is filed?

[Knitter]

No, unless I'm missing some option in either trac or SF settings, there is no e-mail for new bugs being submitted. There are notification once you start participating in the bug discussions or have a bug assigned to you. Still I may be missing some hidden setting.

[Edward_Lii]

Hello aspidites,

It's been a while since I've run trac, which is why I'm asking:
Do devs get emails when a new ticket is filed?

No, I only get notifications for replies to assigned tasks/issues/bugs.
I think it would be useful if there was an option to get an email for new issues, not for big projects though.