<section id="bugreports">
<title>Filing Bugs</title>
- <para>Years of bug writing experience has been distilled for your
- reading pleasure into the
- <ulink
- url="&landfillbase;page.cgi?id=bug-writing.html">
- Bug Writing Guidelines</ulink>.
- While some of the advice is Mozilla-specific, the basic principles of
- reporting Reproducible, Specific bugs, isolating the Product you are
- using, the Version of the Product, the Component which failed, the
- Hardware Platform, and Operating System you were using at the time of
- the failure go a long way toward ensuring accurate, responsible fixes
- for the bug that bit you.</para>
-
- <para>The procedure for filing a bug is as follows:</para>
+ <section id="fillingbugs">
+ <title>Reporting a New Bug</title>
+
+ <para>Years of bug writing experience has been distilled for your
+ reading pleasure into the
+ <ulink
+ url="&landfillbase;page.cgi?id=bug-writing.html">
+ Bug Writing Guidelines</ulink>.
+ While some of the advice is Mozilla-specific, the basic principles of
+ reporting Reproducible, Specific bugs, isolating the Product you are
+ using, the Version of the Product, the Component which failed, the
+ Hardware Platform, and Operating System you were using at the time of
+ the failure go a long way toward ensuring accurate, responsible fixes
+ for the bug that bit you.</para>
+
+ <para>The procedure for filing a bug is as follows:</para>
+
+ <orderedlist>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ Click the <quote>New</quote> link available in the footer
+ of pages, or the <quote>Enter a new bug report</quote> link
+ displayed on the home page of the Bugzilla installation.
+ </para>
- <orderedlist>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- Click the <quote>New</quote> link available in the footer
- of pages, or the <quote>Enter a new bug report</quote> link
- displayed on the home page of the Bugzilla installation.
- </para>
+ <note>
+ <para>
+ If you want to file a test bug to see how Bugzilla works,
+ you can do it on one of our test installations on
+ <ulink url="&landfillbase;">Landfill</ulink>.
+ </para>
+ </note>
+ </listitem>
- <note>
+ <listitem>
<para>
- If you want to file a test bug to see how Bugzilla works,
- you can do it on one of our test installations on
- <ulink url="&landfillbase;">Landfill</ulink>.
+ You first have to select the product in which you found a bug.
</para>
- </note>
- </listitem>
+ </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- You first have to select the product in which you found a bug.
- </para>
- </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ <para>
+ You now see a form where you can specify the component (part of
+ the product which is affected by the bug you discovered; if you have
+ no idea, just select <quote>General</quote> if such a component exists),
+ the version of the program you were using, the Operarting System and
+ platform your program is running on and the severity of the bug (if the
+ bug you found crashes the program, it's probably a major or a critical
+ bug; if it's a typo somewhere, that's something pretty minor; if it's
+ something you would like to see implemented, then that's an enhancement).
+ </para>
+ </listitem>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- You now see a form where you can specify the component (part of
- the product which is affected by the bug you discovered; if you have
- no idea, just select <quote>General</quote> if such a component exists),
- the version of the program you were using, the Operarting System and
- platform your program is running on and the severity of the bug (if the
- bug you found crashes the program, it's probably a major or a critical
- bug; if it's a typo somewhere, that's something pretty minor; if it's
- something you would like to see implemented, then that's an enhancement).
- </para>
- </listitem>
+ <listitem>
+ You now have to give a short but descriptive summary of the bug you found.
+ <quote>My program is crashing all the time</quote> is a very poor summary
+ and doesn't help developers at all. Try something more meaningful or
+ your bug will probably be ignored due to a lack of precision.
+ The next step is to give a very detailed list of steps to reproduce
+ the problem you encountered. Try to limit these steps to a minimum set
+ required to reproduce the problem. This will make the life of
+ developers easier, and the probability that they consider your bug in
+ a reasonable timeframe will be much higher.
+ </para>
- <listitem>
- <para>
- You now have to give a short but descriptive summary of the bug you found.
- <quote>My program is crashing all the time</quote> is a very poor summary
- and doesn't help developers at all. Try something more meaningful or
- your bug will probably be ignored due to a lack of precision.
- The next step is to give a very detailed list of steps to reproduce
- the problem you encountered. Try to limit these steps to a minimum set
- required to reproduce the problem. This will make the life of
- developers easier, and the probability that they consider your bug in
- a reasonable timeframe will be much higher.
- </para>
+ <note>
+ <para>
+ Try to make sure that everything in the summary is also in the first
+ comment. Summaries are often updated and this will ensure your original
+ information is easily accessible.
+ </para>
+ </note>
+ </listitem>
- <note>
+ <listitem>
<para>
- Try to make sure that everything in the summary is also in the first
- comment. Summaries are often updated and this will ensure your original
- information is easily accessible.
+ Now is a good time to read your bug report again. Remove all misspellings,
+ otherwise your bug may not be found by developers running queries for some
+ specific words, and so your bug would not get any attention.
+ Also make sure you didn't forget any important information developers
+ should know in order to reproduce the problem, and make sure your
+ description of the problem is explicit and clear enough.
+ When you think your bug report is ready to go, the last step is to
+ click the <quote>Commit</quote> button to add your report into the database.
</para>
- </note>
- </listitem>
-
- <listitem>
- <para>
- Now is a good time to read your bug report again. Remove all misspellings,
- otherwise your bug may not be found by developers running queries for some
- specific words, and so your bug would not get any attention.
- Also make sure you didn't forget any important information developers
- should know in order to reproduce the problem, and make sure your
- description of the problem is explicit and clear enough.
- When you think your bug report is ready to go, the last step is to
- click the <quote>Commit</quote> button to add your report into the database.
- </para>
- </listitem>
- </orderedlist>
+ </listitem>
+ </orderedlist>
<para>
You do not need to put "any" or similar strings in the URL field.
the bug it was duped to. Feel free to CC the person who duped it
if they are not already CCed.
</para>
+ </section>
+
+ <section id="cloningbugs">
+ <title>Clone an Existing Bug</title>
+
+ <para>
+ Starting with version 2.20, Bugzilla has a feature that allows you
+ to clone an existing bug. The newly created bug will inherit
+ most settings from the old bug. This allows you to track more
+ easily similar concerns in a new bug. To use this, go to the bug
+ that you want to clone, then click the <quote>Clone This Bug</quote>
+ link on the bug page. This will take you to the <quote>Enter Bug</quote>
+ page that is filled with the values that the old bug has.
+ You can change those values and/or texts if needed.
+ </para>
+ </section>
</section>
<section id="hintsandtips">
<title>Hints and Tips</title>
-
+
<para>This section distills some Bugzilla tips and best practices
that have been developed.</para>
<member>Most other sorts of URL</member>
</simplelist>
</para>
-
+
<para>A corollary here is that if you type a bug number in a comment,
you should put the word "bug" before it, so it gets autolinkified
for the convenience of others.
and add a comment saying "Adding self to CC", then that person
gets a pointless piece of mail they would otherwise have avoided.
</para>
-
+
<para>
Don't use sigs in comments. Signing your name ("Bill") is acceptable,
if you do it out of habit, but full mail/news-style
four line ASCII art creations are not.
- </para>
+ </para>
</section>
-
+
<section id="dependencytree">
<title>Dependency Tree</title>
projects / thirdparty / bugzilla.git / commitdiff
