[Libreoffice] EasyHack: Improved bug filing form / flow

Samuel Atkins sam at samatkins.co.uk
Mon Mar 28 11:58:35 PDT 2011


Hi guys,

Sorry if I went a bit quiet about this! I'm still working on it. Current 
version as always is at:
http://atkinslg.dyndns.org:4080/stuff/submitbug.html

Currently, the help text stuff appears in a box on the right when the 
user clicks on a link. I'm not currently loading it from the wiki or 
anything, though I still think that might be a better idea, to make it 
easier for people to update/correct it. It'd be better for translation 
too, I would imagine.

I've written-up how to get a list of fonts on Win/Mac/Linux. Not sure 
whether a 'how to install fonts' thing would be useful or needed. As 
someone who doesn't use a Mac, I had to look-up instructions on the web, 
so hopefully they're correct. Somewhat related: Is the linux backtrace 
stuff applicable to Mac OSX?

Unanswered questions are highlighted in yellow, which is fairly easy to 
distinguish, but things still aren't that well organised visually. I've 
noticed that the Download page uses jQuery, so I could use it to make 
things slide instead of pop into existence, which might be better. Thoughts?

Actually, any graphical mock-ups of how it should look would be useful, 
if anyone fancies giving it a go. :) It's fairly ugly right now.

Otherwise, I'm uncertain where to take the last two 'problem types' - LO 
being hard to use, and issues related to the website. Maybe the website 
one could be something like:

There is a problem with the website
     * What kind of problem?
         () A typo somewhere
         () Something is out of date
         () Got sent to a page that doesn't exist
     * Which site in particular has the problem?
         () libreoffice.org
         () documentfoundation.org
         () The wiki
             -> Tell the user how a wiki works, that they can amend things?
         () etc

On a different note, I've started on the code for filling-in the bug 
form, and am a little stuck in a few areas:
* What key-words should be added to bug reports, if at all?
         I saw the keyword 'have-backtrace' appears on bugzilla already, 
and I'm assuming that would be a sensible one.
* How to attach files!
         Firstly, I don't think you can select a file, and then have the 
information of which file it was transferred to a separate page. But 
also at the moment there are various points that ask the user to attach 
(multiple) files, and I couldn't see anything in the Bugzilla API for 
submitting additional attachments. Might need some more thought.
* Is there some kind of format that the bug-description and summary text 
should take?
         I'm having a go at generating the description from what the 
user selects, but as a newbie I don't know what prefixes and things are 
used.

Well, that was more writing than I expected! And I fear I've forgotten 
something. Maybe I should just post more often!

~ Sam


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