bug tracker improvements

[Brian J. Tarricone]

On 09/17/04 14:56, Auke Kok wrote:
> egore wrote:
> 
> >Am Freitag, den 17.09.2004, 11:51 +0200 schrieb Jasper Huijsmans:
> > 
> >
> >>On Fri, Sep 17, 2004 at 12:51:43AM -0700, Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> >>   
> >>
> >>>Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
> >>>
> >>>     
> >>>
> >>...
> >>   
> >>
> >>>ok, strike that.  i found a copy of 2.16.6, and it's up and running:
> >>>http://kelnos.spuriousinterrupt.org/bugzilla-2.16.6/
> >>>current xfce buglist is imported.  i really should go to bed... i'll see 
> >>>how seamless the upgrade to the latest version is (the new 
> >>>soon-to-be-stable branch has some cool features), and maybe we can do 
> >>>the move on saturday.
> >>>
> >>>     
> >>>
> >>Nice. Now I remember, one of my complaints with bugzilla is it's 
> >>aesthetics
> >>;-) That query page is _awful_. I hope we can improve that a little, or 
> >>have a
> >>page to choose some pre-defined queries (all open, all with reporter, all 
> >>with
> >>module) with a link to the 'advanced' query page.
> >>   
> >>
> >http://bugs.gentoo.org/ shows a good example of a nice designed bugzilla
> >with a better query page
> >

agreed, the advanced query page is a bit much.  but please realise that it's
an _advanced_ query page.  if you just want to do text searches, the simple
search is fine.  and you really don't need to touch most of the advanced
query page if you don't want to.  if you just want, say, all "assigned" bugs,
you click the "ASSIGNED" item in the list, and click search.  that's it.

but yeah, a page with some predefined queries would be useful, and is pretty
easy to do.

> <twocents>
> personally I think bugzilla is a piece of [4 letter word removed to 
> protect women and children] that is horribly overrated. Simplicity works 
> much better for a developersgroup which is below 15-20 developers.
> </twocents>

i happen to disagree here.  i find bugzilla incredibly useful and easy to
use, both from a developer and user standpoint.  i can't really put my finger
on it exactly, but i don't really like how mantis handles bug status.  i also
don't really like the default "all bugs" look, and using a mailing list to
keep up with new bugs is kinda stupid, IMHO.  the bug reporter should be
responsible for directing the bug to the right person, by selecting the
component where they're seeing the bug.  if they can't identify that, a
designated bug triage person (i wouldn't mind doing this) gets notified, and
assigns the bug to the proper person.  or the default email address for the
triage person can be a mailing list, whatever.

xfce is growing in complexity, and i expect that we'll probably start to see
a much larger volume of bugs after our 4.2 preview release, and this probably
won't let up until 4.2.1, at the earliest.  i have a bad feeling that, if we
stick with mantis, it's going to start to get very difficult to keep up with
new bugs.

i don't mind adminning a bugzilla install.  i can do all the customisation,
creating some simple convenince queries, etc.  from playing around with it,
it seems like it's come a long way from auke's bad experience with it.

ultimately, i suppose it's up to olivier.  jasper already seems to be in
favor of it.  what do the others think?

	-brian