path: root/docs/xml/using.xml

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<chapter id="using">
  <title>Using Bugzilla</title>

  <section id="how">
    <title>How do I use Bugzilla?</title>

    <para>This section contains information for end-users of Bugzilla. 
    There is a Bugzilla test installation, called 
    <ulink url="http://landfill.bugzilla.org/">Landfill</ulink>, 
    which you are welcome to play with (if it's up.) 
    However, it does not necessarily
    have all Bugzilla features enabled, and often runs cutting-edge versions
    of Bugzilla for testing, so some things may work slightly differently
    than mentioned here.</para>

    <section id="myaccount">
      <title>Create a Bugzilla Account</title>

      <para>If you want to use Bugzilla, first you need to create an account.
      Consult with the administrator responsible for your installation of
      Bugzilla for the URL you should use to access it. If you're
      test-driving Bugzilla, use this URL: 
      <ulink url="http://landfill.bugzilla.org/bugzilla-tip/">
      http://landfill.bugzilla.org/bugzilla-tip/</ulink>
      </para>

      <orderedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para>Click the 
          <quote>Open a new Bugzilla account</quote>

          link, enter your email address and, optionally, your name in the
          spaces provided, then click 
          <quote>Create Account</quote>

          .</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>Within moments, you should receive an email to the address
          you provided above, which contains your login name (generally the
          same as the email address), and a password you can use to access
          your account. This password is randomly generated, and can be
          changed to something more memorable.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>Click the 
          <quote>Log In</quote>
          link in the yellow area at the bottom of the page in your browser,
          enter your email address and password into the spaces provided, and
          click 
          <quote>Login</quote>.
          </para>
          
        </listitem>
      </orderedlist>

      <para>You are now logged in. Bugzilla uses cookies for authentication
      so, unless your IP address changes, you should not have to log in
      again.</para>
    </section>

    <section id="bug_page">
      <title>Anatomy of a Bug</title>

      <para>The core of Bugzilla is the screen which displays a particular
      bug. It's a good place to explain some Bugzilla concepts. 
      <ulink
      url="http://landfill.bugzilla.org/bugzilla-tip/show_bug.cgi?id=1">
      Bug 1 on Landfill</ulink>

      is a good example. Note that the labels for most fields are hyperlinks;
      clicking them will take you to context-sensitive help on that
      particular field. Fields marked * may not be present on every
      installation of Bugzilla.</para>

      <orderedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>Product and Component</emphasis>: 
          Bugs are divided up by Product and Component, with a Product
          having one or more Components in it. For example,
          bugzilla.mozilla.org's "Bugzilla" Product is composed of several
          Components: 
          <simplelist>
          <member>
          <emphasis>Administration:</emphasis>
          Administration of a Bugzilla installation.</member>

          <member>
          <emphasis>Bugzilla-General:</emphasis>
          Anything that doesn't fit in the other components, or spans
          multiple components.</member>

          <member>
          <emphasis>Creating/Changing Bugs:</emphasis>
          Creating, changing, and viewing bugs.</member>

          <member>
          <emphasis>Documentation:</emphasis>
          The Bugzilla documentation, including The Bugzilla Guide.</member>

          <member>
          <emphasis>Email:</emphasis>
          Anything to do with email sent by Bugzilla.</member>

          <member>
          <emphasis>Installation:</emphasis>
          The installation process of Bugzilla.</member>

          <member>
          <emphasis>Query/Buglist:</emphasis>
          Anything to do with searching for bugs and viewing the
          buglists.</member>

          <member>
          <emphasis>Reporting/Charting:</emphasis>
          Getting reports from Bugzilla.</member>

          <member>
          <emphasis>User Accounts:</emphasis>
          Anything about managing a user account from the user's perspective.
          Saved queries, creating accounts, changing passwords, logging in,
          etc.</member>

          <member>
          <emphasis>User Interface:</emphasis>
          General issues having to do with the user interface cosmetics (not
          functionality) including cosmetic issues, HTML templates,
          etc.</member>
          </simplelist>
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>Status and Resolution:</emphasis>

          These define exactly what state the bug is in - from not even
          being confirmed as a bug, through to being fixed and the fix
          confirmed by Quality Assurance. The different possible values for
          Status and Resolution on your installation should be documented in the
          context-sensitive help for those items.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>Assigned To:</emphasis>
          The person responsible for fixing the bug.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>*URL:</emphasis>
          A URL associated with the bug, if any.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>Summary:</emphasis>
          A one-sentence summary of the problem.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>*Status Whiteboard:</emphasis>
          (a.k.a. Whiteboard) A free-form text area for adding short notes
          and tags to a bug.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>*Keywords:</emphasis>
          The administrator can define keywords which you can use to tag and
          categorise bugs - e.g. The Mozilla Project has keywords like crash
          and regression.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>Platform and OS:</emphasis>
          These indicate the computing environment where the bug was
          found.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>Version:</emphasis>
          The "Version" field is usually used for versions of a product which
          have been released, and is set to indicate which versions of a
          Component have the particular problem the bug report is
          about.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>Priority:</emphasis>
          The bug assignee uses this field to prioritise his or her bugs.
          It's a good idea not to change this on other people's bugs.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>Severity:</emphasis>
          This indicates how severe the problem is - from blocker
          ("application unusable") to trivial ("minor cosmetic issue"). You
          can also use this field to indicate whether a bug is an enhancement
          request.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>*Target:</emphasis>
          (a.k.a. Target Milestone) A future version by which the bug is to
          be fixed. e.g. The Bugzilla Project's milestones for future
          Bugzilla versions are 2.18, 2.20, 3.0, etc. Milestones are not
          restricted to numbers, thought - you can use any text strings, such
          as dates.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>Reporter:</emphasis>
          The person who filed the bug.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>CC list:</emphasis>
          A list of people who get mail when the bug changes.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>Attachments:</emphasis>
          You can attach files (e.g. testcases or patches) to bugs. If there
          are any attachments, they are listed in this section.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>*Dependencies:</emphasis>
          If this bug cannot be fixed unless other bugs are fixed (depends
          on), or this bug stops other bugs being fixed (blocks), their
          numbers are recorded here.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>*Votes:</emphasis>
          Whether this bug has any votes.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>
          <emphasis>Additional Comments:</emphasis>
          You can add your two cents to the bug discussion here, if you have
          something worthwhile to say.</para>
        </listitem>
      </orderedlist>
    </section>

    <section id="query">
      <title>Searching for Bugs</title>

      <para>The Bugzilla Search page is is the interface where you can find
      any bug report, comment, or patch currently in the Bugzilla system. You
      can play with it here: 
      <ulink url="http://landfill.bugzilla.org/bugzilla-tip/query.cgi">
      landfill.bugzilla.org/bugzilla-tip/query.cgi</ulink>

      .</para>

      <para>The Search page has controls for selecting different possible
      values for all of the fields in a bug, as described above. Once you've
      defined a search, you can either run it, or save it as a Remembered
      Query, which can optionally appear in the footer of your pages.</para>

      <para>Highly advanced querying is done using Boolean Charts, which have
      their own 
      <ulink
      url="http://landfill.bugzilla.org/bugzilla-tip/booleanchart.html">
      context-sensitive help</ulink>

      .</para>
    </section>

    <section id="list">
      <title>Bug Lists</title>

      <para>If you run a search, a list of matching bugs will be returned.
      The default search is to return all open bugs on the system - don't try
      running this search on a Bugzilla installation with a lot of
      bugs!</para>

      <para>The format of the list is configurable. For example, it can be
      sorted by clicking the column headings. Other useful features can be
      accessed using the links at the bottom of the list: 
      <simplelist>
        <member>
        <emphasis>Long Format:</emphasis>

        this gives you a large page with a non-editable summary of the fields
        of each bug.</member>

        <member>
        <emphasis>Change Columns:</emphasis>

        change the bug attributes which appear in the list.</member>

        <member>
        <emphasis>Change several bugs at once:</emphasis>

        If your account is sufficiently empowered, you can make the same
        change to all the bugs in the list - for example, changing their
        owner.</member>

        <member>
        <emphasis>Send mail to bug owners:</emphasis>

        Sends mail to the owners of all bugs on the list.</member>

        <member>
        <emphasis>Edit this query:</emphasis>

        If you didn't get exactly the results you were looking for, you can
        return to the Query page through this link and make small revisions
        to the query you just made so you get more accurate results.</member>
      </simplelist>
      </para>
    </section>

    <section id="bugreports">
      <title>Filing Bugs</title>

      <para>Years of bug writing experience has been distilled for your
      reading pleasure into the 
      <ulink
      url="http://landfill.bugzilla.org/bugzilla-tip/bugwritinghelp.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 test bug is as follows:</para>

      <orderedlist>
        <listitem>
          <para>Go to 
          <ulink url="http://landfill.bugzilla.org/bugzilla-tip/">
          Landfill</ulink>
          in your browser and click 
          <ulink
          url="http://landfill.bugzilla.org/bugzilla-tip/enter_bug.cgi">
          Enter a new bug report</ulink>.
          </para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>Select a product - any one will do.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>Fill in the fields. Bugzilla should have made reasonable
          guesses, based upon your browser, for the "Platform" and "OS"
          drop-down boxes. If they are wrong, change them.</para>
        </listitem>

        <listitem>
          <para>Select "Commit" and send in your bug report.</para>
        </listitem>
      </orderedlist>
    </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>

    <section>
      <title>Autolinkification</title>
      <para>Bugzilla comments are plain text - so posting HTML will result
      in literal HTML tags rather than being interpreted by a browser.
      However, Bugzilla will automatically make hyperlinks out of certain
      sorts of text in comments. For example, the text 
      http://www.bugzilla.org will be turned into
      <ulink url="http://www.bugzilla.org">http://www.bugzilla.org</ulink>.
      Other strings which get linkified in the obvious manner are:
      <simplelist>
        <member>bug 12345</member>
        <member>bug 23456, comment 53</member>
        <member>attachment 4321</member>
        <member>mailto:george@example.com</member>
        <member>george@example.com</member>
        <member>ftp://ftp.mozilla.org</member>
        <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.
      </para>
    </section>

    <section id="quicksearch">
      <title>Quicksearch</title>

      <para>Quicksearch is a single-text-box query tool which uses
      metacharacters to indicate what is to be searched. For example, typing
      "<filename>foo|bar</filename>" 
      into Quicksearch would search for "foo" or "bar" in the 
      summary and status whiteboard of a bug; adding 
      "<filename>:BazProduct</filename>" would
      search only in that product.
      </para>

      <para>You'll find the Quicksearch box on Bugzilla's
      front page, along with a 
      <ulink url="../../quicksearch.html">Help</ulink> 
      link which details how to use it.</para>
    </section>
    
    <section id="commenting">
      <title>Comments</title>

      <para>If you are changing the fields on a bug, only comment if
      either you have something pertinent to say, or Bugzilla requires it.
      Otherwise, you may spam people unnecessarily with bug mail.
      To take an example: a user can set up their account to filter out messages
      where someone just adds themselves to the CC field of a bug
      (which happens a lot.) If you come along, add yourself to the CC field,
      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,
      particularly if you do it out of habit, but full mail/news-style
      four line ASCII art creations are not.
      </para>      
    </section>
    
    <section id="attachments">
      <title>Attachments</title>
      
      <para>
      Use attachments, rather than comments, for large chunks of ASCII data,
      such as trace, debugging output files, or log files. That way, it doesn't
      bloat the bug for everyone who wants to read it, and cause people to
      receive fat, useless mails.
      </para>      

      <para>Trim screenshots. There's no need to show the whole screen if
      you are pointing out a single-pixel problem.
      </para>
      
      <para>Don't attach simple test cases (e.g. one HTML file, one 
      CSS file and an image) as a ZIP file. Instead, upload them in 
      reverse order and edit the referring file so that they point to the
      attached files. This way, the test case works immediately 
      out of the bug.
      </para>     
    </section>
    
    <section>
      <title>Filing Bugs</title>
      
      <para>Try to make sure that everything said in the summary is also 
      said in the first comment. Summaries are often updated and this will
      ensure your original information is easily accessible.
      </para>
      
      <para>
      You do not need to put "any" or similar strings in the URL field.
      If there is no specific URL associated with the bug, leave this 
      field blank.
      </para> 

      <para>If you feel a bug you filed was incorrectly marked as a
      DUPLICATE of another, please question it in your bug, not      
      the bug it was duped to. Feel free to CC the person who duped it 
      if they are not already CCed.
      </para>
    </section>
  </section>
  
  <section id="userpreferences">
    <title>User Preferences</title>

    <para>Once you have logged in, you can customise various aspects of 
    Bugzilla via the "Edit prefs" link in the page footer.
    The preferences are split into four tabs:</para>

    <section id="accountsettings" xreflabel="Account Settings">
      <title>Account Settings</title>

      <para>On this tab, you can change your basic account information,
      including your password, email address and real name. For security
      reasons, in order to change anything on this page you must type your 
      <emphasis>current</emphasis>
      password into the 
      <quote>Password</quote>
      field at the top of the page. 
      If you attempt to change your email address, a confirmation
      email is sent to both the old and new addresses, with a link to use to
      confirm the change. This helps to prevent account hijacking.</para>
    </section>

    <section id="emailsettings">
      <title>Email Settings</title>

      <para>On this tab you can reduce or increase the amount of email sent
      you from Bugzilla, opting in our out depending on your relationship to
      the bug and the change that was made to it. (Note that you can also do
      client-side filtering using the X-Bugzilla-Reason header which Bugzilla
      adds to all bugmail.)</para>

      <para>By entering user email names, delineated by commas, into the
      "Users to watch" text entry box you can receive a copy of all the
      bugmail of other users (security settings permitting.) This powerful
      functionality enables seamless transitions as developers change
      projects or users go on holiday.</para>

      <note>
        <para>The ability to watch other users may not be available in all
        Bugzilla installations. If you can't see it, ask your 
        administrator.</para>
      </note>
    </section>

    <section id="footersettings">
      <title>Page Footer</title>
      
      <para>On the Search page, you can store queries in Bugzilla, so if you
      regularly run a particular query it is just a drop-down menu away. 
      Once you have a stored query, you can come
      here to request that it also be displayed in your page footer.</para>
    </section>

    <section id="permissionsettings">
      <title>Permissions</title>
      
      <para>This is a purely informative page which outlines your current
      permissions on this installation of Bugzilla - what product groups you
      are in, and whether you can edit bugs or perform various administration
      functions.</para>
    </section>
  </section>
</chapter>

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