Feature Suggestion: (Semi-) Automatic Bug Reports

OmerMor · Post by **OmerMor** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 3:25 pm

Hi,
here's an idea (maybe for a future gsoc project):
A bug report form right inside scummvm.
It could be accessed right from the options menu.
It would automatically report the OS version, scummvm version, game details + md5, etc.
It could pop automatically in case of exceptions (and embed the exception details) or opened manually.

I think having such a feature would be helpful for the quality of this project. I myself have opened many bug reports in sourceforge, but I believe many people are too lazy/don't care enough to open a bug report.

tsoliman · Post by **tsoliman** » Wed Apr 25, 2012 7:52 am

And who would the devs follow up with when they have questions?

OmerMor · Post by **OmerMor** » Wed Apr 25, 2012 4:06 pm

How about a mandatory email field that has to be filled before submitting the form?

tsoliman · Post by **tsoliman** » Wed Apr 25, 2012 4:19 pm

Then it becomes no different from registration (unless you want to allow garbage/unconfirmed emails which brings us back to square 1: anonymous bug reports)

The hassle of making a SF account (one time only; lets you log bugs for all SF projects) seems less than or equal to the hassle of creating a ScummVM-specific account.

Bugs need a bug tracker. Bug trackers need registration (or allow anonymous submission which is bad)

OmerMor · Post by **OmerMor** » Wed Apr 25, 2012 5:36 pm

Registration can be fine too. You could allow entering the bugtracker login information from inside scummvm.

I was not aiming at users who are too lazy to register.
I was aiming at users who wouldn't mind registering (one time chore) but are too lazy to:
1. browse to sourceforge
2. login
3. go to the bugtracker
4. open a new bug
5. fill in all the info about their game and environment
6. tell what they were doing
... every single time they encounter a bug.

Another option might be to open the default mail client, and fill in recipient info (bugtracker address), and in the body enter all the info I discussed earlier. The user would be submitting the bug via their mail, so it's no longer anonymous.

All I want is help lower the barrier for submitting bugs as much as possible. I am not thinking about myself here: I love this project and report every thing I notice. But I fear I am only the minority.

ezekiel000 · Post by **ezekiel000** » Wed Apr 25, 2012 6:39 pm

I think the only thing that scummvm could do would be to be able to spit out all the environment and situation information needed for a bug report (os, arch, scummvm version, compiled in features, game version etc the version command line option does some of this at the moment) that could then be copy and pasted into the bug tracker. You would still need to describe the bug.

OmerMor · Post by **OmerMor** » Thu Apr 26, 2012 4:57 am

It could also navigate you to the bugtracker's page or open a new mail message with all the info pasted.

Of course you'll have to fill in stuff, but it would become less of a chore, and hopefully would engage more people to participate.