Automated bugreporting in SEAMCAT

[cp]

Background: Currently the user can not submit a bug report from within SEAMCAT. Requirement:

• It should be possible to submit bug reports from within SEAMCAT and attach scenarios.
• This is a similar feature to the one in www.ecodocdb.dk
• This feature should be available whether the user is connected to the internet or not.
• To see with developer if any interface with tractool possible [automation?].

Proposal of implementation: It is proposed that the following information should be available:

• Type of feedback (Error/Bug? | Comment | Suggestion) (combo box style)
• Name / Email address (mandatory)
• Possibility to attach files (i.e. workspace (+ plugins) , snapshot (gif, jpg, png etc…)
  • A check box should be available for the user to select and the workspace will be attached (without results) to the bug report
• Additional information automatically extracted:
  • JAVA version of the user’s machine
  • SEAMCAT version
  • When it is from a crash then the log/exception information should be attached to the bug report (i.e. indicating where in the source code the exception occurred etc…).
• Free text description (max 500 characters)
• If SEAMCAT is offline
  • The bug report is to be cached and send at a later stage.
  • The user is to be informed that the message will be cached and sent later
• Bug report to be sent by default to seamcat@… (show the address to the user, so that he knows where the info goes)

• Functionality should be available:
  • Upon a prompted errors (i.e. an exception occurred), the user to be given the possibility to create a report from the exception.

• or from the menu bar. A “Report Error” button should be available

• Note that warning in the consistency check should NOT be a reason to send a bug report.

Testing procedure:

• Step1: check the interface
• Step2: procedure to be done on-line and off-line
• Step3: test that a report is received

[cp]

I think we should push this into one of the beta releases - to test it before the final release of 3.2

[cp]

Pulled back to Beta 13

[jean-philippe]

to see other options like sending info from the website (outlook?)

[cp]

Reassigning to Thomas

[mads.enevoldsen]

in [1078] added bug report panel. Not sending mails yet.

[jean-philippe]

There are issues related to sending email from SEAMCAT when on a local machine as for each client to be able to send a mail we need a SMTP server. ECO does have one of these, but not a publicly visible one (this is generally not supported because of the risk of spammer misusage).

That leaves with some other options:

1. The user should write an email on his own.
2. SEAMCAT launches the users mailclient and the user has to write the text itself (including manually attaching relevant files - note that for security reasons the program cannot attach files on its own)
3. To implement a similar flow as for the "Remote simulation". E.g. the client seamcat connects directly with the SEAMCAT server including files and text information. The server picks up these files and emails that to the wanted address.

None of the options are really good but this is probably the best we can do. Suggestion 3 needs some additional programming, not sure how much but the task is definitely not trivial - since a lot of error handling and failure tolerance is needed.

Another option to consider is the amount of mail that will arrive in that mailbox if it is too easy to generate such a report. It is prefered to have a an "about box" or "Report Error" dialog that would describe to the user where he should send the mail to and what information is needed in the mail (and what he should attach).

This proposal is implemented in [1084]

[jean-philippe]

change of the email address [1085]

tested: ticket is closed

[mads.enevoldsen]

html links fixed in [1111].

The text need to be fixed: See MainWindow?.java line 979

[mads.enevoldsen]

Text fixed in [1113]