Anonymous (Public) Bug Access

If you so specified at install time, public viewers may search for past bugs and submit new ones.

Creating a New Bug

To access the new bugs page, you should go to the ``new.pl'' script under the Anthill scripts directory on the web server (i.e. http://www.example.com/perl/Anthill/new.pl). You will then be asked for information about your bug as well as contact information. You must select an appropriate project to file your bug under and provide a short, one-line summary and a full description of the problem before submitting the bug. The better your description and choice of Projects, the more likely it is that you will receive a rapid and useful response. If the bug report is successfully added, it will be listed as ``unconfirmed'' until a developer can verify that the problem exists.

Searching for Bugs

To access the search page, you should go to the ``search.pl'' script under the Anthill scripts directory on the web server (i.e. http://www.example.com/perl/Anthill/search.pl). You will then be asked for some input criteria to filter the bugs displayed:

Content: You should use this field if you are looking for specific words or phrases contained in the summary, full description, or comments sections of a bug.
Project: Use this field to select the project that contains the bugs that you are looking for. You may only select one project at a time.
Assigned To: If you are only looking for bugs assigned to a specific developer, then you should select that developer from the ``Assigned To'' list. You may only select one developer at a time.
Age: You may use this field to specify limits on the age of bugs returned. Allowed symbols are ``>'' (greater than), ``<'' (less than), digits, and a unit of time (seconds through years). For example, if you wanted to search for all bugs submitted in the past month, you would enter would enter ``<1 month'' here.
Request ID: If you are looking for a specific bug and you know its Request ID, then you may enter that number here.
Status and Priority: You may select any or all of the statuses and priorities listed. The status of a bug refers to how much progress has been made toward fixing the bug. The priority of a bug indicates how critical the bug is to the success of the project. Bugs that have higher priorities are shown in bolder colors after the search has completed.

When you submit your search, you may not find any bugs that match your query. In that case, use the provided link to retrace your steps and try again. If you do find results, they will be shown in a table that contains their Request ID, the summary of the bug, the date and time it was submitted, who it is assigned to, and who submitted it. You may click on the summary section of any bug to view a more in depth report of it.

Viewing Bugs

After you have retrieved a list of bugs for a project, you may view them by clicking on the link in the summary field of the results table. You will be presented with the full listing of the bug report, including any comments that have been added by other developers. If the bug was submitted by an anonymous user, both the status and priority of the bug will be ``Unconfirmed''.

Note

Wherever the name ``Anthill'' is mentioned in this document, it refers to the Anthill Bug Manager. If other projects, things, or people coincidentally bear the name ``Anthill'', it is assumed that the reader can divine from the context of this document that only the Anthill Bug Manager is being referred to. If not, that is what this note is for.