Managing Bugs

All developers may create, add comments to, and confirm bugs from other projects. Only maintainers and the BugMaster may update the status, priority, and assigned to fields.

Displaying the Overall Status

To view a list of projects and developers as well as various statistics about the bugs attached to them, use the ``List Overall Status'' link in the left frame of the Anthill page. Your entry in the developers table and the entries of any projects you maintain will be highlighted so that they may be quickly located.

Creating a New Bug

To create a new bug report, use the project, use the ``New Bug'' link in the left frame of the Anthill page. The fields entitled ``Your Name'' and ``Your E-mail Address'' should already be filled in, but you must select the project name and provide a short, one-line summary and a full description of the problem before submitting the bug. If the bug report is successfully added, there is no need for you to confirm it separately as this is done automatically.

Managing Bugs

To view the bugs in a project, you must use the ``Manage My Bugs'' link (or the ``Manage All Bugs'' link if you are the BugMaster) on the left frame. 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 and be able to edit it.

Viewing/Editing Bugs

After you have retrieved a list of bugs for a project, you may view or edit 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'', and so you may use the ``Confirm'' link to verify that the bug exists. If you have further information that you think should be recorded about the bug, you may use the ``Add comment'' link to do so. If you are the maintainer of the project or the project is not restrictive, then you may change the Status, Priority, and Assigned To fields according to your wishes and use the Update button to make the changes take effect.

Removing Bugs

The only way that bugs may be completely removed from the records is to delete the project that contains them. If you merely want to ignore bugs that have been fixed, you should mark them as ``Closed''. Bugs that have been so marked will not be counted in the overall status page.


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.