Bug tracking

[Nick]

Thanks to a huge effort by d_m, Angband bug tracking has been moved from trac to Github issues.

This means any Github user can now log an issue, and becoming a Github user is straightforward. So from now on the preferred method of submitting bug reports is by opening a new issue here.

[DavidMedley]

Any guidelines to this? Like, I sometimes post some very minor bugs in the "4.2 bugs thread." Seems like if no one wants to tackle them it's pretty easy to just scroll past. I'd be more concerned about cluttering up this list. Also, there's a good number of feature requests in here. If any GitHub user can submit those then clutter is even more of a concern.

What about people not in the dev pool taking on some of these? There's a sticky over in the Development forum about issues that non-coders can take on. Looking through this GitHub Issues list I suspect there's a fair number that you wouldn't implement even if you could with a snap of your fingers, tho.

[eastwind]

I entered a bug - I didn't see any non-freeform field where the version the bug is reported against is specified - seems like a necessary desirable standard thing to me - to say whether the bug you're reporting is against 4.2.0 or whatever the bleeding edge version is called.

At a minimum you could establish a convention for bug titles:

[4.2.0]: bug title

[Nick]

So one thing you can do is set the milestone on the right to be "Triage". But I'll be going through these as they come in (roughly) and putting milestones and types against them. I'll try to tighten up the whole procedure a bit too, and give more guidelines.

[Nick]

Here are step-by-step instructions for reporting a bug. Depending on the nature of the bug, it may be worth some preliminary enquiries to see whether it is actually a bug or simply a wonderful, surprising piece of game design.

1. Go to the issues page on Github.
2. Click the green "New Issue" button near the top right.
3. Give a short descriptive title to your bug; if it's not a report for the current official release, please include what version it it in your title.
4. In the "Write" pane below the title, give sufficient details to fully describe the problem; this can include links.
5. Add any relevant files (a savefile is sometimes helpful).
6. Click "Labels" on the right and add a type label from the list (they start with "T:") - usually you will want T: bug.
7. Click "Milestone" on the right and choose the "Triage" milestone.
8. Click the green "Submit new issue" button at the bottom and you are done.

[Nick]

Any guidelines to this? Like, I sometimes post some very minor bugs in the "4.2 bugs thread." Seems like if no one wants to tackle them it's pretty easy to just scroll past. I'd be more concerned about cluttering up this list. Also, there's a good number of feature requests in here. If any GitHub user can submit those then clutter is even more of a concern.

I think I'd actually prefer submitting via the issues page - it's pretty easy for me to close things that aren't valid bugs. If clutter starts becoming a problem, maybe I'll change my opinion...

What about people not in the dev pool taking on some of these? There's a sticky over in the Development forum about issues that non-coders can take on. Looking through this GitHub Issues list I suspect there's a fair number that you wouldn't implement even if you could with a snap of your fingers, tho.

I have now done a bit of work on curating the issues list, and open issues are now in one of three milestones:

• Ongoing - these are issues which have to be repeated from time to time (like checking for memory leaks), and will likely never be closed.
• Future - these are aspirational goals written by a variety of people. Anyone thinking of resolving one of these should discuss first to check it's actually wanted.
• 4.2 - if anyone resolves one of these and gives me code or a pull request, I will be very happy

Does this answer your question?

[DavidMedley]

actually a bug or simply a wonderful, surprising piece of game design

This brightened my day

[DavidMedley]

Does this answer your question?

Yes, the details in this thread are very helpful! Thanks!