FYI: Writing Bug Reports for Dale and the Support Team
Moderators:daleadmin, Dale Harris, Alan, Andrew
In light of the recent request by Dale, I am writing this quick tutorial on how to post a bug report for Dale.
In programming, tracking a bug can be a tricky business, particularly if the user has not told the programmer or support team some vital information.
I found a bug! Or did I?
Before you post a bug report, make sure you actually have found a bug. Sometimes, you may not have activated a feature or perhaps the computer is having an "off" day. Test your "bug" a couple of times to make sure it wasn't a "once off".
OK it is a bug, now what?
Well now you can prepare a bug report. In this report it is important to convey all the important information to Dale and the support team in a clear manner. So this means don't use topic titles such as "BUG!", "This doesn't work" etc. Use an intelligent title which allows other forum readers to know what is actually in your topic without writing an essay for a title.
We have had discussions before about people coming onto the forum and just seeing the word BUG about 50 times in the forum message listing. Remember, until Dale investigates - it is not an official bug yet.
What should I say and how should I say it?
- Product name (e.g. DHPOS) and version (e.g. 5.02)
- List any specific settings (e.g. those as in POSCONFG) that you have set which may affect this error occuring. You don't need to tell us everything about how the program is configured, just the settings you feel might be connected to this error occuring.
- List the steps, preferably in a bulleted list, such as this - so that the programmer or support team can go through and easily reproduce the error. (e.g. I pressed the X key, and then Enter)
- If it isn't clear from your steps what the bug is, describe what goes wrong after carrying out the steps you listed. (e.g. the program closes with a file access violation error in line 3)
That's it - easy isn't it?
An idea which just occured to me is perhaps the CRNC news site will have a page where you can type all this in, then it puts it into the correct format (as described above) for you to copy and paste onto the forum.
In programming, tracking a bug can be a tricky business, particularly if the user has not told the programmer or support team some vital information.
I found a bug! Or did I?
Before you post a bug report, make sure you actually have found a bug. Sometimes, you may not have activated a feature or perhaps the computer is having an "off" day. Test your "bug" a couple of times to make sure it wasn't a "once off".
OK it is a bug, now what?
Well now you can prepare a bug report. In this report it is important to convey all the important information to Dale and the support team in a clear manner. So this means don't use topic titles such as "BUG!", "This doesn't work" etc. Use an intelligent title which allows other forum readers to know what is actually in your topic without writing an essay for a title.
We have had discussions before about people coming onto the forum and just seeing the word BUG about 50 times in the forum message listing. Remember, until Dale investigates - it is not an official bug yet.
What should I say and how should I say it?
- Product name (e.g. DHPOS) and version (e.g. 5.02)
- List any specific settings (e.g. those as in POSCONFG) that you have set which may affect this error occuring. You don't need to tell us everything about how the program is configured, just the settings you feel might be connected to this error occuring.
- List the steps, preferably in a bulleted list, such as this - so that the programmer or support team can go through and easily reproduce the error. (e.g. I pressed the X key, and then Enter)
- If it isn't clear from your steps what the bug is, describe what goes wrong after carrying out the steps you listed. (e.g. the program closes with a file access violation error in line 3)
That's it - easy isn't it?
An idea which just occured to me is perhaps the CRNC news site will have a page where you can type all this in, then it puts it into the correct format (as described above) for you to copy and paste onto the forum.
- ChrisKraus
- Forum Regular
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- Location:Dedham, MA - U.S.A.
Form
I like the idea of the form, you could even intergrate it with this forum software.
- Chris
- Chris
- Chris
Christopher Kraus
Christopher Kraus
- Dale Harris
- Forum Owner
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- Contact:
Version number.
The most important think I need to know when you are reporting problems is the version number that you are using.
Last week I spent quite an amount of time trying to help someone with a bug only to find out he was using version 3.46 of the program (the current version is 6.14). Needless to say his problem had been fixed 18 months ago.
Last week I spent quite an amount of time trying to help someone with a bug only to find out he was using version 3.46 of the program (the current version is 6.14). Needless to say his problem had been fixed 18 months ago.
Dale
- Dale Harris
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????????.POS
Lately I have been receiving reports of bugs that only occur whan using truly weird sets of configurations for the program. To even find the bugs I need to set the same configurations here. To accomplish this you must send to me your configuration file as an attachment to an email.
When you created your register file you were asked to give it a name like MYSTORE. In that case your configuration file would have the file name MYSTORE.POS That is the file you need so send to daleharris@prodigy.net
When you created your register file you were asked to give it a name like MYSTORE. In that case your configuration file would have the file name MYSTORE.POS That is the file you need so send to daleharris@prodigy.net
Dale
- ibmsystems
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New Post Idea
Lately while browsing the forum i see posts here and there about bug issues. I'm thinking it may be a good idea to keep all that stuff together in a new link. When new users see bug bug bug bug bug it may scare them off. I know we had talked about this issue before, but maybe it's time to do something again.
Suggestions?
Tina
Suggestions?
Tina
- ibmsystems
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- Dale Harris
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- Joined:Sun Dec 28, 2003 10:19 pm
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- Contact:
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