All development activities for each project hosted on this site are tracked in a unique database. The Issue tracking link on the left navigation bar displays the Issue tracking page, the entry point to that project's issue database. Issue tracking provides the following benefits:
The different sections appearing in the Issue tracking page indicate the following issue tracking options available to you:
IssueZilla is the issue tracking tool used on this site. While it is a variant of BugZilla -- a bug tracking system you may already be familiar with -- IssueZilla is a more generalized tool for tracking many different kinds of activities in collaborative development projects. Additionally, IssueZilla does not require a separate login as BugZilla does. IssueZilla classifies issues into several types:
Each hosted project on this site has it's own, unique issues database. For open source projects in IssueZilla, all registered users may query, view, and report issues, while proprietary projects limit access to project members.
Project members have additional permissions within IssueZilla to modify and reassign issues, as well as generate reports. Project members are also notified automatically by email whenever issues are assigned to them or there is activity on issues affecting their work.
Entering the tasks you're planning to work on as issues helps you devise and follow a work plan. Because everyone is aware of each project member's area of work, you can avoid duplicating efforts and even help out or offer feedback to other project members. Effective issue tracking requires an understanding of the IssueZilla tool and a working knowledge of what constitutes a well-written issue report.
When you join a hosted development project on this site, you automatically get an IssueZilla account for access to that project's issues.
Information about your account is available either by clicking the My Preferences link on the Issue Tracking page. Once you have entered the issue tracking area of the site you can click on the Edit prefs link. You have several options to change your user settings:
Once a user becomes a member of a project, he or she is granted additional IssueZilla permissions beyond the default database query capabilities. Permissions can be viewed by clicking on the My Preferences link on the Issue tracking page, or the My preferences link on the Issues page.
Issue tracking permissions depend upon project role:
Additional permissions can be requested through the project owner. You may need to request a new project role.
Permissions affect the lifecycle and resolution of issues. For example, if you have the "Can confirm an issue" permission, then you can change the status of any UNCONFIRMED issue to NEW . A change in issue status sends an alert to the owner and all other project members associated with the issue.To understand more about issue status, read more about the lifecycle of issues.
** These links listed are associated with BugZilla, but offer useful bug-writing guidelines that are applicable to IssueZilla. Be aware that there are differences between the two tools. Parts of BugZilla documentation may not apply or may not address certain features in IssueZilla, and vice versa. Because IssueZilla is an open source derivative of BugZilla (version 2.11), it is still a work in progress. For those who are interested in more information about this, visit Mozilla.org.
If you are interested in finding out about other bug tracking systems being developed, see the scarab open source project.
A note about IssueZilla and cookies : Cookies are a prerequisite for creating an account and logging in to IssueZilla. If cookies are disabled on your system, you will at need to enable the following cookies: "Issuezilla_login" or "Issuezilla_logincookie." Other than logging in, IssueZilla uses cookies to cache an issue's current version and for ordering the most recent query.cgi search during a session.