Bug Triage Extension

Project Name

Bug Triage Extension

Project Description

Mike Beltzner suggested this one after his talk. The idea is to make it trivial for testers to follow-through a bug's Steps To Reproduce (STR) so as to confirm it. A tester should be able to use this Extension to ask for a bug (i.e., one would be picked for him/her--no querying) and then a sidebar or similar would appear showing the steps to follow. Under that would need to be a way (e.g., buttons) to say that the bug is confirmed or not. Ideally the QA team could prioritize bugs so they appear in this list automatically, making it easier for testers to get the "right" bugs quickly.

Reference: talk to beltzner.

Project Leader(s)

• David Hamp-Gonsalves

Project Contributor(s)

• Jeff Mossop - Created Images for the Bug Triage Extension - Click Here to View
  
• Liz Chak - logo, testing

Project News

• first try at creating a FF extension
• emailed beltzner

• Spoke to robcee and jay on irc, and they are both interested in following this and helping out. Jay is going to be away until Oct 16. Contact him then. (dave)

• Research time: lots of IRC talk, web searching, and such. Mostly XPCOM stuff and ways to handle the database connectivity, also a bit of java but I've put that idea aside. Looking for an existing XPCOM componet that can handle this.

• New good link added: http://www.allpeers.com/blog/creating-complex-firefox-extensions

• possiable answer to database connection stuff: http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/mozilla/2002/12/17/app_dev.html?page=last
• working on installing SQL functionality:
  • https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=81653
  • http://eu.mozdev.org/Brussels2003/talks/jan/index.html
  • http://www.mozilla.org/projects/sql/
• rethink...
• talked to Dave Humphrey and Reed got some new ideas
• back on track, bugzilla offers a webservice interface... but the api for it is still in the works.
• learning how to connect to webservice through extension
• away from October 14th-19th,2006
• no much on the XMLRPC webservice api for bugzilla 2.23.3 but more is being added all the time. http://www.bugzilla.org/docs/tip/html/api/index.html
• because of the bugzilla web services delays I have decided I can't wait any longer and am going to do what I can now. This is try two at extension development. I've decided to post whatever I have at the end of every work session, this was only about an hour and a half while eating dinner but its a step in the right direction.
• I finally had more time to work on the extension again. This release actually does something which is nice.
  • created build scripts for linux/windows
  • possible name:buggy bar
  • downloads top hottest bugs and displays them in a list
  • progress bar for refreshing list
  • designed screens and feature list
  • separated bugzilla facing code from GUI code to make future switch to web service based connections easier

• I'm going to try and release as soon as possible again but this week is jammed with school work, I'm expecting to release again in a week.
• I'm also looking for better name and a logo if anyone wants an easy way contribute. If I use it I'll add you.
• I pushed back my other work and got another update in before the busy week started. I started adding the preferences as well as started the view bug specs feature.
• new version more features
• new version is getting closer, right now the preferences is set up pretty good but they have to be manually changed. You can alter the rows of each bug to view, and the bugzilla instance to hit in the preferences.
• new version fixes some html parsing problems, adds two new features: the view bug page button and the send email button.

preferences added, and search and better html tag stripping

• exams so not much time, but I've been fixing things and looking at bugzilla code to overcome final update hurdle will post new version soon.
• >>Break Through<< the buggy bar finally updated its first bug on landfill. finally fixed some bugs after working through some wrong information and finally getting the XmlRequest post methods to work. Will have new version up tonight or tomorrow but I've postponed studying for long enough so I'll have to do that first.
• added new bugaccess class which uses the XML format for bugspecs. Will make old pure html parsing one an option for old versions. Save functionality works on bugzilla 2.20.3 and onwards but the mozilla instance is 2.20 so it has a bug but you can test it on the landfill instances, still waiting for my new account on the 2.18 instance to see if that one works. also fixed some things up in the backend, going to rip out the field handling soon and stick a nice object in there. Added a fast instance switching so you can choose you bugzilla instance from a drop down easily. Oh and the save feature shows the results in the main window I'll finish that up later.

Extension Progress

• 01/11/2006 -> press shift + ctrl + b
• 02/11/2006 -> start firefox with console open(firefox -console) press shift + ctrl + b
• 02/11/2006 -> open the buggy bar under view -> sidebars
• 02/11/2006 -> screen shot
• 27/11/2006
• 28/11/2006 -> screen shot
• 28/11/2006
• 29/11/2006
  • screen shot1
  • screen shot2
  • screen shot3
• 11/12/2006

To Do(striked out means complete)

• create user preferences feature
• switch html special character back to original character
• view bug specs feature
  • steps to reproduce
  • summary
  • etc
• login to bugzilla feature
• control bug list search parameters
• update bug(almost done)
• allow for bugxilla instances to be saved and selected
• rip field code out and put it in object
• comment code
• create button images
• decide on logo
• use XML for bug Specs

• finish to do list
• allow for multiple searches/bugzilla instances

Project Resources

• http://www.allpeers.com/blog/creating-complex-firefox-extensions

• http://www.borngeek.com/firefox/tutorial/

• http://roachfiend.com/archives/2004/12/08/how-to-create-firefox-extensions/
• http://www.orablogs.com/duffblog/archives/000536.html
• http://www.bengoodger.com/software/mb/extensions/howto.html