On 2011-08-22, Karsten Loesing karsten.loesing@gmx.net wrote:
1 Using Trac features
1.1 Which of the reports (stored ticket queries) do you use most often?
I just used https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/report/40 (Tor tickets by milestone) today as a starting point to find a submitted patch that I had forgotten to put in needs_review when I saw it in #tor-bots (#3923). I also used https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/report/23 (Tor tickets needing review), and I think I've used it more than once before today.
1.2 What are typical custom queries that you run?
I frequently search for tickets in a component with the default set of statuses, and sometimes search for all closed tickets in a component. I have also used the default custom query (Owner = me) fairly frequently.
I occasionally search for tickets containing a keyword in the summary or description fields, mainly when I'm looking for a particular closed ticket whose number I have forgotten in a component containing many tickets.
1.3 How do you use milestones and roadmaps?
I use the 'Milestone' ticket field to indicate which version of Tor a bugfix or feature needs to be applied to. I would do that with Vidalia, too, but there is no Vidalia 0.2.x milestone.
What are roadmaps?
1.4 Are you subscribed to tor-bugs and/or tor-wiki-changes, and how do you use the mails sent to these lists?
I am subscribed to tor-bugs. Back when I was using a tolerable MUA, I used unread tor-bugs messages to indicate tickets that I needed to work on or monitor. Now tor-bugs just fills my unusable inbox.
I am not subscribed to tor-wiki-changes, and I would not subscribe to it even if I could read the messages.
1.5 Which wiki pages do you read/edit most often?
None.
1.6 How do you search for wiki pages?
I type "https://trac.torproject.org/projects/tor/wiki/TitleIndex" into Firefox's URL bar and vgrep the list. If I'm looking for a wiki page, I usually know the last component of its title, but I no longer know its exact URL.
1.7 What are typical search terms that you use when using the search features?
If a search term were typical, I would bookmark the wiki page or remember the ticket number.
1.8 Do you use keywords and the tags page, and if so, what are keywords that you typically use?
I use the 'easy' keyword for tickets that I suspect would be trivial for someone who knows how to use grep and a TAGS file to fix/implement.
What is 'the tags page'?
1.9 How relevant are the following ticket fields for you?
1.9.1 Reported by
Very useful for finding tickets that I have filed.
1.9.2 Owned by
Useful.
1.9.3 Priority
I use this field to indicate the severity of a bug or lack of feature.
1.9.4 Milestone
See above. Very important for tickets on Tor itself; would be important for Vidalia tickets if I could use it; not useful for anything else.
1.9.5 Component
Very important.
1.9.6 Version
Useless. Current versions of products are never in the list.
1.9.7 Keywords
Useless. No one looks for 'easy' tickets. Other keywords are chosen too haphazardly to be useful (usually by users who have never used our bug tracker before).
1.9.8 Cc
Only useful for CC-ing people that notice when they are on a ticket's CC list (i.e. Erinn), and only useful since yesterday (when Erinn gave me the Trac permission needed to set the CC field arbitrarily). Previously, I could only set the CC field when creating a new ticket or add/remove myself in the CC list; the latter was useless.
1.9.9 Parent ID
Rarely useful.
1.9.10 Points
DIE DIE DIE
1.9.11 Actual Points
DIE DIE DIE
1.10 How relevant are the following ticket statuses for you?
1.10.1 accepted
Equivalent to 'assigned', 'new', and 'reopened'.
1.10.2 assigned
Indicates that a ticket's owner has been changed from the default owner for its component.
1.10.3 closed
Indicates that a ticket has been handled or discarded.
1.10.4 needs_information
Sometimes indicates that more information is needed before we can/should continue to handle a ticket. Sometimes does not (e.g. #1705).
1.10.5 needs_review
Very relevant. Indicates that a patch exists to fix a bug/add a feature.
1.10.6 new
Indicates that a ticket has not had its 'owner' field set explicitly since it was created.
1.10.7 reopened
Often indicates that a user is being an idiot or jerk. Otherwise, equivalent to 'accepted', 'assigned', 'new', and 'reopened'.
1.11 What other features do you use in Trac?
The 'Timeline' is occasionally useful for finding tickets opened or modified during some period of time.
1.12 What features are you missing in Trac?
A 'ban' feature to get rid of idiots/jerks.
1.13 What features would you want our Trac not to offer anymore, because they're making things only more confusing for you (and for people who are new to Tor)?
The Trac wiki should die.
Most of the contents of the wiki consist of obsolete and/or bad advice. These pages should be archived in a tarball where they will not be readily accessible to web browsers and search engines, then purged from our Trac installation.
The rest of the pages in the Trac wiki should be moved to a wiki which allows a user who edit a page concurrently with another user to merge his/her/its changes into the wiki page. Perhaps we should just use Git and give up on browser-based wikis.
Robert Ransom