All bug reports, patch submissions and feature requests are kept in the issue tracker “Trac” at trac.cafu.de. Trac refers to all sorts of issues collectively as “tickets”.

This page explains how tickets are created and filled-in the most effectively.

In order to create a new ticket, you must login to Trac first.

(The login page has a link to register yourself at Trac, if you haven't done so yet. We recommend that you use the same username, password and email address that you also use for the Cafu forums – we hope to be able to connect the Trac login to the forum database in the future. When that happens, you'd only have to register once at the forums, and the login details would work for Trac as well. Until then, please register yourself for Trac separately.)

Before creating a new ticket, use the search functions in order to make sure that the bug or proposed enhancement is not already submitted:

• Use the search for global search.
• Use queries to search for strings
  • in ticket summaries (example: http://trac.cafu.de/query:status!=closed&summary~=soundsys) or
  • in ticket lists of keywords (example: http://trac.cafu.de/query:status!=closed&keywords~=SoundSys).

If you are unsure whether you encountered the same bug, open a new ticket and add mutual links to both tickets (entering a ticket number like #1234 into a ticket description is automatically converted into a hyperlink to ticket number 1234).

If you want to express interest in a bug that is already submitted, add yourself to the CC list or add more details. Or even better, try to fix it.

When reporting a bug, it's usually obvious to the submitter (you) what the problem is. Unfortunately it's quite often less obvious to us (the developers) and the chances of a bug being fixed decrease dramatically if we can't even understand what it is. So please follow this general template when reporting the bugs, with the possible exception of really trivial and self-explanatory ones:

1. Describe what you do to reproduce the initial situation.
2. Describe what you expect to happen.
3. Describe what happens.

Variations are possible, of course, but please follow the above steps if in doubt. Also see the descriptions of the individual fields below for more details.

Provide a concise and meaningful title. You may assume that the Summary field will be viewed together with Type and Component. For example, you don't need to mention CaWE in the summary if the component is set to CaWE.

Make sure to provide enough details and context so that we can understand the issue comprehensively – only then are we able to help you.

We don't need lengthy texts, and if you attach a well-documented patch and the other fields contain all relevant information, you may need no description at all. But if you're filing a bug report, include instructions on how the bug can be reproduced. If you're proposing a new feature or enhancement, describe it in sufficient detail.

Please be very conservative with the priority setting, normal is almost always right.

Select the Cafu component that your ticket is related to from the drop-down list. For ticket reviewers, Component is the most important drop-down field.

Optionally fill-in any keywords that seem appropriate. When you refer to C++ classes, use their full names (e.g. EntHumanPlayerT, not humanplayer or EntHumanPlayer).

Set the proper version, typically svn-head if you're working with the subversion repository.

The ticket reporter is always notified about changes, so there is no need to add yourself to the CC list. Use this field when you are interested in a ticket opened by somebody else.

If relevant, make sure that you specify the exact OS name and version, 32- or 64-bit, compiler version, etc. in the Description text as well.

Please don't set these fields at all, they are meant to be used by developers. Setting them doesn't help with getting the ticket addressed sooner, quite to the contrary: it might slow things down as a developer would have to spend time with (re-)setting them properly.

Cafu is to a large degree a community project, and we need and very much appreciate your help. Here are just a few examples on what you can do:

• Create and submit patches.
• If you see that a bug that you reported in the past was fixed, but the ticket is still open, close it. You can easily list all open bugs you reported.
• We really welcome other help with the existing bugs as well: for example, verifying that the bugs can still be reproduced, commenting on potential workarounds and so on.

Looking forward to your tickets!