Known Bugs
No software is perfect so most “development” effort actually goes into fixing problems. Below is a list of currently known bugs or new features being worked on.
If you hover your pointer over the summary field you will get a popup with more info. Hovering over the status field shows when the issue was last updated.
The sections below expand on several of the columns in the table.
Type
Indicates the general type of problem or work being undertaken.
- Bug: There’s a problem in the code.
- Patch: Generally reserved for UI fixes such as alignment issues, colours and the like.
- Enhancement: An existing feature on the site is being extended.
- New Feature: Pretty much as it suggests.
- Refactoring: A code rewrite to be more efficient, more maintainable or use new features that were not available when first written.
Severity
This colummn indicates how severe the problem is or how much work is likely to be involved in completing the task.
- Cosmetic: Usually used for trivial things like text not being aligned.
- Minor: The code generally works but something isn’t quite right. For new features it means that there isn’t much work involved, often a day or less.
- Major: The bug causes problems with data or some functionality isn’t working correctly. New features require a lot of work, usually a week or more.
- Blocker: The bug prevents users from completing whatever they are trying to do on the site.
Status
This column indicates how far through the development/fixing process the bug has progressed.
- New: The bug is known about and will be moved to the next stage when time allows.
- Develop: Work is under way to fix the problem or write the new code.
- Fixed: The bug has hopefully been fixed and is being tested locally before being uploaded to the public site.
- Testing: The fix has been tested locally and is now live on the site for user testing.
Due to browser caching a problem may have been fixed (and as such may no longer appear in the above table) but your browser hasn’t picked up the changes so if you still see the problem try forcing a hard refresh to see if it goes away.
New Bugs
If you find a bug that isn’t listed above, please get in touch with the Membership Secretary (details on the contacts page).
Bug reporting is an art in itself and unless you are used to doing so the best advice is to try and remember the steps taken to produce the bug - including but not limited to:
- Current page
- How you interacted with the page - what you clicked; text you entered; etc.
- How the page/code reacted. Especially if it’s different from what you expected.
For any bug, it’s useful to include as much relevant information as you can remember. Just saying “It doesn’t work!” could mean anything - what is “it”?, what do you mean by “work”?
Once you’ve reported a bug, you may be asked questions (generally via email) so please don’t ignore these, it’s really frustrating trying to get more info and receiving no response.