Start Here - Joomla! Bug Squad Information

Reports to

Mark Dexter, Ian MacMannen, and Andrew Eddie within the Joomla! Production Working Group.

Purpose

Quality assurance of the Joomla! codebase, through these measures:

• Maintaining Issue Trackers and monitoring bug report forum areas;
• Creating automated system and unit tests for the code base;
• Providing for migration and upgrade processes and instruction.

How to get involved

• Familiarize yourself with working areas and set up accounts needed;
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• Email Mark Dexter at dextercowley AT gmail DOT com requesting membership in the Joomla! Bug Squad and provide him with your JoomlaCode username. Mark will respond, asking that you fill out a short interest and skill survey and be back in touch about your involvement;
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• Attend a Joomla! 1.6 Bug Squad Orientation Meeting:
  
  • Meeting 1 - Friday May 21 at 02:00:00 UTC (Meeting log);
    
  • Meeting 2 - Tuesday May 25 at 20:00:00 UTC;
    
  • Or, review the orientation meeting agenda and minutes.
    
    
• Complete this survey of interest form.
  
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• Familiarize yourself with the Joomla Code of Conduct, which is essential for participation. Try to resolve interpersonal agreements privately, but if that fails, find a friendly person within the group who is willing to help;
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• Participate in Team Communications;
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• Learn the tasks, procedures, and responsibilities of your Bug Squad Team(s);
  
  
• Prepare your local environment;
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Bug Squad Teams

Currently, there are five teams within the Bug Squad. Take time to watch this webinar: Overview of Tracker Process and look through the Bug Squad FAQ. (Joomla! 1.6 Changes)

• Teams that work with issue reports:
  • Tracker Team - monitor forums and review new Issue reports on trackers, confirming bugs and setting the status to "Confirmed" to signal developers that a patch is desired, or use other status codes, as needed;
  • Coding Team - follow the Joomla! Coding style and standards and create patches for Issues with a status code of Confirmed; clearly document testing requirements on Issue report when patches are uploaded and attached; change Issue status to Pending to notify Testing Team that they can begin;
    
  • Testing Team - using the Testing Guidelines, review Pending Status items, follow testing procedure documented on the issue report and the patch, record testing results on the Issue report, and change status to Ready to Commit after the second successful test.Note: during beta testing, only one tester is needed to confirm the patch and establish Ready to Commit status for simple patches.
    
  • Bug Squad Leadership - review Ready to Commit items and commit acceptable patches to the development repository, provide feedback on patches that require additional work.
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• Automated Testing Team - create and maintain unit testing of core code base;
• Migration/Upgrade Team - code, document, and support migration software needed between versions.

Communications

• Mailing List - can be used for any questions a squad members have, including work station setup, procedure/policy questions, and concerns; area for discussion of issues with broader impact; scheduling of meetings; policy changes, and so on. Please join list when you join the Bug Squad. The join option can be found on this list on the right side. (Note: anyone can join this email list.)
  
• IRC - used for interactive discussion on the Bug Squad; typical use includes questions about an issue report or requests from other squad members to test a patch submitted. Public IRC with log provided by a member of the community. (Community provided IRC log)
• Joomla! Announcements and Community Blogs - stay on top of blog posts shared on the Community blog, such as this submission entitled Joomla! 1.6 Development Shifting Gears by Louis Landry, the Joomla! 1.6 Status Updates Page and the general Joomla! announcements.
• Joomla Bug Squad Group in People.j.org - another way of connecting with squad members; more of a casual meeting place but contains good information.

Working Areas

• Register an account on Joomlacode.
  • Point your browser to http://joomlacode.org/.
  • Click the Register new account in the Upper Right Corner.
  • Fill out the form and press Submit.
  • Respond to the email verification.
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• Joomla! 1.6
  • Issue Tracker
    
  • Code Repository http://joomlacode.org/svn/joomla/development/trunk/
    (username: anonymous; no password required)
    
  • Joomla! 1.6 Beta Bug Reporting Forum
    
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• Joomla! 1.5
  • Issue Tracker
  • Code Repository http://joomlacode.org/svn/joomla/development/releases/1.5/
    (username: anonymous; no password, required)
    
  • Joomla! 1.5 Bug Reporting Forum
  
  
• Documentation Wiki
  • Bug Squad landing page and Category Index;
  • Bug Squad FAQ:
    • What am I supposed to do? Webinar: Overview of Tracker Process
    • How do I properly report a bug?
    • What do those status codes mean and how should they be used?
      
    • How do I establish a consistent Priority value from issue to issue?
    • What is a Patch?
    • What guidelines should I use when Testing?
    
    
    
  • Members are encouraged to add to and update documentation. All documentation must be submitted using the Joomla! Electronic Documentation License.
  • Please understand that external links are not allowed to prevent possible self-promotion and spam. PDF material should be copied into the Wiki for collaboration and upkeep by the community. If you wish to provide Video documentation for sharing within the wiki, you can email a copy of the source (ex. .avi files) to Mark Dexter so that he can upload the video into the documentation wiki for sharing.

Local Workstation Environment

Bug Squad members need a local testing environment that mirrors the current development environment. Most use a localhost environment for Web services. In addition, a tool to apply patches is required for testing. Developers who wish to submit patches need an IDE and a tool to create patches.

The following are options which have been documented by community members for use with the Bug Squad. New options are welcome and those who wish to document preferred environments are encouraged to do so using the Documentation Wiki. Please be aware of File Format requirements when using other options.

• Local Host environment
  • XAMPP (Wiki, Video), also view this additional information by operating system:
    • Linux
    • MacIntosh;
    • Windows .
    
    
  • WAMP - available for Windows, only;
    
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• Integrated development environment (IDE) - typically used by developers; the Eclipse option is the only documented option available for Macintosh and Linux testers.
  
  • Eclipse
    • Webinar: Using Eclipse for Joomla! Development
    • Install
    • Setting Newline Character (Mac and Windows, only)
    • Setting up a local environment, checking out source code
    • Applying a patch
    • Reverting a patch
    • Creating a patch
  • Aptana Studio - Video
  • Netbeans (Wiki, Video)
    
    
• SVN Support - Windows users, only
  • Tortoise SVN:
    • Install (Wiki, Video)
    • Configuring a local test environment (Wiki, Video)
    • Updating your local test environment (Wiki, Video)
    • Applying a patch (Wiki, Video)
    • Reverting a patch (Wiki, Video)
    • Creating a patch (Wiki, Video)