HowTo:Make A Bug Report
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Reporting bugs in POV-Ray
Bug reports are an essential part of development, and the developers need you to let them know about programming defects in POV-Ray. However, there are a few things that you need to keep in mind when you are thinking about submitting a bug report or requesting a new feature. Please take a few moments to read this brief list of guidelines before you open a new task in our Bug Reporting System.
Guidelines for opening new tasks
- Take some minutes of your time and read this document, it will teach you how to report a bug correctly.
- If you're not sure it's a bug, or how to report it, chat with the folks in the beta-test forum.
- We cannot accept bug reports for modified versions of POV-Ray.
- In almost all cases where a rendering bug is being reported, we require a minimal sample scene causing the bug be submitted, as well as an image showing the problem.
- Always perform a search on both open and closed bugs ('tasks') before opening a new one. Your bug might already have been reported, or your feature requested.
- Use the English language in any tasks you open. Nothing will get done if we can't understand you.
- Only report one bug or request one feature per task.
- If you report a bug, and we mark it as 'requires testing', then please test it and add a comment to the task telling us how well it works.
- If a task is closed and marked 'fixed in devel', then try the development version before requesting that it be re-opened.
- If we deny your request to re-open a task, check the History tab for our reason. If you are unsatisfied with the reason, you are welcome to discuss it in the forums.
- Be polite. Remember that you got POV-Ray for free.
Text formatting tips
Flyspray allows for a lot more formatting within task descriptions and comments than what the buttons give you. Here are a few helpful essentials:
- To quote some other comment, place a greater-than sign (>) at the beginning of each paragraph.
- If Flyspray interprets part of your text as formatting where it shouldn't, enclose that text in double percent signs (%%...%%).
- Refer to other Flyspray tasks by their numeric id preceded by "FS#" (e.g. FS#123); this will automatically create a corresponding link.
- Do make use of the preview button.
Miscellaneous
- To illustrate your bug report or comment with images, please do make use of the "attach a file" functionality, rather than linking to some 3rd party image hosting site. This way the image will remain accessible as long as the bugtracker entry.