173332 - RFE Offline bugzilla client

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Bugzilla :: Creating/Changing Bugs, enhancement)

Description

[blitzreiter]

I would prefer to write bugs offline. So a kind of offline bugzilla client 
would be very nice (similar to email client).

Comment 1

[Stephen Lee]

Just thought to look if someone had RFE-ed this already.... and "RFE Offline 
bugzilla client" was pretty covers it! :-)

It would be good to be able to suggest Bugzilla as a possible future 
replacement for the in-house "support software" used by my employer's main 
product.

This operates by having a copy of the database on everyone's machine and a 
synchronisation operation with the master server. Since many of the users have 
laptops, and need to use them "on the road", a fully online system such as 
bugzilla would not currently be an option even if they were looking to replace 
it.


It seems to me that this would need to come in two stages:

Firstly, tweaking the database schema to allow bidirectional synchronisation 
with a local store. (would allow a bugzilla "proxy server", or for large 
bugzillas such as b.m.o. to be a server cluster, with each server syncing its 
changes with a master database rather than a single MySQL server suffering all 
the load).

Mid-air collisions could become interesting... especially if they have to be 
resolved autonomously.

It would need to cope with the remote database containing only a subset of 
bugs/products/group restrictions.


Secondly, some form of client that an average joe can install to allow access 
to this database via a similar synchronisation mechanism. (Ideally something a 
windows user can just double click a Setup.exe, enter the address of the master 
server, a few sync options, and then use it, with remaining config coming from 
the server)

Seems to me like a significant number of additional applications for bugzilla 
would be opened up by doing this. It might also change the flavour of "what 
bugzilla is" somewhat. 

It also sounds like a lot of work. :-(  I don't envy the task of anyone that 
tries to do this.


For the small part of this in comment 0 (just writing new bugs offline), there 
is the possibility of using bug_email.pl, which allows a specially formatted 
email to create a bug report... I don't thing b.m.o. supports this at the 
moment though.

Comment 2

[Shane H. W. Travis]

RFE, not a bug. Setting Severity accordingly, and updating other fields to be 
more accurate.

Comment 3

[blitzreiter]

http://deskzilla.com/

Commercial product

Comment 4

[Sebastian Hengst [:aryx] (needinfo me if it's about an intermittent or backout)]

This should be possible using the offline storage functionality of Firefox 3. The loading and rendering of query.cgi is sometimes annoying.

Comment 5

[Frédéric Buclin]

An offline client seems like a separate project to me. Wontfix.