8669 - There should be a combo box to enter build number

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Bugzilla :: Creating/Changing Bugs, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Chris Booton]

Because it is so important to enter which build number you are using when
reporting a bug there should be a combo box to select it from (this would have
to be a required field as knowing it is so usefull) It could go under the
platform combo box or where is most logical. This would eliminate the problem of
people reporting bugs and not entering which build they are using.

Comment 1

[Terry Weissman]

What do you mean by "combo box"?  If it means what I think it does, then there
isn't an HTML equivilant ...

Comment 2

[Terry Weissman]

[e-mail] is the new owner of Bugzilla and Bonsai.  (For details,
see my posting in netscape.public.mozilla.webtools,
news://news.mozilla.org/38F5D90D.F40E8C1A%40geocast.com .)

Comment 3

[Stephen Rasku]

Actually, I think it would be cool if you submit your bug from Mozilla that it
would automatically enter this information for you.  It could just be a text box
that defaults to the build number of the version of Mozilla used to submit the
bug but would allow you to enter the information if you didn't submit from a
Mozilla browser.

Comment 4

[Chris Yeh]

this is a mozilla project dependent feature. what if you aren't reporting bugs 
on browsers but on something else? 

Comment 5

[Matthew Tuck [:CodeMachine]]

Yet another good suggestion not possible by the lack of field modularity.  I
won't verify this.

Reopening and marking blocked on the field modularity bug.  I've seen nothing
from mozilla.org saying they wouldn't want this, so leaving open until I hear
otherwise.

Hopefully one day we'll be able to do this without polluting the main Bugzilla
distribution.

Comment 6

[Matthew Tuck [:CodeMachine]]

Reassigning to [e-mail] since I don't see Tara as ever working on a
mozilla.org-specific feature.

Comment 7

[Diego Biurrun]

This feature would be an absolute blessing. Making good bug reports should be as
simple as possible, so the build number should be filled into some field
automatically.

Is it just me, or is the Votes field missing from this bug?

Comment 8

[timeless]

.

Comment 9

[Per A.]

I'm really surprised that a "build number" field has been left out of 
bugzilla!   Most of the better software companies do daily builds - where the 
testers and developers are using the most up-to-date product (the one built 
that day).

Some recommendations:  

1) Don't make it a combo box /dropdown list.  Instead, just use a text field.  
For a product with a year long dev cycle and daily builds, that means, um, 
300+ entries in the dropdown list.. 

2) You actually need two fields for the build # - one for the build where the 
bug was found, and one for the build where the bug was fixed.

3) As a bonus, add another field for the build where the bug was *verified*. 
Sometimes, if a tester leaves resolved  bugs sitting around for too long, 
the "fixed" build may no longer be available).

Comment 10

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

Bearing in mind Joel Spolsky's warnings about field bloat, I really don't
believe we need a separate field for this, because I don't think that anyone
would want to query on "all bugs which happened to be found in build 20030425".
They wouldn't, because that query says nothing about when the bug was actually
introduced. And the build it's fixed in is notified by the date the bug is
closed. :-)

If someone really, really wants this, they can do a custom field anyway, when we
implement that.

Suggest WONTFIX.

Gerv

Comment 11

[Paul Denize]

I think there should be a build box.  We use Bugzilla for internal 
development.  We build 4 times a day.  The version number changes at the 
beginning to target the next release.  Without a build number the defect 
tracking in development is poor.  We have to create a new version number 4 
times a day.  Personally I thing it would be better to have the option for a 
project to make Build number free text (though I'm not convinced that would be 
good).  In our situation we could potentially have about 800 builds a year.  
This version combo could become very unusable soon.  Versions bump far slower 
and we could assign a number of build numbers to a version at once (and clean 
up on final build).  If the dropdown box of builds was sensitive to the version 
this could be a major improvement.  Also if only one build exists if it 
selected that automatically.  I think that could suit everyone internal dev and 
external releases.

Comment 12

[Marc Schumann [:Wurblzap]]

Because of guided bug entry templates, this is pretty close to WORKSFORME imho...

Comment 13

[Gunnar Wagenknecht]

-1

Such a field should be optional. Not every project needs it.

Comment 14

[Frédéric Buclin]

You can now add as many fields as you need thanks to custom fields (since Bugzilla 3.0).