In this thread, I recreated some of my suggestions for the bug tracker in such a way that anyone can add new ideas to this thread and vote on ideas as well. This way the MC staff can find all suggestions in one location and see the votes too. Here are the simple instructions.
This post is the instructions. The second post will always contain a summary of the suggestions.
The format for each suggestion in the second post will be;
Vote Count (Example: VC4),
Suggestion Number (example: #022),
Suggestion Short Form (subject),
Links to details which would be the originator and any additional ideas or comments.
All additional posts will contain either new suggestions, additional comments or votes. Note that in my case I created a few suggestions which do not have links because they are so simple to understand from the subject line. In others I added comments after the fact in new posts to follow the format that others would be using as a way of showing the structure of this thread.
To submit a suggestion give it a subject line and I will copy the subject line into the second post and give it a number then create a link directly to your post.
To vote on one suggestion (for example suggestion #004) create a new post and enter only this VF004. This means "Vote For #004". This way if I fall behind on submitting and counting votes I can do a quick recount by searching for VF004 and get a total.
To vote for three suggestions create a new post and enter only this. VF003 VF005 VF008.
If a feature is put in (completed) I will delete the summary entry to reduce reading and decrease the count in the subject line for this thread. If I happen to miss the fact that it has been put in someone can add a post to this thread or PM me.
Other:
I will check this thread at the end of each trading day most likely. If I am away maybe TJ can update post #2 summaries and counts. At the bottom of the summary post (post #2) will be this line “Updated from last post number: 5”. That would mean I have updated the summary post #2 using the information on the most recent posts up to post #5. By doing this, anyone can bring the 2nd summary post up to date. In my case I can do it because I created the thread of course.
The subject line Total Suggestions will be kept up to date.
1 Bug-Tracker Suggestions & Votes List. Tot-Suggestions: 12
Re: A Bug Tracker Suggestions & Votes List. Total Suggestion
VC1 #001 A special voting list with four filters to make voting a lot easier. (showing active grouped by component)
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9252&p=43897#p43897 (Post 4)
VC2 #002 Users can request to get email when new feature requests are added to their favorite components
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9252&p=44123#p44123 (post 7)
VC1 #004 Ability to search for bugs or features and within component.
VC1 #005 To be able to change priority of our suggestions.
VC2 #006 To be able to edit a comment.
VC2 #007 fix for proper code handling for underlines etc
VC1 #008 ability to list all active by component (not just do text search by component).
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9252&p=43882#p43893 (post 3)
VC1 #009 ability to list both "My votes - Not yet seen." + "My votes - No" in one list.
VC1 #010 - Ability to see our own counts just after the search lists which initiate our searches.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9252&p=43883#p44111 (Post 6)
VC2 #011 show new and updated issues since the last login for the user with some kind of indication
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9252&p=43883#p44383
VC1 #012 MC staff provide us with the link to the 3rd party bug tracker software to forward these requests to.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9252&p=43883#p44389
VC1 #013 New users stepped through a Tutorial "List My Votes: (Not seen yet)" before being allowed to create new entries.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9252&p=44410#p44410
Updated from last post number: 11
This is the link to submit suggestions for the forum.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9332
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9252&p=43897#p43897 (Post 4)
VC2 #002 Users can request to get email when new feature requests are added to their favorite components
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9252&p=44123#p44123 (post 7)
VC1 #004 Ability to search for bugs or features and within component.
VC1 #005 To be able to change priority of our suggestions.
VC2 #006 To be able to edit a comment.
VC2 #007 fix for proper code handling for underlines etc
VC1 #008 ability to list all active by component (not just do text search by component).
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9252&p=43882#p43893 (post 3)
VC1 #009 ability to list both "My votes - Not yet seen." + "My votes - No" in one list.
VC1 #010 - Ability to see our own counts just after the search lists which initiate our searches.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9252&p=43883#p44111 (Post 6)
VC2 #011 show new and updated issues since the last login for the user with some kind of indication
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9252&p=43883#p44383
VC1 #012 MC staff provide us with the link to the 3rd party bug tracker software to forward these requests to.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9252&p=43883#p44389
VC1 #013 New users stepped through a Tutorial "List My Votes: (Not seen yet)" before being allowed to create new entries.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9252&p=44410#p44410
Updated from last post number: 11
This is the link to submit suggestions for the forum.
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=9332
Last edited by bowlesj3 on 16 Oct 2011, edited 40 times in total.
Re: 1 Bug-Tracker Suggestions & Votes List. Tot-Suggestions:
#008 ability to list all active by component (not just do text search by component).
On the weekend I found a component break down for a text search but when I entered the letter 'a' to get everything in a straight list it did not work. I also could not see such a list on the left side. Maybe I am missing something but from what I can see if I want to scan through all bugs and feature requests for (charting and EL coding only) I can not see any list that allows this. This is the one that triggered this thread (actually the original one) in the first place.
On the weekend I found a component break down for a text search but when I entered the letter 'a' to get everything in a straight list it did not work. I also could not see such a list on the left side. Maybe I am missing something but from what I can see if I want to scan through all bugs and feature requests for (charting and EL coding only) I can not see any list that allows this. This is the one that triggered this thread (actually the original one) in the first place.
Last edited by bowlesj3 on 27 Sep 2011, edited 3 times in total.
Re: 1 Bug-Tracker Suggestions & Votes List. Tot-Suggestions:
#001 A special voting list with four filters to make voting a lot easier. (showing active grouped by component)
Here are the filter descriptions you would see:
My votes - Not yet seen. (by component)
My votes - Yes (will use, want fixed) (by component)
My votes - No (will not use, not effected) (by component)
My votes - All
To help explain this, in the computer our vote would be stored like this.
Value 0 means we have not seen this item yet so have not set the +1 or -1 status.
Value +1 means, Yes (will use, want fixed)
Value -1 means, No (will not use, not effected)
You would have 3 buttons for voting. Center button would be 0. Left button would be -1 and Right button would be +1. The triple button group should be on the list screen as well as on the detail screen so the user can avoid having to go into the detail screen when they can tell at a glance from the subject line in the list that the feature will never be used.
With this approach, when using the "My votes - Not yet seen. (by component)" list, if 5 new features come in, the user will see only the new ones. In this situation, as an example, they might give four features -1 from the list screen and view the detail for the one they might be interested in and possibly click +1 to vote for it from the detail screen. This will save the user a lot of time and get more accurate vote numbers for the MC Staff since more users will be willing to use the bug tracker.
The other advantage to this is we could decide to change our vote from +1 to -1 after the fact and use only the list screen to do it (much faster). We might even have entered a -1 to a few things and later decided we will use these features after all. Thus we could list our -1 choices and change one or more to a +1 value (again from the list screen in some cases). The computer would still restrict us to 1 vote only as it does now.
So for the database programmers in the house, the voting record is a link from the user file to the feature file and the link file has vote field with the +1 0 -1 value. When a user runs "My votes - Not yet seen. (by component)", that list would include items where the user has no link record yet as well as link records where their value is zero. By allowing a user to set the value back to 0, we accept the fact that they may have gone back to undecided.
One more thing. If we go into a detail screen and vote there then come back out to the list screen, the new vote status for that item in the detail screen should be immediately reflected in the list screen.
Here are the filter descriptions you would see:
My votes - Not yet seen. (by component)
My votes - Yes (will use, want fixed) (by component)
My votes - No (will not use, not effected) (by component)
My votes - All
To help explain this, in the computer our vote would be stored like this.
Value 0 means we have not seen this item yet so have not set the +1 or -1 status.
Value +1 means, Yes (will use, want fixed)
Value -1 means, No (will not use, not effected)
You would have 3 buttons for voting. Center button would be 0. Left button would be -1 and Right button would be +1. The triple button group should be on the list screen as well as on the detail screen so the user can avoid having to go into the detail screen when they can tell at a glance from the subject line in the list that the feature will never be used.
With this approach, when using the "My votes - Not yet seen. (by component)" list, if 5 new features come in, the user will see only the new ones. In this situation, as an example, they might give four features -1 from the list screen and view the detail for the one they might be interested in and possibly click +1 to vote for it from the detail screen. This will save the user a lot of time and get more accurate vote numbers for the MC Staff since more users will be willing to use the bug tracker.
The other advantage to this is we could decide to change our vote from +1 to -1 after the fact and use only the list screen to do it (much faster). We might even have entered a -1 to a few things and later decided we will use these features after all. Thus we could list our -1 choices and change one or more to a +1 value (again from the list screen in some cases). The computer would still restrict us to 1 vote only as it does now.
So for the database programmers in the house, the voting record is a link from the user file to the feature file and the link file has vote field with the +1 0 -1 value. When a user runs "My votes - Not yet seen. (by component)", that list would include items where the user has no link record yet as well as link records where their value is zero. By allowing a user to set the value back to 0, we accept the fact that they may have gone back to undecided.
One more thing. If we go into a detail screen and vote there then come back out to the list screen, the new vote status for that item in the detail screen should be immediately reflected in the list screen.
Last edited by bowlesj3 on 06 Oct 2011, edited 2 times in total.
Re: 1 Bug-Tracker Suggestions & Votes List. Tot-Suggestions:
For whatever it is worth, regarding the ideas in post number 4 in this thread (above), here is something to think about.
It is a hypothetical scenario and I pulled the 1,000 out of a hat to demonstrate it but with the current Bug Tracker only the number 10 can be seen. The picture changes a lot when you see the 1,000. It could have an impact on the amount of programming effort. The question is, which number will grow if voting is made a lot easier and how will the ratios change?
In my case being someone who specializes in one futures symbol only, I would skip right over the Scanner if the My Votes lists were grouped by component. So I would be excluded from the 1,000 part above for all of the scanner related votes. It probably makes that ratio even more meaningful. On the other hand I suspect most users use all components but at least you would/could know this information if these improvements were in.
Code: Select all
Total My Votes: (will use it) 10
Total My Votes: (will not use it) 1000
In my case being someone who specializes in one futures symbol only, I would skip right over the Scanner if the My Votes lists were grouped by component. So I would be excluded from the 1,000 part above for all of the scanner related votes. It probably makes that ratio even more meaningful. On the other hand I suspect most users use all components but at least you would/could know this information if these improvements were in.
Re: 1 Bug-Tracker Suggestions & Votes List. Tot-Suggestions:
#010 - Ability to see our own counts just after the search lists which initiate our searches.
Example:
This way we could see there are 5 new feature requests or bugs and be only a click away from seeing them. With the new scan (my request #009) we could also view things we thought we would not use again in the same list.
Example:
Code: Select all
List My Votes: (Not seen yet) 5
List My Votes: (Will not use it) 15
List My Votes: (Not seen yet) & (Will not use it) 20
Re: 1 Bug-Tracker Suggestions & Votes List. Tot-Suggestions:
#002 Users can request to get email when new feature requests are added to their favorite components
Regarding this idea, to make it more practical, making it so the user able to adjust the number of unseen requests before an email is sent would reduce the amount of email. Maybe a user would be interested in being notified when 5 feature requests or bugs are entered into the bug tracker. In this case, when they go into to their personal area they would see this.
Maybe the email would have a link directly to where the user sees the above search link where the number 5 appears. If the user can select component areas they are interested in this would further reduce the amount of email sent.
Regarding this idea, to make it more practical, making it so the user able to adjust the number of unseen requests before an email is sent would reduce the amount of email. Maybe a user would be interested in being notified when 5 feature requests or bugs are entered into the bug tracker. In this case, when they go into to their personal area they would see this.
Code: Select all
List My Votes: (Not seen yet) 5
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JoshM
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Re: 1 Bug-Tracker Suggestions & Votes List. Tot-Suggestions:
Interesting topic, and you're taking on quite some work with this John. So a thanks is also in place for your efforts and thoughts on how to improve the bug-tracker.
If I understand your first post correctly:
VF002
(a vote for issue 2, "Users can request to get email when new feature requests are added to their favorite components")
VF006
(a vote for issue 6, "To be able to edit a comment.")
VF007
(a vote for issue 7, "fix for proper code handling for underlines etc")
What I think would be a nice feature, is if it's possible to show new and updated issues since the last login for the user with some kind of indication. For example, just like the forum, where we have that "->" and orange map to notify you of new replies - that way you can easily keep track of newly made issues or issues with new comments.
Btw, I must admit I'm somewhat pessimistic about how much (if any) of these suggestion will be (or can be) implemented. If you look at the open issues in the issue tracker for the bug-tracker software (TheBugGenie) that is used by the MC Project Management, there are quite a few open issues and just one programmer for this open source software (also check out their blog, there's just a new beta version released).
In other words, the development cycle for this bug-tracker software is slow, so I think we can't "blame" MC if certain (or all) of these features will not get implemented. Well, MC Support could hire a php engineer to make these add-ons to the bug-tracker software, but the business of MultiCharts is not to make the most prettiest bug-tracker software.
Just saying.
Regards,
Josh
If I understand your first post correctly:
VF002
(a vote for issue 2, "Users can request to get email when new feature requests are added to their favorite components")
VF006
(a vote for issue 6, "To be able to edit a comment.")
VF007
(a vote for issue 7, "fix for proper code handling for underlines etc")
What I think would be a nice feature, is if it's possible to show new and updated issues since the last login for the user with some kind of indication. For example, just like the forum, where we have that "->" and orange map to notify you of new replies - that way you can easily keep track of newly made issues or issues with new comments.
Btw, I must admit I'm somewhat pessimistic about how much (if any) of these suggestion will be (or can be) implemented. If you look at the open issues in the issue tracker for the bug-tracker software (TheBugGenie) that is used by the MC Project Management, there are quite a few open issues and just one programmer for this open source software (also check out their blog, there's just a new beta version released).
In other words, the development cycle for this bug-tracker software is slow, so I think we can't "blame" MC if certain (or all) of these features will not get implemented. Well, MC Support could hire a php engineer to make these add-ons to the bug-tracker software, but the business of MultiCharts is not to make the most prettiest bug-tracker software.
Just saying.
Regards,
Josh
Re: 1 Bug-Tracker Suggestions & Votes List. Tot-Suggestions:
So are you saying that the bug list you mention above is a direct input to the project management software developers (for these suggestions). If that is correct maybe MC staff should respond to bug-tracker and forum complaints by simply giving the link to where these complaints should be made (saving a lot of work for them). If not, maybe the Bug Tracker software people need to sign on to these forums and access only one thread (this thread). That way they would get an email directly from this site for any new ideas (MC staff would not need to bother with it).
Re: 1 Bug-Tracker Suggestions & Votes List. Tot-Suggestions:
An idea for this thread. If MC Staff (1/ created a forum account for the 3rd party creator of the bug tracker and 2/ put their email address for suggestions in that forum account and 3/ gave them one post in this thread) then every time a user on this forum creates a post to this thread the 3rd party vendor will get an update about the suggestion (as well as a reminder of the full list of suggestions in post #2). This way the users in this forum will get to know this thread and focus all their suggestions here rather than having to know the email address of the 3rd party vendor. MC Staff will then have to do basically nothing while suggestions get directed where they should go.
Re: 1 Bug-Tracker Suggestions & Votes List. Tot-Suggestions:
#013 New users stepped through a Tutorial "List My Votes: (Not seen yet)" before being allowed to create new entries.
I think duplication on the bug tracker could be almost totally eliminated if the "My Votes" search lists were provided which I describe above, and additionally new users after they create their user ID and password were forced to into a mini tutorial where they are made aware of these search features and required to choose their components and do a "List My Votes: (Not seen yet)" scan before they were allowed to make new entries. This way when they go to make their first entries they would remember anything seen during the scan that might be a duplicate already posted. Additionally it would increase the chances that they would routinely do the "List My Votes: (Not seen yet)" scan before creating new entries. If part of the tutorial required they select how often then want to be notified of new entries in the bug tracker it would reduce duplication even further. Duplicates would likely only occur if the description of a feature which shows in the list was poorly worded. At present the design of the software pretty much guarantees that at least some duplicates will occur.
If the tutorial is worded correctly new users would enjoy the tour seeing it as a glimpse of what MC might look like in the future with a bit if an opportunity to influence it. If they are instructed on how to make comments during the tour it would be even better.
I think duplication on the bug tracker could be almost totally eliminated if the "My Votes" search lists were provided which I describe above, and additionally new users after they create their user ID and password were forced to into a mini tutorial where they are made aware of these search features and required to choose their components and do a "List My Votes: (Not seen yet)" scan before they were allowed to make new entries. This way when they go to make their first entries they would remember anything seen during the scan that might be a duplicate already posted. Additionally it would increase the chances that they would routinely do the "List My Votes: (Not seen yet)" scan before creating new entries. If part of the tutorial required they select how often then want to be notified of new entries in the bug tracker it would reduce duplication even further. Duplicates would likely only occur if the description of a feature which shows in the list was poorly worded. At present the design of the software pretty much guarantees that at least some duplicates will occur.
If the tutorial is worded correctly new users would enjoy the tour seeing it as a glimpse of what MC might look like in the future with a bit if an opportunity to influence it. If they are instructed on how to make comments during the tour it would be even better.