Reporting bugs in Eclipse is a simple way of getting involved. These steps will use the example of the title case of SWT as an example, although this is not likely to be accepted as a real bug!
- Open a web browser and go to https://bugs.eclipse.org in order to create a bug. It may be necessary to log into the account if the option is not set. It may be beneficial to uncheck the Restrict this login session to this IP address, as otherwise if the computer's IP address changes, then it will be necessary to log in again.
- Once logged in, a File a Bug button will be displayed; alternatively the new link at the top of the page will allow a bug to be created.
- The Eclipse bug wizard will show the steps necessary to create a bug. The form will guess the operating system and hardware type based on the browser information, but for non-OS-specific bugs such as documentation, these should be set to All.
- The bugs are categorized into different areas; Technology contains general plug-ins that are language agnostic, such as EGit and Tycho. Mylyn has its own top level, while other languages and tools are under the Tools category. Finally, items relating to the Platform, PDE, or JDT are under the Eclipse category.
- Each product may have a number of components, such as whether it's relating to a behavior in the UI or documentation. This is generally used as an indicator to route the request to the right team, but it can be moved later.
- Finally, check that the version and severity are appropriately set for the bug. Enter a short summary and a description, and click on Submit Bug to enter the details.
Creating a bug involves going to https://bugs.eclipse.org and filling in the details.
A good bug description has a number of things:
- The summary should be concise, and summarize the problem in 60 characters or less. It should also uniquely identify the problem for later retrieval.
- The description should describe the problem in sufficient detail that those reading the bug can understand the problem and be able to replicate it. Providing more information, such as the version of the operating system or the windowing system, may be necessary if there's a chance that the bug is specific.
- Any attachments to the bug can be added when it is created, or can be added later. An attachment has a file name and a brief description; the file type will be automatically detected in most cases, but may be necessary to add if it's not clear. An attachment can be deleted or superseded later by a new attachment.
- The importance and target milestone are used by the project owners to schedule bugs and record when they are to be fixed. These generally shouldn't be changed by reporters.
Note
There is more information on how to write a good bug at the wiki page https://wiki.eclipse.org/Bug_Reporting_FAQ.
It is possible to configure Mylyn with Bugzilla to be able to report a bug in Eclipse. If Mylyn is not installed (it comes by default with most Eclipse packages, but not the Eclipse SDK), then it is possible to report a bug using the IDE itself. Install the Mylyn Task Connector for Bugzilla from the update site (if it is not already installed in the platform), and after restarting, open the Task Repositories view. The Add Task Repository button on the right-hand side allows a Bugzilla repository to be connected, which allows entering https://bugs.eclipse.org/bugs as the remote URL endpoint. From here, Tasks can be created (which are bugs in the remote tracker) and Queries (which are lists of bugs).