Guidelines

How to report a bug

The goal of the dBug database is to enable the dIRC developers to fix bugs and let users view the developers progress.  In order to do this, bug reports must be effectively reported.  This document will guide you through the process of creating an effective bug report.

A good bug report contains two elements, the bug is reproducible and described specifically.

Reproducible - If you can not reproduce the problem, it is unlikely that the dIRC developers will be able to reproduce it either.  Please try to reproduce the bug, and describe the exact steps that you used to reproduce the problem.

Specific - Please give all relevant information about how you encountered your bug along with what happened after you encountered it.

Example

• A bad report:
  I tried to join channel #example and dIRC messes up the topic.  I really like dIRC, but if you don't fix this i will have to switch back to my old client.  Thanks for fixing this!
• A good report:
  After joining #example on irc.example.com, dIRC incorrectly displayed the topic.  dIRC showed boxes in between letters when the topic contained color codes.

How to enter a report into dBug

You can enter your specific bug report in two ways.  

1. From dIRC
   You can submit the bug report from inside dIRC by clicking on Help->Technical Support.  This is the quickest way to submit a bug and the most accurate, since dIRC automatically determines the versions of components on your computer such as OS version, Common Control version, Internet Explorer version, and the version of dIRC you are running.
2. From the website
   You can submit a bug report manually on the dBug web site.  Simply enter your bug report into the form along with the information about the components installed on your computer.