Introduction

Have you found an issue in Simal or wish to suggest a new feature? Anyone can enter an issue in the issue tracker to make the project aware of their issues. This page will tell you how we use the issue tracker in the Simal project.

Issue tracker

We use the issue tracker on our Google Code developer site to help us track bugs and feature requests. It is also used to help prioritise work and to indicate that someone is working on a specific issue. This document provides an introduction to working with our issue tracker.

Users are encouraged to submit issues and to "vote" for issues

Adding something to the issue tracker is not an instruction for someone to do the work described, it is merely a record that some work, in the opinion of at least one person, needs to be done. We therefore encourage all users of the Simal applications to add bug reports and feature requests.

Before submitting an issue please search the tracker to see if anyone has already submitted the item. If an existing issue is found please indicate your interest in seeing the issue resolved by "starring" it. This is done by clicking the star next to the issue number (when "starred" this star will be yellow).

Issue management and Road Maps

It is up to the Simal community as a whole to ensure that issues important to them get addressed. The only way to be certain a task is addressed is to do it yourself or find someone willing to make the modifications in return for a fee.

We use a combination of the priority and milestone labels to provide an indication of when an issue will be addressed. The milestone label indicates which release the issue is currently scheduled for whilst the priority indicates how likely it is that it will actually make it into the release. That is, the lower the priority the more likely the issue is to slip to a subsequent release if time forces such an action.

The issue tracker will provide an indication of the order in which issues will be implemented by the currently active developers.

The "slotted" label in the issue tracker will show you the issues that are being addressed in the next iteration of development. In theory an iteration lasts 2 weeks, and a release is made every 8 weeks in practice we don't always manage this schedule (at least not at the time of writing).

If there is an issue that is important to you but not currently high up the priority list then you need to take it on and provide a patch.

Only committers can set priorities, but if you comment on the issue indicating your need and willingness to resolve it we will include this in future planning. We'll make sure that we plan to provide support for you until such a time as you can just get on with it and commit directly.