TODO: This page needs a facelift.

Wastebug

Wastebug is a simple, yet usable bug manager. It has been written to make tracking bugs easy, while avoiding them in policy. As such, it will probably always lack many of the features that pointy-haired bosses, control freaks and methodologists want; it's designed for developers instead. Read on, or maybe jump to download.

Latest release

Latest version is 0.9.1. I claimed it'd be feature complete candidate for 1.0, but I think we'll add some minor practical features in there first. You can expect automatically generated passwords, bug-list separated on several pages, properly managed tab-indexes and some keyboard shortcuts. Anyway, no database changes before 1.0. Current screenshots are from 0.9.1.

Version 0.9.0 had nasty (and annoying) bug in news posting that allowed administrators to inject SQL, so please update your copy. No database or config changes. Also added a "short form" listing for better overview.

Right now the easiest way to stay up-to-date with releases is to subscribe on the freshmeat.net project page.

New: I originally planned waiting until after 1.0 before adding any revision control integration, but I really wanted that stuff, so some experimental support is in the development version.

Also, the future of the “long-form bug list” is kinda open right now. Currently it is more or less redundant, since the “short-form” displays the same information in less space, but I'd like to hear if there are people who like the long form. I'd also like to know if there is anything people would like displayed in it. It is possible that it will be removed in the future if no objections are raised.

The project

Wastebug was born when I wanted a simple bug manager, but was not happy with any of the open source solutions available. Most of them where either far too complex, awful to use, or simply impossible to install. In fact, I wasn't really any happier with the commercial solutions either. If Wastebug seems too simple, and you're not afraid of paying a little, you might want to consider FogBugz instead. Wastebug owes to Joel Spolsky's articles quite a bit, but even FogBugz wasn't slim enough for me.

That said, my intention with the project is not really to compete with anyone. My intention is to provide a simple, quality tool for me and (hopefully) others to use for improvements in their development process by helping to manage bugs. If you want to manage the people fixing the bugs, you probably want something else.

What it can do?

Wastebug allows one to create and edit bugs and other cases. It can manage multiple projects. It keeps full log of changes to each case, when bugs are assigned from developer to another, commented, details changed and (hopefully) finally fixed. In hope of making it easier for yourself to follow what's done with some bug, you can subscribe to receive email notifications every time someone changes it.

Well, there's a few extra features too, but those shouldn't really cause any trouble. While I'm trying to avoid bloat, there are things that will be added in future versions. File attachments, some kind of (optional) public interface, and better search capabilities come to mind, but there are probably others.

Wastebug is released as Open Source under the GNU General Public License. As of now it probably supports small closed teams better than world-wide open source development model. Life is sometimes strange.

It's perfectly usable in Lynx, but works fine with more capable browsers too. It generates XHTML 1.0 Strict, uses CSS style sheets, and fully supports the browser back and forward buttons. UTF−8 encoding is used, so it should mostly support international text too. I don't know much about non-latin scripts, so if you want to help, mail me at tvoipio@cc.hut.fi.

That's about it. Suggestions are welcome. It's written in PHP and uses a PostgreSQL schema as a back-end, though porting to other SQL databases should be possible in future. See README for version requirements and download here.