| If you find a bug in cairo we would love to hear about it. We're also |
| trying to make cairo better, and learning about the bugs that users |
| encounter is an essential part of that. So we really appreciate the |
| extra effort users put in to providing high-quality bug reports. |
| |
| There are two acceptable ways to report cairo bugs, and you can choose |
| which you prefer: |
| |
| 1) Bugzilla bug tracking database: |
| |
| You can use the following web interface to report new bugs, follow |
| up on previous bug reports, and search for existing, known |
| bugs. Just use the "cairo" product: |
| |
| http://bugs.freedesktop.org |
| |
| It is necessary to go through a quick account creation process, |
| (with email address verification), in order to be able to report |
| new bugs in bugzilla. We apologize for any inconvenience that might |
| cause, and hope it won't prevent you from reporting bugs. |
| |
| 2) Cairo mailing list: |
| |
| For people who cannot stand the bugzilla interface, you can just |
| send an email to cairo mailing list (cairo@cairographics.org). The |
| mailing list only allows posting from subscribers, so use the |
| following page for subscription instructions: |
| |
| http://cairographics.org/lists |
| |
| Again, we apologize for any inconvenience this subscription step |
| might cause, but we've found it necessary to require this in order |
| to enjoy spam-free discussions on the list. |
| |
| If you don't actually _want_ to be a subscriber to the mailing |
| list, but just want to be able to send a message, the easiest thing |
| to do is to go through the subscription process, and then use the |
| preferences page to disable message delivery to your address. |
| |
| Which of the above you use to report bugs depends on your own |
| preferences. Some people find just typing an email message much easier |
| than using the web-based forms on bugzilla. Others greatly prefer the |
| ability to check back on a specific bug entry in bugzilla without |
| having to ask on the mailing list if an issue has been resolved. |
| |
| Regardless of which method you use, here are some general tips that |
| will help you improve the quality of your bug report, (which will help |
| in getting the bug fixed sooner): |
| |
| 1) Check to see if the bug has been reported already. It's pretty easy |
| to run a search or two against the cairo product in the |
| http://bugs.freedesktop.org bugzilla database. Another place to |
| look for known bugs is the cairo ROADMAP: |
| |
| http://cairographics.org/ROADMAP |
| |
| which shows a planned schedule of releases and which bug fixes are |
| being planned for each release. |
| |
| 2) Provide an accurate description of the bug with detailed steps for |
| how we can reproduce the problem. |
| |
| 3) If possible provide a minimal test case demonstrating the bug. A |
| great test case would be a minimal self-contained function in C or |
| python or whatever language you are using for cairo. The function |
| might accept nothing more than a cairo context, (cairo_t* in C). |
| |
| 4) If you feel like being particularly helpful, you could craft this |
| minimal test case in the form necessary for cairo's test |
| suite. This isn't much more work than writing a minimal |
| function. Just look at the cairo/test/README file and imitate the |
| style of existing test cases. |
| |
| If you do submit a test case, be sure to include Copyright |
| information, (with the standard MIT licensing blurb if you want us |
| to include your test in the test case). Also, including a reference |
| image showing the expected result will be extremely useful. |
| |
| 5) Finally, the best bug report also comes attached with a patch to |
| cairo to fix the bug. So send this too if you have it! Otherwise, |
| don't worry about it and we'll try to fix cairo when we can. |
| |
| Thanks, and have fun with cairo! |
| |
| -Carl |