Red Hat Bugzilla 3.2 Upgrade Beta 1

John Poelstra poelstra at redhat.com
Wed May 21 00:16:19 UTC 2008


Hi,

I'm passing the following information on for the team that maintains the 
Bugzilla instance Fedora runs in.  It provides a peak into the upcoming 
Bugzilla update and an opportunity to evaluate it in a test instance.

Check it out.

John

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Greetings,

The Red Hat Bugzilla team is happy to announce the first beta release
of the next version of Red Hat Bugzilla. The next version will be based
on the upcoming upstream 3.2 code base soon to be released.

https://partner-bugzilla.redhat.com

Along the way to the final release, we will be deploying several
beta releases that will be used for obtaining user feedback
and for finding bugs in our code changes. Red Hat has made substantial
customizations to our current 2.18 based Bugzilla system that have been
ported to the new release. Several of which we are working on having 
them accepted
by the upstream community which will help in future bug fixes and
lower maintenance. We are also hoping to use the upgrade process as a
stepping stone to becoming more active in the future road map of Bugzilla
itself by providing help with bug fixes and enhancements and taking
part in future discussions.

Areas of focus for beta1:

Ajax optimizations:

Speedup one component/version/milestone population on the advanced query 
screen due
to large volume of data for some products such as RHEL and Fedora.
Speedup of the show_bug.cgi page by reducing amount of HTML needed to 
download
by not loading all components unless you want to change the value.

Needinfo actor support:

Using the flags functionality, we are able to specify whom additional 
information
is being required of for a report. In the current 2.18 release a 
combination of
a bug status called NEEDINFO and needinfo flag were used. In 3.2 only a 
needinfo flag
is being used and the bug status will be removed.

Guided bug entry:

Modified stock guided bug entry page used to help non experts report bugs
with proper information.

UI enhancements:

Upstream Bugzilla developers have done extension work on streamlining
the show_bug.cgi page. The page should have a cleaner less cluttered
feel as well as show only editable fields for the values the user is 
allowed
to change only. One of the more noticeable things is the removal of the
"Bug Status Change" area and moving it up to the basic bug information 
area.

External bug references:

Ability to add links to outside bug trackers.

XMLRPC API:

The Red Hat Bugzilla system was one of the first Bugzilla installations 
to utilize
XMLRPC extensively. Upstream as of 3.0 has a new framework for providing 
Web Services
to clients to manipulate Bugzilla data. We have worked to help the 
upstream to
add features to this framework to support similar functionality to what 
we have
had in operation for some time. Some of the core functions are there 
such as Bug.get(),
Bug.create(), Bug.search() and Bug.update() which can be used to do most 
things needed.
Some of the operations available in our version are not yet available so 
we are also
providing most of the old 2.18 API so that your applications and scripts 
should continue
to work properly for the time being. Please try your scripts against the 
test Bugzilla
system to make sure they are working properly. Let us know if there are 
any errors
such as data not being returned in the proper format, certain methods 
missing,
or bugs in general.

New methods available (Note: these are subject to change before final 
release):

  1. Bug.get() - Can be used to get all attributes of one or more bug 
reports.
  2. Bug.create() - Can create a new bug report in the system.
  3. Bug.update() - Can update most attributes of one or more current 
bug reports.
  4. Bug.search() - Search the database for bugs matching search 
criteria similar to advanced search UI.
     Also supports quicksearch keywords and reloading of saved searches 
saved in the Bugzilla UI.
  5. Bug.get_activity() - Retrieve full history of one or more bug reports.
  6. Bug.add_comment() - Can add a comment to a current bug report.
  7. User.login() - Can take a username and password as parameters that 
will return cookies that can be
     used for all subsequent XMLRPC method calls. (Note: required to use 
the new methods such as Bug.*)
  8. User.create() - Create a new user if you have proper permissions.
  9. User.get() - Get information about one or more current users if you 
have proper permissions.
  10. User.update() - Allows updating of email, real name, disabled, etc 
for one or more current users.
  11. Product.get_products() - Get information about one or more 
products in Bugzilla.
  12. Component.get() - Get information about one or more Bugzilla 
components.
  13. Component.create() - Create a new Bugzilla component for a 
specific product.
  14. Component.update() - Updated the attributes of one or more 
Bugzilla components.

Old methods ported to 3.2 (for backwards compatibility):

  1. bugzilla.runQuery()
  2. bugzilla.getBug()
  3. bugzilla.addIT()
  4. bugzilla.getBugActivity()
  5. bugzilla.nameToId()
  6. bugzilla.login()
  7. bugzilla.getBugSimple()
  8. bugzilla.editComponent()
  9. bugzilla.idToName()
  10. bugzilla.getBugModified()
  11. bugzilla.addComment()
  12. bugzilla.updateFlags()
  13. bugzilla.closeBug()
  14. bugzilla.changeStatus()
  15. bugzilla.updateCC()
  16. bugzilla.getProdInfo()
  17. bugzilla.createBug()
  18. bugzilla.changeAssignment()
  19. bugzilla.updateDepends()
  20. bugzilla.getProdCompDetails()
  21. bugzilla.addComponent()
  22. bugzilla.updateMilestone()
  23. bugzilla.getCompInfo()
  24. bugzilla.getProductDetails()
  25. bugzilla.getProductDetails()
  26. bugzilla.userInfo()
  27. bugzilla.addUser()
  28. bugzilla.disableAccount()

The newer API is likely to change before the next release of upstream 
Bugzilla
so we will be maintaining the older API during the time from 3.2 leading 
up to
the next release. We do encourage people to try out the new API also so 
as to
be ready for the eventual transition.

There are numerous other changes behind the scenes that we haven't 
listed. The goal
is to make sure that functionality that people have come to expect in 
2.18 is
possible in the new system.

There are also numerous new features/fixes that are part of the upcoming 
3.2
release provided by the upstream Bugzilla community. For more detailed 
information
on what has changed since the last release, check out the
[https://partner-bugzilla.redhat.com/page.cgi?id=release-notes.html 
Release Notes].

The database is a recent snapshot of the live database so should be useful
for testing to make sure the information is displayed properly and 
changeable.
Also with a full snapshot it is possible to test for any performance 
related
issues. Email has been disabled so that unnecessary spam is not sent 
out. So
feel free to make changes to bugs to verify proper working order.

We are asking for everyone to get involved as much as possible with 
testing and feedback
on the beta releases to help us make this the most robust and stable 
release possible.

We have done extensive work at laying out what we feel the requirements 
are to maintain feature
parity with our current system as well as compiled a list of feature 
enhancements
that people would like to see in the next release. Our goal is to deliver a
working bugzilla with the bare essential requirements similar to what is 
currently being used
in our current 2.18 system. After that we will begin work on 
enhancements as time and resources
permit. To view the final release requirements list please refer to our
[https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=406071 Bugzilla 3 Tracker].

Please file any enhancement requests or bug reports in our current 
Bugzilla system
at [https://bugzilla.redhat.com bugzilla.redhat.com]. File them under 
the Bugzilla
product and relevant component with the version 3.2. With everyones help 
we can make
this a great release.

Thanks
The Red Hat Bugzilla Team




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