Usability suggestion at Report Issue screen

General discussion of Mantis.

Moderators: Developer, Contributor

Post Reply
_Zamorano_
Posts: 1
Joined: 22 May 2017, 16:16

Usability suggestion at Report Issue screen

Post by _Zamorano_ »

Hello. I'm using Mantis 2.1.0

First, if this is not the right place to make a suggestion, please show me the proper one.

I'm so pleased we have adopted Mantis as our bug tracker in my company, but there's a minor usability issue we've encountered several times.

When posting a new issue, users tend to click on "Report new issue" button instead of "Send" button. This happens because, on some configurations, the "Send" button is not visible without scrolling down.

It would be great to to show a warning dialog when you're about to leave the screen, without sending the data you've already typed. Or even better, to have an additional Send button closer to the top of the screen.
atrol
Site Admin
Posts: 8366
Joined: 26 Mar 2008, 21:37
Location: Germany

Re: Usability suggestion at Report Issue screen

Post by atrol »

You can create a feature request for it at https://www.mantisbt.org/bugs
Maybe one of the core developers is interested in implementing it, but don't expect anything.

Submitting a patch is always a good idea, as it increases the chances of improvement eventually making it into MantisBT core. All contributions are welcome and greatly appreciated.

Patch submissions can be made in several ways. In the order of preference:

1. Send us a Pull Request on our Github repository [1]
2. Attach a GIT patch to the issue
3. Attach a Unified Diff, clearly specifying the patch's base release

Kindly avoid to upload entire modified PHP files.

Please make sure that your submissions adhere to our Coding Guidelines [2], if they don't your patch might be rejected.

[1] https://github.com/mantisbt/mantisbt
[2] http://www.mantisbt.org/wiki/doku.php/m ... guidelines
Please use Search before posting and read the Manual
revdmeer
Posts: 1
Joined: 17 Dec 2018, 13:15

Re: Usability suggestion at Report Issue screen

Post by revdmeer »

Hello _Zamorano_ ,

Did you ever submit a feature request for this issue?

I am driving myself crazy by pressing that dreaded "Report Issue" button while reporting an issue. It is very discouraging when you spend a lot of effort in filling out a very elaborate en detailed issue, and then loose it because you pressed the "Report Issue" button that is presented loud and clear on your screen. Instead of scrolling all the way down and pressing that almost grayed out "Submit Issue" button. Clicking the browser back button does not help either. You just lost your work.

It is even worse when you don't realize you've pressed the wrong button. That way you think you reported an issue, but in reality you didn't. Reporting an issue has the pleasant side-effect of feeling you've done the right thing, closing that issue in you mind for now, and go on to do other stuff without the burden of the consequences of the issue you thought you just reported. When, often much later, you start to realize that the issue is not present, and you have no idea why not, you seriously start to question the reliability of Mantis. Or you even start to question yourself (Did I really submit that issue?? ).

I think it is wrong altogether to have an "Report Issue" on the issue reporting page. I made a quick fix in php that does not display the button when you are on the issue reporting page:

in core/layout_api.php, in the function "layout_navbar_button_bar" (line 584 in recent sources), I replaced these 2 lines:

Code: Select all

	if( $t_can_report_bug ) {
		$t_bug_url = string_get_bug_report_url();
with these:

Code: Select all

	$t_bug_url = string_get_bug_report_url();
	if( $t_can_report_bug  && (strcmp(basename($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']), $t_bug_url) !== 0 )) {
This seems to fix this issue for me. It would be nice to have a proper discussion on this issue and create a definitive solution.

Kind regards,

Ronald
atrol
Site Admin
Posts: 8366
Joined: 26 Mar 2008, 21:37
Location: Germany

Re: Usability suggestion at Report Issue screen

Post by atrol »

Please use Search before posting and read the Manual
Post Reply