How to get in touch
E-mail MAILINGLIST@TODO with:
- Discussions about the deployment and use of SOFTWARE.
- Information, hints and tips you think would be useful for other SOFTWARE users to know.
- Requests for features or changes to SOFTWARE and/or its documentation.
- Reporting bugs in SOFTWARE or issues with the documentation.
- Providing updates on bugs e.g. you find a fix for a bug you reported.
- Information on presentations you will give or have given, or papers you have published, based on research to which SOFTWARE contributed.
E-mail info@software.ac.uk with:
- Requests for discussions relating to collaborations.
- Confidential questions or issues that you do not wish to make public.
Use our issue tracker for:
- Seeing a list of requested features and reported bugs.
- Requests for features or changes to SOFTWARE and/or its documentation.
- Reporting bugs in SOFTWARE or issues with the documentation.
- Providing updates on bugs e.g. you find a fix for a bug you reported.
How to get help
If you experience a problem when using SOFTWARE, then:
- Check the user documentation and release notes for your release (if applicable)
- Search MAILINGLIST@TODO archive.
- Search our issue tracker for known problems and bugs (both fixed and open).
If you cannot find a solution, then you can do one of:
- E-mail MAILINGLIST@TODO with your request for help.
- Create a new issue.
See How to ask for help, below, for advice on what information you should provide.
What is and is not supported
The following versions are supported:
- Source code releases with a version number.
- Binary releases with a version number.
- Tagged release versions in our Subversion repository.
- Tagged release versions in our Git repository.
The following versions are not supported:
- Any version in Subversion that is not a tagged release version.
- Any version in Git that is not a tagged release version.
- Modified versions released by third-parties.
What support we offer
The SOFTWARE team consists of members in a number of organisations who work on a number of projects, and may be very busy. SOFTWARE’s support relies on the goodwill of these members and organisations. Our support is ‘best effort’ (i.e., we’ll do the best we can, given our other commitments).
How to ask for help
- Submit only one request per report.
- State your platform, operating system and version.
- State the version of SOFTWARE you are using:
- If you are using a source code release then give the version number of that release.
- If you are using a binary release then you can get the version number by running:
$ ./TODO-SOFTWARE-NAME --version
- If you are using a binary release then the version number can be seen using the Help => About menu option.
- If you are using a version from Subversion then give the revision you are using:
$ svn info
- If you are using a version from Git then give the commit hash of the version you are using:
$ git log -1
- Provide any error messages and exceptions that you see.
- If providing exceptions then provide these exactly as displayed in a terminal window.
- Do not provide a simple textual summary like ‘It threw an error’.
- If using a graphical user interface, then see the next point.
- If using any graphical user interface and, if you think
it would help, then send a copy of your display:
- Under Ubuntu, use the Print Screen key to save an image of your display into your home directory as a .png file.
- Under Windows, click CTRL and Print Screen, select Start => All Programs => Accessories => Paint, click CTRL and V to paste the image into Paint and then Save the image as a .png or .jpg file.
- If possible, provide a recipe for repeating the bug.
- Provide any other information you think will help.
- Clearly separate fact from speculation.
Requests of the form “I used SOFTWARE and am stuck” are not helpful to either you or us and people may suspect that you are just a spammer or time waster.
No bug is too trivial to report - small bugs may hide big bugs.