Better TGB Bug Tracker

First off, I'm a huge fan of TGB, and I try to actively support it -- it's really the best thing out there right now.

Still, I feel it could be better, and I guess that's what this forum folder is for.


1. Bug reports going unnoticed.
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like many bug submissions go unheeded and unnoticed by anyone with the power to do anything about them. It's been really frustrating to me to spend most of an evening chasing down a bug, then another hour typing up a bug report and creating a sample project, only to have it die and go completely unnoticed.

I've spent hours tracking down and writing a couple of detailed bug reports, but I've never seen any of this work make its way to any real GG employee. I've only done 2 or 3 of these (1, 2), but without any fruit from these, is there any reason for me to write up more?


2. Duplicate threads.
It seems like every third thread is a dupe of a previously reported bug -- often with a community-made patch/workaround, except that it's buried among a half a dozen threads that are all talking about the same core issue. I dealt with this recently trying to find a fix to the file saving issues in TGB 1.5.x, and it was a real pain to have to open up 3 different forum sections, clicking on titles that I thought vaguely might deal with my issue, trying to track down which one might have a fix for me. I found the fix one day, but forgot to save the link, so I had to repeat the process four days later when I actually had time to implement it. This is time I'd rather spend coding my game than navigating a disorganized forum with un-merged duplicate threads.

I'm reminded of the Firefox Most Frequently Reported Bugs list.


3. Unclear bug status / plan.
There are a number of issues that have been bugging us for a long time with TGB. Collision warping is one, as well as doubled memory usage. I could list more, but that's not the point I'm trying to make. As a developer, I have a hard time knowing when issues are resolved, if it's worthwhile for me to upgrade, etc. I can pour over changelogs at the release date, but without solid bug tracker numbers to go off of, I have a very hard time telling if my particular issues have been resolved or not, to weigh the cost of upgrade.


So these are just some of the issues that I feel could be resolved by making a publicly available bug tracker.

To help issue #1, it would help bug reports from the end users (us), get directly assigned to GG employees who could fix them. It would eliminate the middle man of having a GG employee keep track of the forums, wade through the reports, pick out the ones he feels are valid, and copy/paste them with modifications into the bug tracker system.

To help issue #2, it would allow reports to be marked as duplicates / dependents on each other, and eliminate much of the clutter that is currently found when wading through the sprawled TGB forums.

To help issue #3, it would allow a centralized place for feedback, test cases, status reports, "later/wontfix" notices, workarounds, sample projects, and capture logs. It would let me clearly see what issues are carried over to later releases, and which ones have been fixed so that I can justify the upgrade cost.


Perhaps GG already has an internal Bugzilla database. I know that maintaining a publicly accessible CVS server was more trouble than it was worth. Here's hoping that GG hasn't become too jaded from that experience to consider opening up their bug tracker publicly?

I realize that there are certainly a number of issues with this, such as hiding future feature plans from the consumer base and whatnot -- my idea isn't a complete solution. Today is just one of those days that I would love to have access to a TGB bug tracker.

Thanks! :)

--clint