How to file a good Issue

You can find more detailed general instructions here

Principles

• Be precise, avoid general rare statements like "looks bad", "does not work", but state "indent too big" or "Text stays with alignment 'left' after clicking 'Alignment Centered' icon in standard toolbar" (for example).
• Be clear, don't simply describe what your problem is, explain it so that other users can reproduce the bug
• Only one bug per report, it would be impossible to manage the work flow for multiple bugs fixed by different developers at different times in one bug report.
• Only one report per bug, check for possible DUPlicates, where the problem you observed already has been reported. If you are not sure, add those bugs to See Also Field with a short comment why you believe your bug might be related to them, or even mark as Duplicate.
• No bug is too trivial to report - small bugs may hide big bugs
• Clearly separate fact from speculation

Preliminaries

1. Reproduce your bug using a recent build of the software, to see whether it has already been fixed.
2. Take a snapshot of your screen, to help developers better understand the bug consequences.
3. Create an AOO Bugzilla account, if you're new to Bugzilla.
4. Search Apache OOo Bugzilla, to see whether your bug has already been reported.

Reporting a New Bug

If you have reproduced the bug in a recent build and no-one else appears to have reported it, then:

1. Choose "Enter a new bug"
2. Select the Product in which you've found the bug.
3. Fill-out the form (more details below).
4. Verify your report, and make sure it's clear, concise, and has no errors or omissions.
5. Press "Commit" when done. After you created the issue report, an automated notification will be sent to the ISSUES mailing-list.
6. Have patience. It could take time until your issue is noticed, confirmed, and dealt with. If you feel that your bug is being neglected, or that it must be fixed before the next release, send the DEV mailing-list a short notice about it.

Form Fields in Detail

Component: In which sub-part of the software does it exist?

This field is required. Click the word "Component" to see a description of each component. If none seems appropriate, look for a "General" component.

In general the problem can be categorized as following component:

UI: Bug related with UI widget, e.g. menu, toolbar, statusbar, tooltips

Open-Import: The problem happened while loading document, which you are sure the document has no problem if opened by other product

Editing: The problem occurred while adding/removing some content of document

Save-Export: Similar with component "open-import", the problem happened while saving document, the exported document also has problem in other product

Version: In which version of OpenOffice did you observe the bug, for the first time?

When you edit a report you submitted, don't change the version from an older version to a newer one. Version documents the oldest version in which the issue occurred; only experienced community members, primarily QA people, should refine the value, but only in the direction to older versions.

Severity: How severe the bug is

blocker: The bug block other feature/function test. It includes but is not limited to:

Problem does not allow to launch the module access function entry

Problem hinders the creation of documentation

Examples: System crash, application freeze

critical: The bug make it impossible to work with the version of test on a feature. It includes but is not limited to:

Crash happened intermittently

Problem prevent major test activities

Problem affect other function(not under current testcases) badly

Examples: Application abnormal exist, failure on invoking or triggering the function without any workaround

major: The bug cause function doesn't work but there is typically workaround. It includes but is not limited to:

A Basic function which, well... doesn't function correctly;

Data loss;

A Crash in special circumstances;

Examples: Cannot rename a sheet, document saved without character font settings.

normal: Part of a function is workable but there are major faults. It includes but is not limited to:

A bad function result;

A problem has a workaround and can be put off without impacting the functionality;

Examples: Formula export with wrong result, font setting is incorrect.

minor: The bug does not prevent the work done. It includes but is not limited to:

Spell-check issue in help file;

A problem that is seldom encountered and easy to bypass;

Minor repaint errors;

An nice to have feature;

A Standard keyboard shortcut key doesn't work;

Example: use ctrl+a instead of ctrl+c.

trivial: The bug might be an (small) enhancement of an existing feature.

OS: On which operating system (OS) did you find it? (e.g. Linux, Windows, macOS.)
If you know the bug happens on more than one type of operating system, choose All. If your OS isn't listed, choose Other.

Summary: How would you describe the bug, in approximately 60 or fewer characters?
A good summary should quickly and uniquely identify a bug report. It should explain the problem, not your suggested solution.

• Good: "Cancelling a File Copy dialog crashes File Manager"
• Bad: "Software crashes"
• Bad: "Browser should work with my web site"

Description: The details of your problem report, including:

Overview: More detailed restatement of summary.

Application crashed while insert a Chart in Spreadsheet document

Steps to Reproduce: Minimized, easy-to-follow steps that will trigger the bug. Include any special setup steps.

1. New Spreadsheet document
2. Insert Chart by menu "Insert->Chart"
   

Actual Results: What the application did after performing the above steps.

The application crashed.

Expected Results:

Popup Chart Wizard dialog

Build Date & Platform: Date and platform of the build in which you first encountered the bug.

Build: AOO 3.4.1 Rev.1359641

OS: Windows XP, Windows 7, SuSE Linux 11 SP1, RedHat Linux 6 Update 3, Ubuntu 12.04...

Additional Builds and Platforms: Whether or not the bug takes place on other platforms

The problem doesn't exist in Mac OS X

Additional Information: Any other useful information.

Regression info:

The problem doesn't exist in AOO 3.4 Release

For crashing bugs:

Attach the crash log if available.

Advanced field - Issue Type: Issue type categorized as:

• Defect
• Enhancement
• Feature
• Patch
• Task

If the issue is minor, something like nice to have, you can use "Enhancement" as issue type
If the issue is much complicate to implement, something like feature, you can use "Feature" as issue type

Advanced field - Keyword: Use pre-defined keyword to tag bug

Available Keywords:

Name	Description
accessibility	Issues referring to the accessibility of the product should have this keyword.
accessibility-external	This keyword is used for accessibility issues that have to be fixed outside of the Apache OpenOffice code base (eg. Assistive Technology)
aqua	This keyword should be used to better identify issues applying to a native version (without X11) of OpenOffice running on macOS
Arabic	Referring to the Arabic version.
BIDI	This keyword marks issues related to bi-directional support
CJK	If issues are related to Chinese, Japanese and Korean, you can mark it as cjk.
crash	This keyword can be used for any crash, freeze, hang, that occurs.
data_loss	Use this keyword for issues that lead to a loss of data (this includes the entire document, the content within a document or loss of configuration settings)
easy2dev	use this keyword if currently no resources are available to solve this issue and you think this issue would be an doable step in for new volunteers to the project.
Hebrew	Referring to the Hebrew version.
interop_OOXML	Keyword denoting interoperability with MSO 2007/2010 file formats based on XML
merge_pending	request for merging an approved patch into the tree; keyword will be removed by the community member(s) who merge the patch into the tree.
ms_interoperability	This keyword should be used to identify issues regarding the interoperability with Microsoft Office applications.
needhelp	This keyword signals somebody seeking assistance. For example, this may be a developer who wants to delegate (parts of) a task, an QA engineer in need for expertise to reproduce a bug, or somebody who wants to verify a patch before integrating it, and needs access to e.g. an exotic Linux distro.
needmoreinfo	This keyword should be used to mark issues where a QA volunteer or a developer asked the submitter to give more information to an issue. The advantage is that you can query for that keyword and easily figure out where you asked for more information.
new_implementation	This keyword is used if a new implementation of a component is prepared and helps identifying that this issue refers to new code not yet contained in the installation set.
numbering	This keyword is used to track issues for outline, numbering and bullet list formatting within the module word processor.
odf_validation	This keyword is used for issues about ODF documents, written by OpenOffice, which do not validate against the latest ODF schema.
oooqa	This keyword should be used to make clear that an OOo QA volunteer has applied a change to an issue, be it an additional description, a priority change or anything else.
performance	denotes issues which describe the insufficient performance of a specific task in OpenOffice
regression	This keyword can be set if functionality definately worked in an older version, but doesn't in a newer version. It is very helpful to give detailed information from which version to which version the functionality broke. If this issue is considered a blocker for the next release, the Apache OpenOffice team will indicate this by setting the "release_blocker" keyword.
release_blocker	This keyword denotes issues which are considered a blocker for the next maintenance release.
review	A flag used with "patch" attachments that will forward the issue to the "dev" list so the patch can be reviewed by developers. Set to "?" for review.
rfe_eval_ok	status field for feature request evaluation
security	Issues referring to security incl. digital signatures, encryption, etc. should have this keyword.
third_party_support	Issues referring to third party support including groupware and collaboration integration requirement should have this keyword.
TSK-DEF	Task defined.
usability	Issues referring to usability and ease of learning should have this keyword.
usagetracking	Usagetracking issues for Renaissance Project