WebIssues Guide

# Working with Issues

To start using WebIssues, simply open the URL of the WebIssues server in a browser and log in using your login and password. You can use any modern web browser or mobile device to access WebIssues.

If you use WebIssues frequently, you can also install the WebIssues application on your computer. It is available for Windows, Mac and Linux; you can download the appropriate version for your operating system from the WebIssues website (opens new window).

When you start the WebIssues application for the first time, you have to enter the URL of the WebIssues server. You can change it later by clicking the WebIssues Settings button in the top right corner of the window.

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The functionality and user interface of the WebIssues application is identical to the web application. The application can be slightly faster because it caches details and history of opened issues, at the cost of memory and disk space. The application requires a connection to the internet and doesn't work in offline mode.

The main window of WebIssues consists of three parts:

  • The navigation bar contains the Tools menu, the user menu and some other frequently used actions, like adding a new issue or navigating to an issue, comment or attachment with the given ID.

  • The toolbar allows to select the type of issues to work with. You can filter the list of issues in various ways by selecting one of the pre-defined views, selecting a project and folder, and searching for a part of the name or any other attribute.

  • The biggest part of the main window is the list of issues. You can display the details of an issue by clicking on it. To change the sort order, click on a column header. Use the buttons below the list to navigate between pages.

# Filtering Issues

Use the Select Type drop-down menu in the toolbar to select the type of issues to view. You can only displays issues of one type at a time.

The default view called All Issues displays all existing issues of a particular type. A system administrator can define additional public views for each type, and users can create their own personal views. See Managing Views for more information.

Each view has a different set of columns, default sort order and optional filters. If you switch between issue types, the last selected view is automatically remembered.

By default, issues from all projects and folders are displayed. Their location is displayed in the Location column in the list. You can use the filter in the toolbar to display only issues that belong to a selected project or a selected folder.

The toolbar also contains a search bar. You can search for issues containing the given text in their name or any other column, including any custom attribute. You can use the dropdown menu to the left of the search bar to select the search column. You can also search for a number or date, by entering an exact value.

# Creating and Editing Issues

In order to add a new issue, select the type of the issue from the drop-down list in the toolbar and click the Add button in the navigation bar.

Enter the name of the issue and select the project and folder in which the issue will be created. You must be a member of a project, unless you are a system administrator, and it must contain at least one folder of the appropriate type; see Managing Projects and Folders for more information.

Depending on the type of the issue, you may enter some attributes which describe it. Required attributes are marked with an asterisk.

You can also enter a description of the issue. Addresses and IDs will be converted to links. When you select the Text with Markup format, simple markup can be used to change the style of text, see the Text with Markup section below. If you leave the description empty, you can add it later; the description can also be edited or removed at any time by the creator of the issue of a project or system administrator.

# Issue Details

When you add a new issue, its details will be automatically opened. You can also open the details of an issue by clicking on it in the list of issues.

The issue details window contains the issue name at the top. On the right you can see the properties of the issue, such as its unique ID, type, the project and folder in which the issue is located, and information about the person and date when the issue was created and last modified. Below, the attributes of the issue are displayed.

The main part of the issue details window contains the description and history of the issue. You can use the filter button to switch between full history of changes, comments and attached files. By default, issue history is displayed from oldest to newest entries, but this can be changed by the administrator in the server settings.

Click the Edit button at the top of the window to change the name of the issue and the values of its attributes. All changes are automatically recorded in the issue history.

The menu available at the top of the window contains other operations, such as cloning, moving and deleting the issue, marking the issue as read or unread, and subscribing or unsubscribing the issue. Only the project or system administrator can delete an issue or move it to a different folder. Subscribing to an issue is only possible when sending emails is enabled by the system administrator; see Subscriptions for more information.

# Comments and Attachments

You can add a comment to an issue and it will be recorded in the issue history. To add a comment, open the issue details and click the Add button. The same text formatting can be used as in issue descriptions, see the Text with Markup section below. To quickly quote an issue description or another comment, use the Reply option from the menu available above the comment or description.

Regular users can edit and delete their own comments; project and system administrators can also edit and delete comments made by other users.

To attach a file to an issue, open the issue details and click the Attach button. Select a file to upload and provide an optional description. The maximum allowed size of the attachment can be configured by the administrator in the server settings.

Attachments are displayed in the issue history. When you click on an image attachment, a preview is displayed and you can save the image to your computer or open it in a new browser tab. When you click on any other type of file, it is automatically downloaded to your computer.

# Identifiers

All issues, comments and attachments have unique identifiers, which are numbers preceded by a # sign, for example #123.

You can easily find an issue, comment or attachment with the given identifier using the Go To button in the navigation bar.

You can also create links to issues, comments and attachments by placing their identifiers in comments, descriptions and the values of attributes.

# Text with Markup

The markup used by WebIssues makes it possible to change the style of a fragment of text and to create links. For example:

This text is **bold**.
This text is __italic__.
This text is `monospace`.
This is a [webissues.mimec.org link with custom text].

The result looks like this:

This text is bold.
This text is italic.
This text is monospace.
This is a link with custom text.

All URLs, email addresses and identifiers which occur in the text are automatically converted to links.

You can use special tags to apply block level formatting to a fragment of text. The [list] tag can be used to create a list:

[list]
* first item
** sub-item
* second item
* third item
[/list]

The result is:

  • first item
    • sub-item
  • second item
  • third item

The [qoute] tag can be used to create a quote block:

[quote Title]
This is a quote.
[/quote]

The result is:

Title:
This is a quote.

A quote block can contain other blocks, including nested quotes. The title is optional.

The [code] block can be used to insert a block of code or other pre-formatted text:

[code js]
for ( var i = 0; i < 10; i++ )
  console.log( i );
[/code]

Result:

for ( var i = 0; i < 10; i++ )
  console.log( i );

All markup within the code block is ignored. If the language of the code block is specified, syntax highlighting is enabled. Supported languages include: Bash, C, C++, C#, CSS, HTML, Java, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, SQL, VB and XML.

Finally, the [rtl] block can be used to change the layout of a block of text to right-to-left.

The markup can be applied to comments, issue descriptions and project descriptions. To disable markup, you can select the Plain Text format from the drop-down list below the edit area. You can use the buttons above the edit area to insert markup and to display a preview of the formatted text.

The maximum allowed length of comments and descriptions can be configured by the administrator. It's generally better to attach larger amounts of text, for example log files, as file attachments.

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