Documentation/4.6/Report a problem

User Feedback

• I have a question about how to use Slicer for a particular task or I'm not sure things are working right
  • Try your best to sort out the issue by reading documentation and checking error logs
    • Look at our portfolio of training materials and make a google search to see if the question has been discussed.
    • Check the Error Log to see if there's something misconfigured, such as a directory that is not readable or writable.
  • I am still unclear about what to do.
    • Ask a question on the Slicer Forum!
• Something is definitely not working as it should or I would like to request a feature.
  • File a bug report in the issues tracker (you need to register first) or on the Slicer users mailing list. It is important to provide enough specific information so that a software developer can duplicate the problem - see details below.
  • Don't be anonymous: real people trying hard to solve real problems are more likely to get valuable help. A vague question from a random email is likely to be ignored..
• I would like to let the Slicer community know, how Slicer helped me in my research.
  • Please send us the citation for your paper.
  • Background: funding for Slicer is provided through competitive mechanisms to a large extent by the US government and to a lesser extend through funding from other governments. The justification of for those resources is that Slicer enables scientific work. Knowing about scientific publications enabled by Slicer is a critical step in this process. Given the international nature of the Slicer community, the nationality of the scientists is not important. Every good paper counts.
• I would like to give feedback on my experience with Slicer.
  • Share your story using the Feedback link accessible from the Slicer Welcome module

Error report contents

• Describe:
  • What steps were performed before the problem occurred
  • What behavior you expected
  • What happened instead
• Copy-paste the error log: you can access it from Slicer in the menu: Help / Report a bug. By default log of the current session is displayed but you can retrieve the logs of the last few sessions
• Optional: capture a screenshot that illustrates the issue

That could be summarized by the SSCCE (Short, Self Contained, Correct (Compilable), Example) approach documented on http://sscce.org

Workflow for Handling Bugs and Feature Requests in Slicer

The following instructions describes the recommended workflow to report a problem related to Slicer application.

• 1. Register on the issue tracker

• 2. Sign-up on the developers mailing list

• 3. Create an issue in the tracker.

• 4. Optionally, if you would like to share dataset >= 2MB, you should consider uploading them on our dedicated server. See How to share and associate data with an issue

• 5. Send an email on the slicer-developers list pointing to the reported bug. Title of the email should start with [BUG 1234] Title of the bug

The following diagram illustrates Slicer issue workflow:

Source: Adapted from http://www.warelab.org/blog/?p=24