As with all applications of a particular size, one of mine recently started needing bug reports. This one is Java based, and has a few users that seem to keep having problems on different machines (for a while it crashed on Mac, or won't work in IE, but will on Firefox and Opera, but also crashes on Chrome). Honestly, crash reports should be an entirely different thing than bugs or feature requests, although in most systems today, they're reported in to the same tracker.
I set up a quick tracker using a Google Docs form, and this seems to be working very well right now for several reasons:
- Easy visual representation
- Easily shared/kept private
- Editing/submitting without signin
- Integration with my website's design through an embedded form.
- Works well for a hand-full of developers
- Free! (No needed server space/setup time/maintenance)
What I don't recommend them for is crash reports. This should ideally be an entirely different utility, that auto-gathers information about the user's system, and submits it. Crashes are security issues, and shouldn't be in a normal bug area anyway.
