CMS Development Tracking

One of the downsides of having a popular plugin is the amount of support requests, bug reports, and feature suggestions that come in. Well, it’s not that bad, but sometimes it’s difficult to organize what features should be added, what bugs must be tackled first, and what can just be ignored.

If you’re one of the few and the proud over at WP Extend Plugins, you have a nice tool at your disposal to keep track of all your plugin related needs. The tool, you ask? It’s the trac ticketing system over at the WordPress Plugin Repository.

WordPress Plugin Repository

WordPress Plugin Repository - Trac

Each plugin hosted on WP Extend allows the plugin author to post and assign tickets to their plugin. In fact, any member of the WP Support Forums can post a ticket against any plugin hosted in the official repository.

Logging into the WP Plugins Repository

Login Button

The first step to start assigning tickets (besides creating a user account) is to head over to the repository and log in.

Username/Password Dialog

After you are logged in you can view the “New Ticket” button.

New Ticket Button

Creating the New Ticket

After clicking on the “New Ticket” button, you are presented with a form for creating a new ticket. Creating the ticket is as simple as filling out a few form fields.

• Short summary: Basically a title for the bug or feature request.
• Type: Is it a defect (bug), enhancement (feature request), or task?
• Full description: Detailed description of the issue with code examples if applicable.
• Priority: How seriously you think the developer should take the request.
• Severity: How much damage (or potential damage) the issue causes
• Component: This is where you select which plugin you’re creating the ticket for.

Screenshot of the “Create New Ticket” Screen

Once you’re all set creating the new ticket, you can either preview it or hit the “Submit Ticket” button. Once the ticket is finally submitted, you’ll get a nice summary screen with your new ticket (shown below).

Screenshot of “Submitted Ticket” Screen

After the ticket is submitted, it’s up to the plugin author to accept and assign the ticket.

Viewing Open Tickets

It’s simple to view your open tickets once one has been created against your plugin. If you are logged in, click on the “View Tickets” button.

View Tickets Button

Once on the “View Tickets” page, you will want to browse to “My Tickets”.

“View Tickets” Page

From there you will be able to see all of your plugin’s open tickets based on priority. You can then click on a ticket, assign it, mark it as resolved, add comments, or a number of other options.

Open Tickets - Priority Based

Conclusion

The WordPress Plugin Repository is a great asset for plugin authors who receive a lot of bug reports and/or feature requests. The ticketing system allows for one place to store all bug reports and feature requests in a nice priority-based system.

This article touched on just one of many features available to plugin authors (and regular WordPress users) over at the repository. For plugin authors, becoming familiar with the repository is recommended.

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