Providing Feedback

We appreciate all the feedback we can get. Even if you just tried the tools and decided not to use them (in fact, *especially* if you decided not to use them), we'd love to hear why.

All of the following are interesting:

• Bugs - small and large
• Feature requests - especially ones you think are vital to your workflow, or features you miss from previous tools, but also "wild ideas"
• Usability bugs - the tool did one thing, and you expected another - or a task was unnecessarily complicated
• Anything else related to the Ruby tools support!

Here are some feedback channels, in decreasing order of preference:

Preferred: The issue tracker

NetBeans has an issue tracker. If you're willing to sign up for an account (it's free), it's the best way to go; the issues are tracked properly and won't be forgotten. You also get notified when there is progress on the issue.

The NetBeans issue tracker is here:

http://ruby.netbeans.org/issues/enter_bug.cgi?component=ruby&issue_type=DEFECT

If you don't have an account, there are links on there to create one. File your bugs in the "ruby" category.

If your bug is related to a hang, please include a thread GenerateThreadDump.

dev@ruby.netbeans.org

The dev@ruby.netbeans.org alias is used to discuss development of the Ruby features for NetBeans. You can subscribe to the alias to participate - visit Project Mailing lists to sign up or just send blank mails to:

• dev-subscribe@ruby.netbeans.org
• users-subscribe@ruby.netbeans.org

You can also read traffic on that alias using your own favorite newsreader using this URL:

news://news.gmane.org/gmane.comp.java.netbeans.modules.ruby.devel

Or you can read it as a forum with a web interface:

• http://www.nabble.com/NetBeans-Ruby---Dev-f27020.html
• http://dir.gmane.org/gmane.comp.java.netbeans.modules.ruby.devel

You can also just send your feedback to that alias, although if you are not a subscriber it will first go to a moderator queue for approval.

Direct Mail - Alias

If you just tried the NetBeans tools and didn't find them to your liking, you probably don't want to go to the trouble of signing up for a NetBeans account. If you can at least send an e-mail, that would be great.

For issues of general interest (e.g. a summary of usability issues, or key feature requests), send your e-mail to the dev@ruby.netbeans.org alias. You can send mails to the alias, but if you are not a subscriber, they first go to a moderator queue. To subscribe to the alias and join the discussion, visit Project Mailing lists or just send blank mails to:

• dev-subscribe@ruby.netbeans.org
• users-subscribe@ruby.netbeans.org

There's also the general NetBeans user's alias: nbusers@netbeans.org. There's quite a bit of traffic there, most of it not Ruby-related, but there have been some Ruby-related threads there, and it's a great place for general IDE questions (keybindings, fonts, projects, etc.).

Blog

Tor's, Martin's, and Chris' blogs frequently covers the Ruby support. You can leave comments there as well. For things like bugs with stacktraces etc. mail is probably better, since this is mostly noise for anyone else reading the blog. But for other kinds of feedback - explaining how the workflow has issues, or praise or criticism, the blog works well. *Especially* if the feedback related to the topic of the blog entry!

Direct Mail - Private

If you'd rather not post your feedback in public, just send your e-mail to me: tor.norbye@sun.com. Note however that Sun's spam filter is extremely aggressive, and some private e-mail like this seems to be getting lost. Also, during busy times it happens that I miss important mail (I get hundreds and hundreds of e-mail each day so I scan through them very quickly, sometimes too quickly). If you do it this way, thank you, I appreciate the feedback, but I may not always get back to you.

Your Blog

I occasionally use blogsearch.google.com looking for stories related to NetBeans and Ruby. If you put your feedback in your own blog, we may or may not see it.