1If you find a bug in cairo we would love to hear about it. We're also 2trying to make cairo better, and learning about the bugs that users 3encounter is an essential part of that. So we really appreciate the 4extra effort users put in to providing high-quality bug reports. 5 6There are two acceptable ways to report cairo bugs, and you can choose 7which you prefer: 8 91) Bugzilla bug tracking database: 10 11 You can use the following web interface to report new bugs, follow 12 up on previous bug reports, and search for existing, known 13 bugs. Just use the "cairo" product: 14 15 http://bugs.freedesktop.org 16 17 It is necessary to go through a quick account creation process, 18 (with email address verification), in order to be able to report 19 new bugs in bugzilla. We apologize for any inconvenience that might 20 cause, and hope it won't prevent you from reporting bugs. 21 222) Cairo mailing list: 23 24 For people who cannot stand the bugzilla interface, you can just 25 send an email to cairo mailing list (cairo@cairographics.org). The 26 mailing list only allows posting from subscribers, so use the 27 following page for subscription instructions: 28 29 http://cairographics.org/lists 30 31 Again, we apologize for any inconvenience this subscription step 32 might cause, but we've found it necessary to require this in order 33 to enjoy spam-free discussions on the list. 34 35 If you don't actually _want_ to be a subscriber to the mailing 36 list, but just want to be able to send a message, the easiest thing 37 to do is to go through the subscription process, and then use the 38 preferences page to disable message delivery to your address. 39 40Which of the above you use to report bugs depends on your own 41preferences. Some people find just typing an email message much easier 42than using the web-based forms on bugzilla. Others greatly prefer the 43ability to check back on a specific bug entry in bugzilla without 44having to ask on the mailing list if an issue has been resolved. 45 46Regardless of which method you use, here are some general tips that 47will help you improve the quality of your bug report, (which will help 48in getting the bug fixed sooner): 49 501) Check to see if the bug has been reported already. It's pretty easy 51 to run a search or two against the cairo product in the 52 http://bugs.freedesktop.org bugzilla database. Another place to 53 look for known bugs is the cairo ROADMAP: 54 55 http://cairographics.org/ROADMAP 56 57 which shows a planned schedule of releases and which bug fixes are 58 being planned for each release. 59 602) Provide an accurate description of the bug with detailed steps for 61 how we can reproduce the problem. 62 633) If possible provide a minimal test case demonstrating the bug. A 64 great test case would be a minimal self-contained function in C or 65 python or whatever language you are using for cairo. The function 66 might accept nothing more than a cairo context, (cairo_t* in C). 67 684) If you feel like being particularly helpful, you could craft this 69 minimal test case in the form necessary for cairo's test 70 suite. This isn't much more work than writing a minimal 71 function. Just look at the cairo/test/README file and imitate the 72 style of existing test cases. 73 74 If you do submit a test case, be sure to include Copyright 75 information, (with the standard MIT licensing blurb if you want us 76 to include your test in the test case). Also, including a reference 77 image showing the expected result will be extremely useful. 78 795) Finally, the best bug report also comes attached with a patch to 80 cairo to fix the bug. So send this too if you have it! Otherwise, 81 don't worry about it and we'll try to fix cairo when we can. 82 83Thanks, and have fun with cairo! 84 85-Carl 86