Explanations for problem report to Adobe

This page helps you to fill in a problem report defined by the form (you most likely come from).

The problem report calls for various information. You might not be familiar with the terms and what is expected under these headings.

You may either get acquainted with this business and read this page as a whole, print it out for later study or just go back to the form (with your browsers BACK button) after reading one section.

General issues Formatting the text Version and built Title of problem Severity of problem Problem description

Justification Environment Additional information Circumvention Proposed solution

You may also be interested in complete sample error reports.

General issues

Keep in mind, that a problem report must compete with a large number of others*), and that a product responsible must be able to justify the effort of any work. Essential for a good problem report are:

• Concise title summarising the need
• Candid classification
• Clear description of the problem avoiding any attempt to provide a solution
• Data specifying a business case
• Additional hints (environment, time limit for solution)

When creating a problem report, ask yourself:

• Does my colleague understand the title?
• Does the description really state a problem? Or is this just an annoyance, a hick-up of our overloaded system? Is it more a suggestion or idea?
• Does a colleague from a nearby department understand the problem?
• Does this problem only exist for a particular release or in a particular environment?
• Can I reproduce the error or problem not only on my own workstation?
• Are there international standards which should play a role in this problem and/or its solution?
• Does the problem report talk about only one problem?
• Does the business case really make sense? Would You take action to provide a solution for a comparable situation in your business?

Formatting the text

In the text fields you may enter nearly any HTML code. For example you can separate paragraphs by <p> tags and enclose pieces of code in the two lines <pre> and </pre>:

     It would also be more user friendly to show the actual characters in use:
     <pre>
     ; Smart Quote Characters
     ;English       ‘   ’   “   ”
     ; SmartQuotes=\xd4\xd5\xd2\xd3
     ;German        ‚   ‘   „   “
     ; SmartQuotes=\xe2\xd4\xe3\xd2
     ;French        ‹   ›   «   »         v-- activated
     SmartQuotes=\xdc\xdd\xc7\xc8
     ;Swedish/Finn. ’   ’   ”   ”
     ; SmartQuotes=\xd5\xd5\xd3\xd3
     ;Italian       ‘   ’   “   ”
     ; SmartQuotes=\xd4\xd5\xd2\xd3
     </pre>

Version and build

This information normally can be found by the menu item Help > About in the product.

Examples for this information:

International version 5.5P4f
French version 5.1.1
UNIX versions with X-windows 1.1

Title of problem

The title should provide a brief description to give hints about the category of the problem. People entering the case into the problem data base need some hints...

Examples of titles

• True WYSIWYG relation between object and screen image
• Non-modal find/replace function
• Enhance ability to remember meaning of messages
• Printer dialog significantly delayed

Bad examples

• Senior programmer (confusion with job title)
• Stereo sound in UNIX (a solution? a new product?)
• FrameBatch should run faster (solution to some problem)

Severity of problem

Please indicate the severity of the problem in the description: severe problem, problem, annoyance. Even an annoyance with a good justification may give a hint for improving the product).

Problem description

Example 1

Many of the the default values in menus and selection lists can be set in the Xresource files. Many settings are documented in the online-manual "Customizing FrameMaker Products (UNIX), other are documented "by example" in the resource file itself.

However, there is no indication, whether

• documentation and resource file use the complete list of resource names and hence
• other settings are also possible.

It is, for example, not possible to set the default value for "Download fonts to printer" to NONE (because even strange fonts are installed in the printer already).

Example 2

When working with word processors or graphic programs, it is not possible to define a display ratio of 1, that is, display the object in its true size. It is only possible to define a zoom value. Working with the same tools on a variety of output devices (VGA, XGA and larger) further adds to the problem.
For example, it is not possible with the current behavior of Windows to judge layout even on a big screen, because adaptation of the application to a 1:1 scale is not possible at all. In addition, many applications do not support scaling or zooming.

Example 3

Opening the print dialog takes 10 - 15 seconds, in rare cases even more than 2 minutes. The delay is only slightly influenced by network load. In addition, the list contains the double number of printers on the network.

Bad description

Change menu item File > Imbedding to File > Inclusions
(This is not a description, but a proposed solution. Avoid this sort of bit-and-byte nit picking in any case. You will not be able to make a business case for it.

Justification

If something is of concern to you, then the value of getting the problem fixed can be justified. Then the author can define a business case for the solution of the problem. A business case consists of:

• Benefit, if the problem is solved.
• Impact, if problem is not solved
• Relevance of solution for areas of your business

Include benefits in terms of business, technical or financial implications. Demonstrate better usage of the product or service, if the requirement will be solved. Quantify the value of the solution to your business.

Examples of justifications

• In a productive environment setting of defaults avoids many errors. The files in question use about 12 additional fonts, which are already available on the printer's hard disk. Hence resources are wasted when downloading the fonts for every document.
• This is a very common function in other vendors products, which would also run on our systems (WATSEVEN, MORTRAN, NIXDRAN). It has evolved to a degree of standard.
• The requested function would allow us to exchange source code without any modification between our UNIX and Windows-systems. This would allow us to avoid about one additional person in the data handling group.
• True WYSIWYG enhances user productivity, as in a normal session one can avoid zooming at all. This might release a few minutes a day only, but the user is much less irritated by a controlled behavior of any application. There are circumstances, where a circumvention of this problem cost me half a day. These situations happen about every month.

Bad examples for justifications

• This function is darn slow (What is fast? For what purpose is the speed needed? Do your customers complain? Do you have a backlog? Are you thinking of going to competitors?)
• Generated formats of the list are different, which is confusing. If you send a mail using a list issued from HONE, no real name substitution ... (This is a problem description, not a justification).

Operating system

The items in the drop-down list may reflect environments not valid for the product or a valid environment my be missed. Provide additional details, such as Service Packs installed in section "Operating system version".

Additional information

If you think your environment is somewhat unusual or needs a detailed specification, give more details here:

• Programs which might cause lock ups
• Versions of specific library routines
• Video setup (driver version, resolution)
• Printer type and driver version
• URL (on your server accessible without password) for files related to the problem

Circumvention

A problem may cause work deep down in the code. If you have found a circumvention, this will be beneficial as an intermediate solution also to other customers using the product.

Examples of circumvention

• Enter the desired characters with the Windows key codes (e.g. ALT+0150 for the en-dash)
• Use special utility ShortHand (Shareware from OfficeSoft LLC) to enter characters accented with aigu and tilde.

Proposed solution

If possible, provide the idea for a solution, but keep in mind, that this is only a suggestion. The entry here should be as general as possible, open for other system implementations.

Examples of proposed solutions

• Since all entries in the list below "Other Printer" are printers per se, the prefix "Printer " in those lines is not needed at all. Leave out this prefix - and you get the full name from UNIX.
• Instead of issuing the UNIX command lpstat directly from FrameMaker, issue a shell script from fminit/, which may provide any function to create the desired list of available printers:
• Filter the list resulting from the standard command lpstat
• Issue another, more system specific command, such as lsallq (available on POSIX systems)
• Provide the list directly in a table.

Notes

*) Good products will of course not generate a huge number of problem reports. But keep in mind, that only «shelfware» does not create any problems!