Getting started as a tester

Getting started as a tester

FreeMind is a fairly large project with a very small development team. We need all the extra testing resources we can get, so if you want to help out, this is one of the best places to start.

1. Let us know that you want to help! Visit the Open Discussion Forum and tell us.
2. Download the latest beta release of the software here.
3. Test! Do everything you can think of to break the application, or just use it the way you plan on using it, and let us know what fails.
4. When there's a bug, tell us. You can report bugs in the Open Discussion Forum, or put them into SourceForge's Bug Tracker.
5. You'll find things that you want the software to do that it doesn't do. Those aren't necessarily bugs. You can ask for new features, here.
6. If you are interested in helping with more advanced testing, by writing test scripts, please let us know in the Open Discussion Forum and someone will contact you about it.
7. Reap the rewards by having better software to work with.

Reporting Bugs

The most important thing you can do to help us find and fix the bugs you report, is to make sure that you give us enough information that we can reproduce the bug. Otherwise, we have no way of knowing, for sure, that we've fixed the bug you report.

The first thing you should do, when reporting a bug, is double-check your setup, especially if you are just getting started. Make sure you are using the correct version of the Java Runtime Environment. (Currently, FreeMind is compiled and run under Java 1.4. Some of us run it under Java 1.6, but there have been some problems reported from some Java 1.6 users.) Make sure you have your Path and ClassPath variables set correctly.

You can report bugs through the forum, or through SourceForge's Bug Tracker.

Here are some things that help:

• The version of FreeMind you are using.
• What operating system you are running.
• The version and patch level of your OS. (For example XP Professional Service Pack 2)
• What you were trying to do when you got the failure
• A description of the failure
• Clear instructions on how to reproduce the failure
• Sometimes it helps if you send us the actual mindmap where the problem occurred.

--Rben13 10:50, 3 Sep 2007 (PDT)