We've had a recent problem with potential and current customers finding old and outdated information on our discussion boards.  One option we had was to archive the discussion board each time we have a new release (probably the best idea), but we didn't do that unfortunately.  Our other option is to just erase all old topics from our database (not nice to Google and we don't want people to think we're hiding our warts). The third option is to leave the content up and figure out a way to really make sure people know the info they are about to see no longer applies to our current product (probably).  It took me about ten minutes to come up with a solution using the BugMonkey plugin, which allows you to insert arbitrary JavaScript and CSS into your FogBugz site.

You can see an example in this post about FogBugz 4.0.

You can view the code I used for the lightbox effect.

You can also download and view the javascript: sample.js (880.00 bytes)

In doing this I realized it would helpful if there was a systematic id system for text portions of the page (in this case, it was difficult for me to get the date of the topic, since I didn't want it to be applied to current topics). Definitely something to think about in the future...

In this video, Dan and Babak talk about how we got to FogBugz 7. 

(Click to watch the large version on YouTube).

Daniel Root has posted a walkthrough on how he uses FogBugz 7 and Scrum.

"Every day of the Sprint, a very short meeting is held where the each team member says what they did yesterday, what they will do next, and if there's anything holding them up. If something is holding them up, it's up to the Scrum Master to make sure the problem gets resolved. At the end of the Sprint, the Team has a working product that is shown to the customer in a Sprint Review and/or deployed into production. Feedback is received and items added to the product backlog, and the process repeats until the project is complete. I'm sure true Scrum Masters will balk at some of this - we typically combine what would be a Sprint Review and Sprint Retrospective, and are fairly informal with the process. We don't call the meetings or people by their official scrum names- in fact most of our customers don't even know we're doing this to them!" 

Read More... 

Bug: The FogBugz installer by default would turn on server side debugging for FogBugz on a new install.  This means that the FogBugz application would run in single threaded mode and performance is greatly impacted. 

Fix: We will address this in our next update but if you are running 6.1.44 or anything less, go to the asp settings in IIS7 for FogBugz and expand the Debugging node.  Turn of server side debugging and save your changes.  FogBugz will resume normal speed after this.

We've had a number of customers contact us asking us if we were going to create an iPhone app for FogBugz, or if they could create one themselves.  For the last few months, we've had a spec sitting around but we're so busy working on FogBugz 7 that we haven't had time to implement it (and I don't see it happening anytime soon).

While we're still going to reserve the right to build this app ourselves, I figured I'd post the spec anyway in case someone wanted to beat us to the punch.  Maybe someone will write something so awesome, that we won't even bother competing -- we'll just point people to theirs.

 Read our first draft iPhone FogBugz application specification.

Using the FogBugz Output Accessory with SnagIt

The FogBugz Output is the easiest way to get screenshots into FogBugz.

Download FogBugz.snagacc (249.46 kb)

Configuring the FogBugz Output Accessory:

The only thing necessary to configure the output accessory is telling it the URL for your FogBugz site, so it knows where to submit the screenshots.

From the SnagIt Editor, go to the Send tab and click on the arrow below FogBugz. Choose Options from the menu.

Enter your FogBugz URL:

Capture the Screenshot with SnagIt:

SnagIt includes a huge number of options for capturing and editing images.

Send the Screenshot to FogBugz:

On the Send tab, click on the FogBugz icon to create a new case with the image:

If you are not already logged on to your FogBugz account using Internet Explorer, you will be prompted to log on.

Other Options

Use the Existing Case... menu item to send a screenshot to an already existing case instead of opening a new one.

Use the New Email menu item to send a screenshot as a new email message through FogBugz.

Use the Send Reply menu item to send the screenshot as the reply to an email message received through FogBugz.

Troubleshooting

The FogBugz Output Accessory always uses Microsoft Internet Explorer to transmit the screenshot to FogBugz, even if your preferred browser is set to something else. Therefore, Microsoft Internet Explorer needs to be setup so that it can reach the FogBugz server. If you are having trouble sending screenshots to FogBugz and use a different browser, try running Internet Explorer once, and ensure that it can reach the FogBugz server and get you logged on.

Note that once the screenshot has been transmitted, the FogBugz Output Accessory will launch your preferred browser so that you  can edit and submit the case with the attached screenshot.

Have you ever just needed to export a FogBugz filter to CSV to import into Excel or some other application and you really didn't want to figure out the API?  Well, John Januszczak from Meta Software just made that really easy for you.

BugzReport is an open source Windows desktop app that will export any FogBugz filter to CSV files.

In the next version of FogBugz, this action will just be one click, but right now you can do it with the current version using this awesome tool.

1. Create a shortcut to your screenshot.exe program under c:\program files\fogbugz\screenshot
2. Move the shortcut to your desktop
3. Right click the shortcut and choose "Properties..."
4. Add /picture to the end of the target - making it "C:\Program Files\FogBugz\Screenshot\screenshot.exe" /picture
5. Assign a hot key to the shortcut.
6. Drink a lemonade.

FogBugz 6.x will work fine on Windows 2008.  The only things you need to do are

1. Install IIS 7 (it doesn't come preinstalled) and check off the boxes for .NET/ASP/CGI/etc
   
   
   
2. Disable DEP by typing "bcdedit.exe /set {current} nx AlwaysOff" on a command prompt. And then make sure you reboot afterwards.
   
   
   

Morten Nisker, from the CS dept at Aarhus University, has created a FogBugz plugin for the CMS Typo3.

All of the Feedback Links on the website send a new case message via the API to their FogBugz installation.

All you need to backup, in order to backup FogBugz, is your FogBugz database.  Here's instructions on how to back up that database depending on how you have FogBugz installed and what type of database you are using.

On Demand

If you are using FogBugz On Demand, there is no need for you to back up your database.  We are constantly taking snapshots of your database and shipping them to our other data centers in case of a catastrophe.  We are also taking nightly backups.  You can read more about our FogBugz On Demand Infrastructure on our website.  If you still need to grab a backup for testing purposes, or reporting purposes, you can do so by going to Settings->Your FogBugz On Demand Account.  You'll find a link there which allows you to download your database.

Microsoft SQL Server

Microsoft has a knowledge base article on how to back up your SQL Server database.  You can find the physical server your database is on by looking under Settings->Site->Database tab in FogBugz.

MySQL

MySQL has a knowledge base article on how to back up your MySQL database.  You can find the physical server your database is on by looking under Settings->Site->Database tab in FogBugz.

Access

To make a backup of your Access database, you just need to copy the .mdb file you are using.  You can find the physical location of your database by looking under Settings->Site->Database tab in FogBugz.

Many of you have taken advantage of the free FogBugz Trial account that we offer at https://try.fogbugz.com.  The trial account gives you a chance to try FogBugz completely risk-free and make sure that it's really a good fit.  We're happy now to offer you a chance to try Fog Creek Copilot the same way.  Developed by the now-famous Aardvark’d interns, Fog Creek Copilot makes it REALLY easy to help your customers, family and friends.  Lots of FogBugz users (us included) already use Copilot to provide remote support for their products.  If you don’t already have an account, you can sign up now for a fifteen-day free trial by going to:

https://www.copilot.com/freetrial/

Stefan from WuffWuffWare.com sent us instructions on getting FogBugz installed with Mampstack and I wanted to make sure they were available in case someone else was attempting the same:

Install BugFogz on Leopard 10.5.4 inside Bitnamis Mampstack

• The MacOS X machine is a vanilla machine with all the current software updates and a single user called admin
• WebSharing is off, so we dont interfere with the MAMPStack
• IP-Adress for that example is 192.168.178.199

INSTALL THE MAMPSTACK FROM BITNAMI

• Download the current MAMPStack from www.bitnami.com
• For this documentation we use MAMPStack 1.0-beta-1
• Install Bitname MAMPStack to /Applications/mampstack-1.0-1
• Give MAMPStack database a root user password

The for the sake of simplicity:
sudo ln -s /Applications/mampstack-1.0-Beta-1 /Applications/mampstack

Until FogBugz has some settings for the path of PHP:
sudo mv /usr/bin/php /usr/bin/php-orig
sudo ln -s /Applications/mampstack/php/bin/php /usr/bin/php
sudo ln -s /Applications/mampstack/php/bin/pear /usr/bin/pear
sudo ln -s /Applications/mampstack/php/etc/php.ini /etc/php.ini

In /etc/php.ini change:
- Replace all mampstack-1.0-beta-1 with mampstack

In /Applications/mampstack/apache2/conf/httpd.conf change:
- Replace all mampstack-1.0-beta-1 with mampstack
- Listen 80
- ServerName localhost:80

In /Applications/mampstack/ctlscript.sh change:
- Replace all mampstack-1.0-beta-1 with mampstack

In /Applications/mampstack/apache2/scripts/ctl.sh search for 8080 and 
change the message to “httpd started”

Change into /Application/mampstack
cd /Applications/mampstack
sudo ctlscript.sh stop
sudo ctlscript.sh start apache

The apache-Daemon is started as super user, so it can bind port 80 !

In a web browser: go to http://192.168.178.199 and the BitNami Welcome 
message should be shown to you

Now we start mysql with:
cd /Applications/mampstack
./ctlscript.sh start mysql

Be aware, that the server is now only started manually: to make this 
happen at system startup and without being logged in: see below.

INSTALL FOGBUGZ

1. PHP requirements
   http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/docs/60/topics/setup/MacSystemRequirements.html
   create that test.php file in /Applications/mampstack/apache2/htdocs
   The page http://192.168.178.199 should display the required content.
   You might have to add a php after <? to make it work) also the echo -r - stuff should return the required value in the shell
2. CURL requirements: Curl is installed (on my machine with curl 7.16.3
3. The MONO framework: Download it from the given web page and install it

FIX THE FOGBUGZ INSTALLATION

Now download FogBugz from your order. I used version 6.1.30 for Macintosh.

Try to install it.

The install will fail. Now we have to fix that following the instructions in
http://www.fogcreek.com/FogBugz/docs/60/topics/setup/MacWhatSetupDoes.html

• Go to /Library/WebServer/fogbugz.install
  • cd /Library/WebServer/fogbugz.install
  • sudo ./install.sh and answer the questions of PEAR for installation with y
  • the automatic restart of apache and the changes to /etc/apache2/httpd.conf will fail: We have to fix that manually
  • you have to stop the web sharing with sudo apachectl stop
• Edit /Applications/mampstack/apache2/conf/httpd.conf and add the following line:
  • Include "/opt/fogbugz/Accessories/fogbugz.conf"
• Make fogutil.so available:
  • mkdir /Applications/mampstack/php/lib/php/extensions
  • cp /opt/fogbugz/Accessories/fogutil.php5.2-mac-dynamic.so /Applications/mampstack/php/lib/php/extensions/fogutil.so
• Fix the permissions a little. In my case:
  • sudo chmod -R admin /opt/fogbugz
  • sudo chmod u+x /opt/fogbugz
  • sudo chmod -R o-wx /opt/fogbugz/Website
  • sudo chmod -R u-w /opt/fogbugz/Website
  • sudo chmod -R o-wx /opt/fogbugz/Accessories
  • sudo chmod 554 /opt/fogbugz/Accessories/fogbugzmaintd
  • sudo chmod 444 /opt/fogbugz/Accessories/fogbugzmaintd.php
  • sudo chmod 664 /opt/fogbugz/Accessories/application.data
• And then, because I am not a unix guru, and I just want this to work:
  • sudo chmod -R a+rwx /opt/fogbugz/Website
  • sudo chmod -R a+w /opt/fogbugz/Accessories
  • sudo chmod o+x /opt/fogbugz/Accessories
• Restart apache via: sudo /Applications/mampstack/ctlscript.sh restart apache
• Go to a browser and open http://192.168.178.199/fogbugz/install1.php
  • If this returns an error: the systems web server is runnung you have to stop that via sudo apachectl stop
  • If this returns an error: “Forbidden”, then the permissions are not set correctly
• Follow the instructions, which should succeed
• Fogbugz showed me an arror with my PHP settings about:
  • max_allowed_packet
  • Add the following line in /Applications/mampstack/mysql/my.cnf after
    [mysqld]
    max_allowed_packet=50M

MAKE IT STARTING AT SYSTEM STARTUP TIME

a.) Create a file as super user at /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.bitnami-apache.service.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.bitnami-apache.services</string>
        <key>LaunchOnlyOnce</key>
        <true/>
        <key>OnDemand</key>
        <false/>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>/Applications/mampstack/apache2/scripts/ctl.sh</string>
                <string>start</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>UserName</key>
        <string>root</string>
</dict>
</plist>

b.) Create a file as super user at /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.bitnami-mysql.service.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>KeepAlive</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.bitnami-mysql.services</string>
        <key>Program</key>
        <string>/Applications/mampstack/mysql/bin/mysqld</string>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>--user=admin</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>Umask</key>
        <integer>7</integer>
        <key>UserName</key>
        <string>admin</string>
        <key>WorkingDirectory</key>
        <string>/Applications/mampstack/mysql</string>
</dict>
</plist>

c.) Create a file as super user at /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.bitnami-fogbugz.service.plist

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd">
<plist version="1.0">
<dict>
        <key>Label</key>
        <string>com.bitnami-apache.services</string>
        <key>LaunchOnlyOnce</key>
        <true/>
        <key>OnDemand</key>
        <false/>
        <key>ProgramArguments</key>
        <array>
                <string>/Applications/mampstack/apache2/scripts/ctl.sh</string>
                <string>start</string>
        </array>
        <key>RunAtLoad</key>
        <true/>
        <key>UserName</key>
        <string>root</string>
</dict>
</plist>

d.) Load the files into launchd via:
sudo launchd load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.bitnami-apache.service.plist
sudo launchd load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.bitnami-mysql.service.plist
sudo launchd load -w /Library/LaunchDaemons/com.bitnami-fogbugzd.service.plist