Comments on: Facilitating web page error reporting http://stigl.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/facilitating-web-page-error-reporting/ To be continued Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:16:12 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ hourly 1 By: Lars Marius Garshol http://stigl.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/facilitating-web-page-error-reporting/#comment-73 Lars Marius Garshol Tue, 15 Sep 2009 19:31:35 +0000 http://stigl.wordpress.com/?p=291#comment-73 We did this on Ontopia.net, very simply, by using the error page functionality in JSP. So any exception is mapped to an error page. Some, like OOM and NoSuchObjectException, give messages explaining the error to the user and giving some advice. The rest produce a "would you like to report this error?" page with a form that users can fill in. This automatically includes stack trace, server name, etc etc. Unfortunately, it got picked up by robots at some point, and had to be extended with anti-spam protection. Other than that it's worked very well for us. http://code.google.com/p/ontopia/source/browse/trunk/ontopia/src/webapps/omnigator/error.jsp We did this on Ontopia.net, very simply, by using the error page functionality in JSP. So any exception is mapped to an error page. Some, like OOM and NoSuchObjectException, give messages explaining the error to the user and giving some advice. The rest produce a “would you like to report this error?” page with a form that users can fill in. This automatically includes stack trace, server name, etc etc.

Unfortunately, it got picked up by robots at some point, and had to be extended with anti-spam protection.

Other than that it’s worked very well for us.

http://code.google.com/p/ontopia/source/browse/trunk/ontopia/src/webapps/omnigator/error.jsp

]]> By: Dagfinn http://stigl.wordpress.com/2009/03/22/facilitating-web-page-error-reporting/#comment-58 Dagfinn Sun, 22 Mar 2009 08:32:06 +0000 http://stigl.wordpress.com/?p=291#comment-58 This would indeed be very useful, but I've not seen any standard implementation so far. I believe ranking information for the content on the page (like 5 stars) could be used as one entry point for this functionality. However, in other cases it makes sense to have a separate "report bug" link. Wrt state it probably wouldn't make sense to dump the html DOM, and in most cases you have no state on the server side either that it could be related to. Is it possible to standardize what kind of state information to collect? I think not However, there are some general information of the client such as browser, os and resolution which is very useful. For allowing the user to indicate where the problem is on the page, you could use the same functionality as http://userfly.com/ does through javascripting. Basically, http://userfly.com/ allows you to view exactly how users have interacted with your webpage. You could turn on this functionality briefly and ask the user to indicate with their mouse pointer where the problem is. Regards Dagfinn This would indeed be very useful, but I’ve not seen any standard implementation so far.

I believe ranking information for the content on the page (like 5 stars) could be used as one entry point for this functionality. However, in other cases it makes sense to have a separate “report bug” link.

Wrt state it probably wouldn’t make sense to dump the html DOM, and in most cases you have no state on the server side either that it could be related to.
Is it possible to standardize what kind of state information to collect? I think not
However, there are some general information of the client such as browser, os and resolution which is very useful.

For allowing the user to indicate where the problem is on the page, you could use the same functionality as http://userfly.com/ does through javascripting. Basically, http://userfly.com/ allows you to view exactly how users have interacted with your webpage. You could turn on this functionality briefly and ask the user to indicate with their mouse pointer where the problem is.

Regards
Dagfinn

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