QuickStart ========== Read all the README files. ;-) (They're not that long.) What is TkGnats? ================ TkGnats is Tcl/Tk-based front end for the GNATS bug management system. While GNATS itself only runs on UNIX platforms, TkGnats runs on UNIX and Windows 95/98/NT (as of version 3.0.0). It could probably be fixed to run on the Mac, but I'm not able to work on this myself. Note that Tcl/Tk 8.1.x had socket bugs (on Windows) and shouldn't be used. On UNIX systems, TkGnats can access the GNATS database from local or nfs-mounted disk. UNIX and Windows 95/98/NT systems can access the GNATS database through the GNATS network daemon "gnatsd". I highly recommend UNIX users use the GNATS daemon instead of accessing the GNATS files directly from disk. Performance is often better through gnatsd, especially if the GNATS database is NFS mounted. Screenshots, the latest version of TkGnats and other GNATS resources are available at the TkGnats Home Page: http://www.cuug.ab.ca/~macdonal/tkgnats What is GNATS? ============== You can get the latest GNATS from ftp://sourceware.cygnus.com/pub/gnats/snapshots or an ftp site near you that mirrors the GNU software. It will be called something like gnats-3.110-beta.tar.gz. Do not use the very old and obsolete gnats-3.2 that is on many web archives. Here is a fragment from the GNATS info file that describes GNATS in a nutshell... This manual documents a suite of utilities called `GNATS', the GNU Problem Report Management System. `GNATS' is a bug-tracking tool designed for use at a central support site. Software users who experience problems use electronic mail to communicate these problems to the maintainers of that software; `GNATS' partially automates the tracking of these problem reports ("PR"s) by: * organizing problem reports into a database and notifying responsible parties of suspected bugs; * allowing support personnel and their managers to edit and query accumulated bugs; and * providing a reliable archive of problems with a given program and a history of the life of the program by preserving its reported problems and their subsequent solutions. What is Tcl/Tk? =============== Tk is an X toolkit that uses a interpreted language called Tcl. If you want to know more about Tk/Tcl check out the Tcl/Tk website http://www.scriptics.com and the FAQ for the comp.lang.tcl newsgroup. This version of TkGnats uses Tcl/Tk8.0 or newer. It will not work with anything older. You can get Tcl and Tk from http://dev.scriptics.com/software/tcltk. The Author ========== This version of TkGnats was created by Rick Macdonald from the original version 1.3 by Mike Hoegeman. When I asked Mike if I could release my version to the world he said: From Mike Hoegeman , 26 Oct 1996: "You can do whatever you like contribution-wise as far as I'm concerned, although I would like you to explicitly indicate that I am not responsible/associated with your version of TkGnats in any way." TkGnats Support =============== TkGnats discussions are welcome on the GNATS mailing list. Send a subscription request to bug-gnats-request@gnu.org. Once subscribed, send posts to bug-gnats@gnu.org. Better yet, add the following to your servers file and submit TkGnats (and gnats) bug reports directly to the gnats database at Cygnus: "GNATS/TkGnats at Cygnus" sourceware.cygnus.com 1529 {} gnats.sourceware.cygnus.com gnats I will be happy to answer all questions. Any bug fixes will be gratefully accepted. If you have some enhancements or ideas for enhancements I'm receptive to those too. When sending problems to me, please paste in the contents of the Help/ViewConfigurationVariables menu item that appears in the major TkGnats windows. This helps me answer your questions right away. My email address might change someday. If "rickm@vsl.com" bounces try "rick_macdonald@veritasdgc.com". Be sure to put TKGNATS in the subject line.