How to give developers feedback

How to give developers feedback

Inevitably, we will encounter some problems when using plugins. To solve problems quickly, we need a way to communicate with developers quickly and efficiently. Reduce the possible time loss and useless repetitive operations, and solve the problem as quickly as possible.

An error occurs

Here, for example, we use the ChatGPT - EasyCode plugin to simulate an error.

The markers here are:

1. Plgugin version info
2. Author’s e-mail or website
3. Error message

Try contacting the author

As you can see at marker 2, you can find the plugin author’s customized website or email. First of all, where one can try to ask for help. It is also possible to ask for help in the forums (if there are any), maybe you are not the only one experiencing this problem. It is also possible to leave a message on the plugin’s Review’s page.

Anyway, the first thing to do is to make sure that there is at least one way to contact the author.

Providing necessary information

When an error occurs, the most important information for developers to know is the following：

• Error log (At marker 3 in the image above): The information here is important. In most cases, we can quickly locate the problem based on this information alone. Copy everything here and put it in an attachment to the author. This is very necessary.
• Plugin version (At marker 1 in the image above): When a plugin error occurs, we can usually see the plugin version, which is also an important piece of information.
• IDE version: There are cases where SDK compatibility or other reasons cause certain bugs to only appear on a specific version of the IDE.
• idea.log: This is a more complete log file for ide and will record some information about the ide/plugin. In some cases, the plugin author may also need you to provide this file.

How to find idea.log

Click Help -> Show Log in Explorer in the menu bar.

Select to see a file with the name idea.log. That’s the file we’re looking for.

Here my file path is:

1
C:\Users\obiscr\AppData\Local\JetBrains\IntelliJIdea2023.2\log\idea.log

More complex situations

Usually, with the above, the problem can be solved. But sometimes, there are some weird cases, even the author can’t solve it, or maybe it’s still a bug in the IDE itself. so the bug fixing cycle is not very fixed.

Summarize

When in question, we can ask the author for as much information as possible in total at once. For example, all of the above mentioned. If there is only part of it, the author may ask you for other necessary information. This communication is usually more time consuming.