BugTrap, from Tactile Systems, Inc., is a very useful tool for developers and users of Newton software. Whenever an error is encountered, it generates a report containing the current state of the Newton, and saves the report to the Notepad. The user is then expected to send the report to the developers of the software, so they can find the problem.
While we have generally found the information in these reports to be helpful in tracking down bugs, we want to encourage our users to follow these guidelines:
- Use the latest version. With each revision, BugTrap produces more meaningful information, which allows us to track down bugs faster. Please visit Tactile frequently to see if an update has been released.
- Make sure you fill in the information in the report regarding what you were doing at the time of the bug, and whether the problem is reproducible. Without this information, we cannot debug your problem.
- If you find a BugTrap report in your Notepad, and you were not aware that it was written (and therefore can't tell us what caused the error), please do not send it to us. While BugTrap is pretty good about suppressing reports of non-errors, one sometimes slips through.