The Visual Fortran Reporter (VF Reporter) tool automates and simplifies reporting suspected problems or sending suggestions to the Visual Fortran team. After you install Visual Fortran, start VF Reporter from the Visual Fortran program folder by clicking:
- Start
- Programs
- Compaq Visual Fortran
- VF Reporter
VF Reporter automatically gathers system information, including the product identifier, version number, path information, and other system information.
The initial screen for VF Reporter is the User Information dialog box:
Initially, the User Information dialog box does not contain information.
When you start VF Reporter, if existing user information is found, a dialog box allows you to use that user information. To reuse that information for the displayed user, click Yes. If the user information is not what is needed, click No.
If you click Yes, you can edit the user information. It will be saved when you click Save or Mail.
Complete the following steps to use VF Reporter to send a report to Compaq:
- Fill in the information requested by the various tabs in the User Information dialog box. Carefully enter the requested information (see the description of each tab below).
- Click the System Information button to display the System
Information dialog box. Click the various tabs and view the system information just
collected by VF Reporter. If a tab contains information you do not want to send
to Compaq with your
report, clear the check box at the bottom of the tab to prevent information from being sent
(see the description of the System Information dialog box).
Click the User Information button to display the User Information dialog box again.
- After you review the user information, use the Save button to save the current set of information to an ASCII file (file extension TXT). Both the user information and system information are saved. You can specify a file name when you Save the information. For information about the Save tab, see description of each tab below.
- You can enable the E-Mail button by checking the "I want to use my e-mail package's MAPI support to e-mail reports" check box at the bottom of the User Information dialog. If enabled, you can send the e-mail to the Visual Fortran support team by clicking the E-Mail button.
- You can choose to send the e-mail manually. In this case, you need to carefully enter the e-mail address and attach necessary files.
A description of each tab in the User Information dialog follows:
- User: Enter the name, address, e-mail address, and phone numbers. If you choose to use your e-mail software's MAPI support, the e-mail address must be correct, because this is the address Compaq will reply to after you send your report.
- Severity: Specify the category of the problem (such as run-time error or suggestion), whether the problem can be reproduced, and whether whether you are porting code from another platform.
- Description: Briefly describe your the project type, the structure of the application, and the problem. You can include the steps needed to reproduce the problem in the To Reproduce tab. You can attach source and project files using the Attach Files tab instead of including the actual code in the Description tab.
- Workarounds: If you found a workaround that allows you to avoid the problem and produce the intended results, please describe it.
- Attach Files: Supply only the code needed to reproduce the problem. For example, you might try to show only the main program, relevant module definition or included files, and any subroutines or functions needed to reproduce the problem. You can attach multiple files. VF Reporter will create a zip file from the attached files that will be attached to the e-mail message.
- To Reproduce: List the steps needed to reproduce the problem in detail. Refer to any attached files by their file names. With command-line examples, include the compiler options used.
- Comments: Include any comments needed.
The functions of the buttons for the User Information dialog box are:
- Previous - Moves to previous tab. This button is dimmed if the first (User) tab is displayed.
- Next - Moves to next tab. This button is dimmed if the last (Comments) tab is displayed.
- System Information - Displays the System Information dialog box
and its set of tabs. System Information includes your Visual Fortran version
and registration number as well as information about your operating system,
system files, and registry. The contents and source of information of these
tabs are discussed in System Information Notes.
You can elect to exclude the contents of one or more System Information tabs from the mail message by clearing the check box at the bottom of the System Information tab. After viewing the system information, click the User Information button to display the User Information dialog box.
- Load - Loads a previously saved a file. After you load
a file, the current file name is displayed in top part of the User Information
dialog box.
The Load button allows you to load a file that was previously saved. You are asked about saving the existing file before loading the new file. If the answer is Yes, the action is the same as if you had clicked the Save button. If you Save a file, you are asked to overwrite the file that was loaded or to create a new file.
- Save - Creates the report that will be sent to Compaq
by saving the current set of information in the User Information and System
Information dialog boxes to a file (file extension TXT). Files specified as in the Attach Files
tab are saved in a zip file.
By default, the files are saved to directory
Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\Df98\VFRPORTR\VFmail. You can also specify a different directory.The text file is similar to the BUGREPRT.TXT file in the ...\Df98 directory, but VF Reporter omits some extra information and appends extracted information to the bottom of the file in "ini" file format.
The file and paths names of the files to be mailed are displayed and the names are copied to the clipboard so that you can paste them into the appropriate fields of a mail message. You should inspect the files to make sure that the information included is exactly what you want the Visual Fortran team to see. It is your responsibility to make sure that no sensitive information is compromised.
The Save action writes information typed into the User tab into the user's area in the registry.
If the check box on the User tab "I want to use my e-mail package's MAPI support to e-mail reports" is not checked, you need to send the message manually (see Notes on Mailing Files).
For details about saving files, see Notes on Saving Files.
- E-Mail - This button appears only if you clicked the check box to
"I want to use my e-mail package's MAPI support to e-mail reports".
Clicking the E-Mail button implicitly pushes the Save button, which prompts you for the name of the file. It then attempts to initiate a mail session with your MAPI-compliant mail client software.
Enter a meaningful subject for the message (such as the software component that might be causing the problem with a brief description). The files are automatically attached and e-mailed to the Visual Fortran e-mail account, vf-support@compaq.com.
If VF Reporter cannot access your MAPI-compliant mail client, send the appropriate .txt file with any attachment zip file manually (see Notes on Mailing Files).
- Exit - Allows you to end the program.
It is your responsibility to assure that no sensitive information is compromised. In most cases, viewing the information in the System tab and reducing the size of source code that can safely reproduce the problem reduces the possibility of sending sensitive source code (see Security Notes).
When you have completed all the requested information, either save the file and
send the information manually or click the Mail button
to mail the report to the Visual Fortran team.
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