IssueTrackerProduct

Suppose you have an IssueTrackerProduct instance where you discuss bugs and issues on a piece of software or a website. For the sake of security you have switched off public access but you still want to accept feedback from the public. What do you do?

A simple and functional solution is to use email! Set up a POP3 account on your issuetracker instance and point an email address in to submit issues when coming in on support@big.com. That sorted, now you just need to write a little form handler that takes in your public visitors feedback and sends this off as an email. A benefit of this solution is that the issuetracker doesn't even have to be near to where you have this public feedback form.

Let's demo this with an example. So, suppose you have site with this form:

Next, you need to create the CGI script that processes this and sends it off. Obviously your mileage may vary depending on what kind of tools you have. Suppose you have a Zope site to do this [in Python]:

 def sendFeedback(self, name_or_email, sex, thoughts):
     mailhost = self.MailHost
     to = "support@big.com"
     from_ = "feedbackpage@big.com"
     subject = "feedback: %s" % thoughts[:60]
     msg = "Feedback from %s (%s):\n\n" % (name_or_email, sex)
     msg += thoughts
     mailhost.send(msg, to, from_, subject)
     return 'Thank you! Now await our humble reply'

That's how simple it can be. You might want to wrap this more neatly and/or with a nicer "Thank you" message.

If you want to try this, fill in the form above and you will actually be able to see it in action.