Discontinuing support for LogDigger Server

You’ve probably already noticed that our focus for the last several months was on the BugDigger – out hosted service for contextual bug reporting that integrates with Atlassian JIRA, Basecamp, FogBugz and other popular issue trackers.

It’s no secret that we were able to provide much better support for the hosted service than for downloadable server software like LogDigger Server is. With the hosted service we’re able to fix eventual integration issues and deploy a fix in a matter of hour or less. Many LogDigger Server users have figured out this also and already migrated to BugDigger.

So, discontinuing LogDigger Server was somewhat tough decision but we believe it’s a step in the right direction and that we’ll be able to provide our users with a better service and products without LogDigger Server pulling us back. All LogDigger Server users under the maintenance will receive either free BugDigger subscription for a year or a free license for BugDigger for JIRA.

We’re aware that BugDigger doesn’t offer all features of LogDigger Server. For those users interested in capturing Java logs we’ll have some nice surprises in the following weeks.

Announcing BugDigger for JIRA

BugDigger for JIRA offers more or less equivalent features the hosted service but is available as a standalone JIRA plugin! Combined with the latest release of browser add-on, BugDigger for JIRA automatically fills your JIRA issues with contextual bug information such as:

• screen shot of the webpage
• the current URL
• recently visited pages on the site
• browser details and operating system version

In addition, BugDigger for JIRA includes annotation editor that you can use to edit any image attached to an issue. All file uploads are handled automatically.

Besides the maximum level of compatibility with JIRA (works on version 4.1 and above), BugDigger plugin has few additional benefits:

• works with any JIRA authentication mechanism and
• can be used with JIRA instances running behind a firewall.

By the end of month we have a special introductory offer: use coupon EARLYBIRD14 on a BugDigger for JIRA license purchase and get up to 50% off – the sooner you buy the bigger discount you get.

If you have any feedback for the BugDigger team, please contact us. We’re very interested in hearing your feedback, suggestions for improvements and feature requests.

We’re very excited today. After several months of development and beta testing, our BugDigger service is finally going live!

The initial release of BugDigger allows users to easily capture bugs in their web applications and send them to an external bug tracker. Bug reports submitted via BugDigger include:

• The browser and version number used
• The URL where the issue occurred
• Recently opened URLs
• Screenshot of the web page

Automatically captured screenshot can be further edited using built-in Flash-based image editor.

How BugDigger differs from LogDigger Server?

1. BugDigger is a hosted solution. No troubles any more installing LogDigger Server, backing up database, etc. All you need is BugDigger browser add-on.
2. BugDigger supports ad-hoc bug reporting. Use it on any site, any time, without need for installing logdigger.xml and starting data collection.
3. BugDigger does not log full site usage history (e.g. POST data and intermediate screenshots while you use a web site are not collected).

Yes, these are significant differences but we believe that hosted solution with currently available set of features is sufficient for majority of users.

What does this mean for the future of LogDigger Server?

We admit that LogDigger Server have been neglected for the several months. (For example, BugDigger already has better compatibility with the latest releases of JIRA and Redmine.) For the following months we plan a series of updates that will make LogDigger and BugDigger closer to each other:

• There’s LogDigger Connector 2.0 release waiting for some polishing,
• BugDigger will start accepting application logs,
• One browser extension will be compatible with both BugDigger and LogDigger Server.

Priority of our steps depends pretty much on feedback we receive from community. So, if you have any comment we’d love to hear from you.

Since our first release of LogDigger Server we are aware that the biggest issue in adoption of LogDigger is the server setup and resources it needs. For the last several months we’ve been working on a hosted solution and today we’re pleased to announce our BugDigger service.

Our focus with BugDigger was to enable users to report web application issues with as little effort as possible.

So, how BugDigger is different from LogDigger? Although they are conceptually very similar, there are some important differences:

1. It’s very easy to get started as we host the server for you. No troubles any more setting up and backing up database, upgrading LogDigger Server, etc. All you need is a BugDigger add-on for your browser.
2. There is no need to to install logdigger.xml on tested web sites. You can click the report button at any time for any visited web site and BugDigger will collect environment details, recent site usage history and web page screenshot.
3. At this time BugDigger does not track submitted POST data and does not collect server logs.

BugDigger is currently in open beta and completely FREE. Start using it today!

BugDigger browser extensions are not currently compatible with LogDigger Server. (You would have to uninstall LogDigger extension before installing BugDigger.) In the following months we’ll be extending both BugDigger and LogDigger Server to support about the same set of features using the same browser extension.

For the curious, the BugDigger service is hosted on Google’s App Engine infrastructure. We hope to benefit from Google’s dedication and expertise in cloud maintenance so we can focus on providing you with better tools and service.

We released updates for the LogDigger Server and browser extensions today, addressing few issues:

• Browser extensions have got hard limit on an image size they send to the LogDigger Server. If the image is bigger that this, it will be scaled down.
• By default, on bug reporting, screenshot will be created for the visible part of the page only, not for the full page as earlier.
• The console for server log monitoring in IE has been disabled by default. It can be re-enabled in the LogDigger Preferences dialog. IE should be restarted for changes to take effect.
• Fixed compatibility issues with the SQL Server.

We are pleased to announce availability of our tools for simplified issue reporting.

LogDigger browser extensions, supported by the LogDigger Server, allow you to report bugs to your favorite bug tracker much faster and with much more details than ever before. The LogDigger Server 1.0 supports JIRA, Bugzilla, Mantis and Redmine issue tracking software, with more to come.

Please, check the tour and don’t miss the video demonstration.

Today we released LogDigger Firefox Add-on v0.3.5 that adds compatibility for recently released Firefox 3.5. You can get it from the download page or using Firefox add-on update feature.