Last updated November 8, 2011.
The Drupal community uses the issue queue to work as a team. If you need help with a specific project, whether it is a module or theme, you should go to the issue queue. The module maintainers, active users and fans of the module will be communicating in the issue queue for a particular project. This makes it more likely your question will be seen by people who can help you.
You can also use the issue queue to report bugs and problems; see the Reporting problems section of this guide for more information.
What is the issue queue?
Each project, whether a theme or module has its own "issue queue": a listing of categorized posts connected to a project. These are summarized on the sidebar content of a project page.
In comparison to the forum, the issue queue allows the project user to post an 'issue' to a specific project version and categorize it (e.g., bug report, feature request) and suggest a priority such as 'critical' or 'normal'. It allows the project maintainer to assign tasks to colleagues, and track the status (e.g., active, fixed). In this way, concerns related to a specific project can be more efficiently tracked.
Each project also has components (e.g., documentation, code). Some projects have additional components; for example the Drupal core project has the "taxonomy.module" component and "user system" component. The list of issue components used on a specific project are set by that project's maintainer. To see components and filter by them use the "Advanced search" option.
Video tutorial
Here is a short video that gives an overview of how to use the issue queues. You may also be interested in this screencast on how to use the Drupal issue queues to contribute to Drupal.
How to get notifications of new issues on a project
If you are an avid user of a project you should subscribe to the issue queue in one of two ways:
- Via email: From the project's page (e.g., http://drupal.org/project/[project-name]) you can see a block in the right sidebar titled "Issues for [project name]",and under that a link to "Subscribe via e-mail". This will send email notifications when someone posts an issue to that project's queue.
- Via RSS: From the issue queue for a project, if you scroll to the bottom of the page, you can see "Subscribe with RSS" and select the RSS feed for that project's entire queue.
To subscribe to a specific issue, just click the "Follow" link in the top right corner, and you will see the issue on your "My issues" page. To unsubscribe, just click it again (it will say "Following" if you are subscribed, and hover to say "Unfollow").
To search the issue queue for a specific project, you can search directly from the project page, with the search form "Issues for [project name]". Click Advanced Search for additional options to filter for status and category, version or components, etc.
Issue queue care & maintenance
Maintaining an issue queue requires a serious commitment. Maintenance tasks include:
- Verifying bugs are still bugs
- Marking issues duplicate
- Answering support requests
- Responding to issues saying "Yes this is still valid"
- Creating and Rolling patches
See the Views Bug Squad's How to work the issue queue tutorial as a starter guide to maintaining an issue queue.
Project maintainers should visit: Start or Maintain Modules, Themes, Installation Profiles or Translations for details on how to be a good project maintainer.
If you are not a maintainer you can give considerable help on the issue queue. See How to help maintainers in the issue queues.
As a maintainer, you can organize your own team around your projects. A good example is the Views Bug Squad. This is a good way for other developers to get mentoring in project maintenance.