Victor Boctor's Blog

PureText is a very useful and light weight tool (13k download) that provides an easy way to paste text without unwanted formatting. For example, when pasting text that is copied from Microsoft Word, it's better to use PureText to get rid of the special characters that are typically used by Microsoft Word.

Following is a summary of the use of PureText copied from it's website:

"Have you ever copied some text from a web page, a word document, help, etc., and wanted to paste it as simple text into another application without getting all the formatting from the original source? PureText makes this simple. Just copy/cut whatever you want to the clipboard, click on the PureText tray icon, and then paste to any application. Better yet, you can configure a Hot-Key to convert and paste the text for you. The pasted text will be pure and free from all formatting."

My use of PureText is not limited to Mantis, I've found it a very useful tool in general and I think it is an essential tool in any user's toolkit.

It is often needed to take screenshots and attach them to Mantis issues. I've decided to look for one that is free and can integrate well with Mantis. I've found Cropper to be a good one. It requires Windows and .NET.

I've implemented a plug-in for Cropper that saves the snapshot as a JPG and puts the full path to the captured filename in the clipboard. This way the file path can be pasted into the issue report or issue view pages to attach the screenshot to the issue.

This tool + the plugin achieve the following:
1. A powerful, slick, and easy to use tool for screen captures. Ability to capture whole screen, current window, or a specified region.
2. Saving of snapshots in a compressed format without extra work.
3. Simple yet useful integration with Mantis.

To install this plug-in, download Cropper v1.8, install it, then place Futureware.Mantis.Cropper.dll into the following path:
"C:\Program Files\Fusion8Design\Cropper\plugins\Futureware.Mantis.Cropper.dll". This assumes that Cropper is installed in it's default path. The plug-in can be found in the Futureware.Mantis.Cropper\bin\Release\ folder inside the zip file.

It is recommended to use the following Cropper settings:
1. Turn off Thumbnail, even if you have it ON, the Mantis plug-in will delete it since it is not used by Mantis.
2. Select Output->Mantis.
3. In Options, Output, set "Full Image Name Template" to {prompt} and "Thumbail Image Name Template" to "{prompt} tn".
4. In Options, Capturing, "Use Cropper to save Print screen images." is ticked.

The plug-in can be downloaded from the associated Mantis issue.

This is the third Mantis maintenance release to Mantis 1.0.0 release. The main focus of this release is to fix installation and MS SQL Server issues. It also includes one security fix.

- 0007037: [security] Port: Login with disabled account possible (vboctor)
- 0007034: [bugtracker] Port: bug in string_sanitize_url() (vboctor)
- 0007028: [db mssql] Port: "Prune Accounts" function doesn't work with MS SQL (vboctor)
- 0007029: [db mssql] Port: MS SQL Error on View Filters Page (vboctor)
- 0007030: [db mssql] Port: installtion fails - administrator have no rights on db (vboctor)
- 0007032: [db mssql] Port: Error on opening Change Log (vboctor)
- 0007039: [db mssql] Notice: Only variables should be assigned by reference in \core\adodb\adodb.inc.php on line 2931 (vboctor)
- 0007035: [feature] Port: Global Profiles list not sorted (vboctor)
- 0007038: [filters] Port: SYSTEM WARNING: Argument 1 to array_multisort() is expected to be an array or a sort flag (vboctor)
- 0007031: [installation] Port: is_writable never success in install.php (vboctor)
- 0007041: [installation] Port: newbie admins may be redirected to blank page (vboctor)
- 0007033: [printing] Port: wrong strpos function call (vboctor)
- 0007027: [upgrade] Port: fixed_in_version is renamed to Fixed_in_version during database migration (vboctor)

Mantis 1.0.3 can be downloaded from here.

Archivesat is now hosting online mirrors for Mantis mailing lists. This includes mirrors for help, announcement and developer mailing lists. The online version is searchable.

BugTrap is a relatively simple utility which will connect to Mantis and update you as to the latest issue that's been modified on the bug tracker.

BugTrap is a Mac OS X tool that is similar to the MantisNotify sample that is part of the MantisConnect project. BugTrap utilises the MantisConnect Cocoa client API.