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  <centity>
    <vcard>  BEGIN:VCARD   FN:Author   EMAIL;TYPE=INTERNET:author@email.com   END:VCARD   </vcard>
  </centity>

'Nuff said.

Feedback makes everything better, eventually. Getting or sending feedback is, however, not always simple or usable; users need to be able to bang out simple comments easily, with no forms to fill in, whilst still providing proper context and technical information if the feedback is the result of the application malfunctioning. Feedback should also be anonymous if the user wishes. The Feedback class in the next release of Simis Editor is attempting to do this; here I'm going to outline its user-facing functionality and the back-end implementation.

Entry Points

There are two different ways the feedback process can be started:

• From the user: a "Send Feedback..." menu item under "Help".
• From the application: anywhere in the application that catches exceptions.

While both routes show the same dialog, the latter case collects a load more contextual information to go with the report - most obviously, the exception, but it can also take anything the catch code wants to include.

Instanciation Code

The Feedback class is really simple to use, for both cases:

    try {
        new Feedback().PromptAndSend(ownerForm);
    } catch (SomeException e) {
        new Feedback(e, "sending feedback").PromptAndSend(ownerForm);
    }

The ownerForm is used for showing the dialog modally. The class switches mode based on the arguments: none means "user feedback", Exception (exception) and String (operation) mean "application failure"; there is also a third mode where the caller provides the feedback type, operation and an IDictionary<string, string> of details.

User Dialog

The dialog is mostly the same for the two cases; the biggest change is the "faces" and introductory text. For user feedback, the introduction just explains when to include your e-mail address, as it is entirely optional.

In the application failure case, this dialog is the first thing the user sees when an operation fails, so it must explain that something's gone wrong and then why you should send the feedback at all.

As the purpose of the feedback dialog is to collect as many reports as possible, it attempts to ensure all users (or a maximum of users) are happy to send the reports by allowing the user to view all the data collected for sending. As shown below, this includes the full exception details (obviously) as well as some general system information. It also includes a user ID, which is randomly generated the first time the application intends to send feedback and which is not shared between applications (i.e. two applications that a user has installed that use this feedback system will each send a different user ID).

If the user is happy to send the report and clicks the button, an XML document is constructed, serialised and POSTed to the feedback server. The user is then given a message showing the success or failure of the feedback as a clear completion of the process.

Feedback Format

The feedback is sent as XML to make handing the data as easy as possible. This is an example of an application failure report, but user feedback reports are basically the same - just without the <details>.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" standalone="yes"?>
<report version="1.0" uid="ipejGfrUIt5gAZ3Y" time="2010-05-31T22:13:56.4276545+01:00" type="ApplicationFailure" email="">
  <environment>
    <os version="6.1.7600.0">Microsoft Windows NT 6.1.7600.0</os>
    <processor cores="4" />
    <clr bits="64" version="2.0.50727.4927" />
  </environment>
  <application version="0.3.0.0">Simis Editor</application>
  <source file="C:\Users\James\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\JGR MSTS Editor\Simis Editor\Editor.cs" line="185" column="5">SimisEditor.Editor.OpenFile</source>
  <details>C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Train Simulator\ROUTES\JAPAN2\carspawn.dat

> From 0x00000122 - data preceding failure:
>   wnerItem( "Jp1van.s" 6 )
>   CarSpawnerItem( "Jp1van2.s" 6 )
>   )
>   
>   
> 
> From 0x000001A2 - data following failure:
>   
> 
> > BNF has completed.
> > 
> > Available states: .
> > Current rule: <none>.
> > Current state: 
> > 
> >    at Jgr.Grammar.BnfState.LeaveBlock() in C:\Users\James\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\JGR MSTS Editor\JGR.Grammar\BNF.cs:line 175
> >    at Jgr.IO.Parser.SimisReader.ReadToken() in C:\Users\James\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\JGR MSTS Editor\JGR.IO.Parser\SimisReader.cs:line 181
> 
>    at Jgr.IO.Parser.SimisReader.ReadToken() in C:\Users\James\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\JGR MSTS Editor\JGR.IO.Parser\SimisReader.cs:line 196
>    at Jgr.IO.Parser.SimisFile.ReadStream(Stream stream, SimisFormat& simisFormat, SimisStreamFormat& streamFormat, Boolean& streamCompressed, SimisTreeNode& tree) in C:\Users\James\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\JGR MSTS Editor\JGR.IO.Parser\SimisFile.cs:line 74
>    at Jgr.IO.Parser.SimisFile..ctor(String fileName, SimisProvider simisProvider) in C:\Users\James\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\JGR MSTS Editor\JGR.IO.Parser\SimisFile.cs:line 32

   at Jgr.IO.Parser.SimisFile..ctor(String fileName, SimisProvider simisProvider) in C:\Users\James\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\JGR MSTS Editor\JGR.IO.Parser\SimisFile.cs:line 37
   at Jgr.IO.Parser.MutableSimisFile.Read() in C:\Users\James\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\JGR MSTS Editor\JGR.IO.Parser\MutableSimisFile.cs:line 28
   at SimisEditor.Editor.OpenFile(String filename) in C:\Users\James\Documents\Visual Studio 2008\Projects\JGR MSTS Editor\Simis Editor\Editor.cs:line 185</details>
  <comments></comments>
</report>

One thing which this does not show is "attachments" - where the code calling the Feedback class specifies arbitrary extra data to include; these are sent as additional details but each with a name: <details name="extra stuff">...</details>.