What's in it for me?

The Bugzilla Guide
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# 4.4. What's in it for me?

| Indiana, it feels like we walking on fortune cookies! These ain't fortune cookies, kid...

Customized User Preferences offer tremendous versatility to your individual Bugzilla experience. Let's plunge into what you can do! The first step is to click the "Edit prefs" link at the footer of each page once you have logged in to Landfill.

## 4.4.1. Account Settings

On this page, you can change your basic Account Settings, including your password and full name. For security reasons, in order to change anything on this page you must type your current password into the "Old Password" field. If you wish to change your password, type the new password you want into the "New Password" field and again into the "Re-enter new password" field to ensure you typed your new password correctly. Select the "Submit" button and you're done!

## 4.4.2. Email Settings

### 4.4.2.1. Email Notification

> Note: The email notification settings described below have been obsoleted in Bugzilla 2.12, and this section will be replaced with a comprehensive description of the amazing array of new options at your disposal. However, in the meantime, throw this chunk out the window and go crazy with goofing around with different notification options.

Ahh, here you can reduce or increase the amount of email sent you from Bugzilla! In the drop-down "Notify me of changes to", select one of

All qualifying bugs: sends you every change to every bug where your name is somewhere on it, regardless of who changed it.
Only those bugs which I am listed in the CC line: prevents you from receiving mail for which you are the reporter,' owner, or QA contact. If you are on the CC list, presumably someone had a good reason for you to get the email.
All qulifying bugs except those which I change: This is the default, and a sensible setting. If someone else changes your bugs, you will get emailed, but if you change bugs yourself you will receive no notification of the change.

### 4.4.2.2. New Email Technology

> Note: This option may not be available in all Bugzilla installations, depending upon the preferences of the systems administrator responsible for the setup of your Bugzilla. However, if you really want this functionality, ask her to "enable newemailtech in Params" and "make it the default for all new users", referring her to the Administration section of this Guide.

Disregard the warnings about "experimental and bleeding edge"; the code to handle email in a cleaner manner than that historically used for Bugzilla is quite robust and well-tested now.

I recommend you enable the option, "Click here to sign up (and risk any bugs)". Your email-box will thank you for it. The fundamental shift in "newemailtech" is away from standard UNIX "diff" output, which is quite ugly, to a prettier, better laid-out email.

### 4.4.2.3. "Watching" Users

> Note: This option may not be available in all Bugzilla installations, depending upon the preferences of the systems administrator responsible for the setup of your Bugzilla. However, if you really want this functionality, ask her to "enable watchers in Params".

By entering user email names into the "Users to watch" text entry box, delineated by commas, you can watch bugs of other users. This powerful functionality enables seamless transitions as developers change projects, managers wish to get in touch with the issues faced by their direct reports, or users go on vacation. If any of these three situations apply to you, you will undoubtedly find this feature quite convenient.

## 4.4.3. Page Footer

> Note: By default, this page is quite barren. However, go explore the Query Page some more; you will find that you can store numerous queries on the server, so if you regularly run a particular query it is just a drop-down menu away. On this page of Preferences, if you have many stored queries you can elect to have them always one-click away!

If you have many stored queries on the server, here you will find individual drop-downs for each stored query. Each drop-down gives you the option of that query appearing on the footer of every page in Bugzilla! This gives you powerful one-click access to any complex searches you may set up, and is an excellent way to impress your boss...

> Tip: By default, the "My Bugs" link appears at the bottom of each page. However, this query gives you both the bugs you have reported, as well as those you are assigned. One of the most common uses for this page is to remove the "My Bugs" link, replacing it with two other queries, commonly called "My Bug Reports" and "My Bugs" (but only referencing bugs assigned to you). This allows you to distinguish those bugs you have reported from those you are assigned. I commonly set up complex Boolean queries in the Query page and link them to my footer in this page. When they are significantly complex, a one-click reference can save hours of work.

## 4.4.4. Permissions

This is a purely informative page which outlines your current permissions on this installation of Bugzilla. If you have permissions to grant certain permissions to other users, the "other users" link appears on this page as well as the footer. For more information regarding user administration, please consult the Administration section of this Guide.

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