Quickly Spotting Defects

(This blog entry is part of a series of entries describing some of the new features in Code Collaborator v6.0. The series content is listed in this entry.)

In our code review tool, Code Collaborator, the Review Summary screen has a defect log:

This list makes it easy to see all defects in the review, across all files.

When you are looking at a specific file in the diff window, however, the defects are displayed along with comments in the chat pane and can be harder to spot. There are four conversations going on in the example below - can you tell with just a glance which have defects?

The answer is that lines 9 and 36 have defects.

Starting with version 6.0 of Code Collaborator, the chat pane will display defects with some visual distinction; the same comments and defects in v6.0:

Ah... much better!  :-) The background shading and the inclusion of the bug icon make it obvious where the defects are. If a defect is marked as Fixed or Tracked Externally, the display changes again:

This feature got quite a few votes on our feedback forum. If you have specific ideas on how to make defects more noticeable, please add them to the entry on the feedback forum or leave a comment here.