Overview

FB Scratchout is a plug-in for deprecating case events in the FogBugz software project management platform.

If you’ve used FogBugz for any length of time, you no doubt have learned that this software comes with a subscription to Joel’s dogma on the way bug tracking should work and the software has generally enforced it, although they seem to be trending away from a their original hard-line stance in the last few releases.  I do see FogCreek’s position on discouraging users from obliterating history, however, there are exceptions and this plug-in provides a way to satisfy the need to retain a historical record of changes while allowing you to deprecate or hide case events.

Feature Summary

The plug-in that lets you mark case history events as deprecated and display them with the strike-through CSS effect. There is even a tool-tip over the struck text with an explanation of why it was deprecated. Scratch outs can be reversed with a single click.

"Scratchout" cases from the case history view.

Customize the appearance of scratched out events

Optionally Enable/Disable Scratching out separately for each project.

Common usage scenarios include:

• History entries added to the wrong case. You no longer need to clutter the case further with a second “ignore that” entry.
• Marking discussions that are no longer relevant because the resolution took a left turn and went in a different direction. This helps testers quickly ignore irrelevant material when reading through the case to see what was changed.
• Any other mistakes or reasons that make you wish FB had a delete button.

Where do I get it?

You can download and install the Scratchout plug-in from the FogBugz plugin gallery, it is also available for all FogBugz on Demand users from the plug-in administration screen.

What does it cost?

Nada. It’s freeware. I haven’t attached any licensing terms to it yet, but am okay with you doing whatever you want with it so long as you don’t steal my work and claim it as your own.

System Requirements

FB Scratchout requires FogBugz 7.0 or later and will run on any of the platforms that support FogBugz plug-ins.

Future Plans

It seems that FogCreek has softened their position slightly and released a really great plugin of their own that lets you edit case event histories.  Although it overlaps the functionality of my plugin, I plan to continue supporting FB Scratchout because I still think it provides some value to FogBugz users, in that:

1. The new Case Event Edit plugin requires FogBugz 8.3.42 or later. FB Scratchout is still the only game in town for the those that haven’t upgraded yet.
2. It is still a quick way to deprecate history events for a case without overtly hiding them. That is, it is a nice way to communicate “ignore this case” without hiding it completely.