A. Installing send-pr on your system

If you receive send-pr as part of a larger software distribution, it probably gets installed when the full distribution is installed. If you are using GNATS at your site as well, you must decide where send-pr sends Problem Reports by default; see Setting a default site.

A.1 Installing send-pr by itself

Install send-pr by following these steps (you may need root access in order to change the `aliases' file and to install send-pr):

• Unpack the distribution into a directory which we refer to as srcdir.

• Edit the file `Makefile' to reflect local conventions. Specifically, you should edit the variable `prefix' to alter the installation location. The default is `/usr/local'. All files are installed under `prefix' (see below).

• Run

  make all install [ info ] [ install-info ] [ clean ]

  The targets mean the following:

  all

  Builds send-pr and install-sid

  install

  Installs the following:

  install-sid

  send-pr

  into `prefix/bin'

  send-pr.1

  into `prefix/man/man1'

  site

  the list of valid categories for the Support Site from which you received send-pr, installed as `prefix/lib/gnats/site'

  send-pr.el

  into `prefix/lib/emacs/lisp'(2)

  info (optional)

  Builds `send-pr.info' from `send-pr.texi'
  (`send-pr.info' is included with this distribution)

  install-info (optional)

  Installs `send-pr.info' into `prefix/info'

  clean (optional)

  Removes all intermediary build files that can be rebuilt from source code

• Run

  install-sid your-sid

  where your-sid is the identification code you received with send-pr. send-pr automatically inserts this value into the template field `>Submitter-Id:'. If you've downloaded send-pr from the Net, use `net' for this value.

• Place the following line in `prefix/lib/emacs/lisp/default.el', or instruct your users to place the following line in their `.emacs' files:

  (autoload 'send-pr "send-pr" "Submit a Problem Report." t)

• Create a mail alias for the Support Site from which you received send-pr, and for every site with which you wish to use send-pr to communicate. Each alias must have a suffix of `-gnats'. The Support Site(s) will provide the correct addresses where these aliases should point. For instance, edit your mail aliases file to contain something like:

  # support sites; for use with send-pr cygnus-gnats: bugs@cygnus.com # Cygnus Support bumblebee-gnats: bumblebugs@bumblebee.com # Bumblebee Inc. mycompany-gnats: bugs@my.company.com (if you use GNATS locally)

  send-pr automatically searches for these aliases when you type

  send-pr cygnus send-pr bumblebee send-pr site...

  send-pr also uses site to determine the categories of problems accepted by the site in question by looking in

  prefix/lib/gnats/site

A.2 Setting a default site

send-pr is capable of sending Problem Reports to any number of Support Sites, using mail aliases which have `-gnats' appended them. send-pr automatically appends the suffix, so that when you type

send-pr site

the Problem Report goes to the address noted in the `aliases' file as `site-gnats'. You can do this in the Emacs version of send-pr by invoking the program with

C-u M-x send-pr

You are prompted for site.

site is also used to error-check the `>Category:' field, as a precaution against sending mistaken information (and against sending information to the wrong site).

You may also simply type

send-pr

from the shell (or `M-x send-pr' in Emacs), and the Problem Report you generate will be sent to the site, which is usually the site from which you received your distribution of send-pr. If you use GNATS at your own organization, the default is usually your local address for reporting problems.

To change this, simply edit the file `Makefile' before installing and change the line

GNATS_SITE = site

to reflect the site where you wish to send PRs by default.

This document was generated by XEmacs shared group account on December, 19 2009 using texi2html 1.65.