How to Get Help for Apache Wicket

We are here to Help

There are a lot of venues to ask questions about Wicket. The most obvious one is of course asking a search engine. But when you can’t find an answer or are unable to ask the right question, discussing it with a human being is really the way to go.

The following list gives you the options for asking your questions (and maybe even answer a couple) about Wicket:

• Our mailing lists provide a quick and easy way to ask questions to our grander community. Many Wicket developers have subscribed to our User list and want to help you!

• Our IRC channel ##wicket at irc.freenode.net provides a more direct discussion platform. Note that time zones can make it difficult to find activity in the channel.

• Stackoverflow provides a modern Q&A experience with a helpful community.

Whichever you choose, remember to ask your questions the right way.

Report A Security Problem

The Apache Software Foundation takes a very active stance in eliminating security problems against the Apache Wicket web framework.

For reporting and discussing a security issue you should contact the Wicket PMC privately.

** PLEASE DO NOT CREATE A SECURITY REPORT IN OUR ISSUE TRACKER **

The issue tracker for Wicket is not the appropriate venue for reporting security issues as the issue tracker is publicly accessible. Instead, contact the Wicket PMC privately.

Contact the Wicket PMC privately

Send your security issue to private at wicket.apache.org. This list is not publicly available so we can discuss and fix the issue in private without leaking the info to any bad guys.

REPORT A SECURITY ISSUE

We treat all security issues seriously and will try to fix them as soon as possible in all affected versions that we still support.

Report normal bugs in JIRA

The Security Team cannot accept regular bug reports or other queries, we ask that you use our bug reporting page for normal, non-security bugs.

Report a Bug for Apache Wicket

If you are experiencing problems using Wicket please report your problem via the Issue Tracker. You may also find it useful to discuss your issues with the community on one of the Mailing Lists.

Before asking for help with your issue, it’s a very good idea to search for your issue in the mailing list archives and the FAQ. The majority of issues can be solved in this manner without having to send an email to the mailing list. If you don’t find an answer, use the guidelines below when writing the e-mail.

Checklist for Reporting a Bug

Please use the following checklist before reporting a bug:

• Search for a reported, existing bug
• Use the latest release of your Wicket version
• Use compatible versions of supporting libraries
• Try reproducing it in a quick start
• Create a report in our issue tracker

While not mandatory, we will ask you these questions in your bug report anyway, so you might as well get them out of the way.

Search for a Reported, Existing Bug

A lot of developers use Wicket, and chances are someone already encountered your issue. So please search for some keywords of your problem using a search engine, stackoverflow and our issue tracker.

If someone already found your bug, look at how the bug was resolved. If it wasn’t resolved, note what they already tried and add your own experience to it, possibly including a quick start.

Using the Latest Release of Wicket

Wicket releases new versions on a regular basis. Chances are that your bug has been solved in a recent version. So if for instance you discover a bug in Wicket 6.2.0, it might be fixed in a newer version (the current version of Wicket 6.x is 6.30.0).

So we ask you to try the latest version of the branch of Wicket you are working on. If the bug still remains,

Check if your version is no longer maintained on our download page. If your version is no longer maintained we kindly ask you to upgrade your project to a newer, maintained version of Wicket. For example if you have a project that depends on Wicket 1.3.7, please consider upgrading to Wicket 10.2.0.

Using Compatible Versions of Supporting Libraries

If you are using a supporting library from either the Wicket project, Wicket Stuff or another project, please ensure that the version you use is compatible with your Wicket version.

You can’t use Wicket 1.5.x libraries with Wicket 6.x, Wicket 7.x or Wicket 8.x. It should be safe to use a library compatible with Wicket 6.0 with 6.30.0

For example:

• wicket-extensions-1.5.12.jar is not compatible with wicket-core-6.30.0

Possible, but not advisable:

• wicket-extensions-6.10.0 should be compatible with wicket-core-6.30.0

Advised:

• Use wicket-extensions-6.30.0 with wicket-core-6.30.0

This also holds true for release of our sister project Wicket Stuff.

Provide a Quick Start

When you encounter an unexpected behavior this can be a bug in Wicket. But to be certain it is not caused by something else we kindly ask you to try to reproduce your bug in a Quick Start project.

A Quick Start project is generated using our online commandline generator that creates a Maven project with a simple Wicket application. This is a very minimal setup ideal to try to reproduce your problem in an isolated way.

The benefits for having your problem reproduced in a minimal Quick Start application are many:

• while trying to reproduce the issue you might discover it is caused by something completely different, not related to Wicket

• you can easily provide instructions to reproduce the problem instead of having to give the Wicket developers a manual to your application

• an isolated application that shows your problem makes it easier for Wicket developers to debug the issue without having to reproduce your particular development/test/production environment

• a small, focused application lets Wicket developers read the code at hand much easier without having to wade through thousands lines of code

Providing a Quick Start with your problem helps us resolve the bug much quicker.

Create a Report in our Issue Tracker

Whenever you are reporting a problem, please be sure to include as much information as possible; the more we know, the better the chance of a quick resolution.

• The version of Wicket and the libraries you use
• Which operating system and JDK
• Any particular JEE container being used - if so what version
• Stack traces generally really help! If in doubt include the whole thing; often exceptions get wrapped in other exceptions and the exception right near the bottom explains the actual error, not the first few lines at the top. Its very easy for us to skim-read past unnecessary parts of a stack trace.
• Log output can be useful too; sometimes enabling DEBUG logging can help your code & configuration files are often useful

How to Get Help Faster

We can help you much quicker if you try the following

• Provide us with a JUnit test case that demonstrates your issue. e.g. if you think you’ve found a bug, can you create a test case to demonstrate the bug?
• Submit a patch fixing the bug! (We also buy you beer when we meet you if you submit bug fixes for memory leaks or performance related issues, if you can run a profiler on your test case and attach the output as a file (or zipped file if its huge) to the JIRA we can normally fix things much faster. e.g. run JProfiler or YourKit on your code and send us the output. To find memory leaks its quicker to resolve if you can tell us what classes are taking up all of the RAM; we can normally figure out whats wrong from that.

Help us help you!

When you want more direct support, you can consider hiring commercial support.

Commercial Wicket Support

The Wicket community is not only supported by volunteers but several individuals and companies provide professional support for Wicket application development in many countries around the world.

Finding a Wicket Service Provider

The linked page below lists all companies that provide commercial services for Wicket which ranges from training courses, consultancy and even project development.

Being mentioned here is not an indication of official “endorsement” by the Apache Software Foundation, but is instead provided as a public service. This list is in no way a complete listing of the many organizations providing either free or for cost support for ASF projects. If you would like to be added to this list, or removed, sign up for the wiki and add yourself to the list.

Registering as a Wicket Service Provider

If you are a service provider specializing in Wicket application development you are welcome to add yourself to this wiki page (a registered account is required).

We reserve the right to remove your listing if it is deemed inappropriate.