Exception Reporter.NET

PM> Install-Package ExceptionReporter

How it Looks

When showing a dialog to the user (can also be sent silently) there are 2 presentation modes - Less Scary and More Detail

Less Scary

More Detail

Interface Configuration

You don't have to modify the code to achieve a basic level of customization as many changes can be made with configuration.

The screenshot above is configured to not show icons on the buttons (ShowButtonIcons) and the window title is customised (TitleText)

There are various other options available such hiding the email button (ShowEmailButton), changing the label text (UserExplanationLabel), the background color (BackgroundColor) etc - see the property Config on the main ExceptionReporter class.

How to use it

The Exception Reporter can be invoked manually or by setting up a Windows Exception event - see Sample Code Usage

The ultimate goal is the developer receiving a formatted exception report - see Sending a Report

You can even format your own report using Report Templates

Why use it

Some Important Features

• Option to send a report silently and asynchronously - ie without showing a dialog
• Send a report using various methods:
  • RESTful API/WebService
  • to Email address via SMTP
  • to Email address via installed client (SimpleMAPI)
  • Emailing includes support for automatically attaching files and compressing into a single zip file - useful for including log files and configuration files to help with troubleshooting
• The report sent to the developer can be in various formats (v4):
  • Plain Text
  • HTML
  • Markdown
  • Custom - write your own Handlebars/Mustache template to create the report
• The report includes various useful information such as:
  • Full Stack Trace (including inner exceptions and multiple exceptions)
  • System Information (using WMI) such as OS Version, Memory, Language, TimeZone etc.
  • A list of Referenced Assemblies (with versions) being used by the current executable
  • Details of your App such as name/version/date/time etc

Demos, Design and Testing

• The solution includes a demo WinForms (and WPF - see below) app for testing the dialog as well as a WebService project to demonstrate the requirements of sending reports to a WebService (written in .NET Core)
• The source code has tried to incorporate unit testing and testability with over 60 unit tests (and growing) covering most of the important code
• ExceptionReporter is designed using the MVP or Model-View-Presenter pattern and the classes and concerns are liberally separated using SOLID design principles (to the best of our ability)

Sample Reports

Markdown

Plain Text

========================================
Acme Error Report

Application: ExceptionReporter Demo App
Version:     4.0
Region:      English (Australia)
Date: 25/08/2018
Time: 2:40 PM
User Explanation: "I just pressed Connect and this error showed immediately"

Error Message: Unable to establish a connection with the Foo bank account service

[Stack Traces]
Top-level Exception
Type:        System.IO.IOException
Message:     Unable to establish a connection with the Foo bank account service. The error number is #FFF474678.
Source:      WinFormsDemoApp
Stack Trace: at WinFormsDemoApp.DemoAppView.AndAnotherOne() in Z:\MyProjects\ExceptionReporter\src\WinFormsDemoApp\DemoAppView.cs:line 110
    at WinFormsDemoApp.DemoAppView.CallAnotherMethod() in Z:\MyProjects\ExceptionReporter\src\WinFormsDemoApp\DemoAppView.cs:line 101
    at WinFormsDemoApp.DemoAppView.SomeMethod() in Z:\MyProjects\ExceptionReporter\src\WinFormsDemoApp\DemoAppView.cs:line 96
    at WinFormsDemoApp.DemoAppView.ShowExceptionReporter(Boolean useConfig) in Z:\MyProjects\ExceptionReporter\src\WinFormsDemoApp\DemoAppView.cs:line 81

Inner Exception 1
Type:        System.Exception
Message:     This is an Inner Exception message - with a message that is not too small but perhaps it should be smaller

[Assembly References] 
mscorlib, Version=2.0.0.0
System.Windows.Forms, Version=2.0.0.0
System, Version=2.0.0.0
ExceptionReporter.WinForms, Version=2.1.2.0
System.Drawing, Version=2.0.0.0
EO.WebBrowser, Version=16.0.91.0
Esent.Collections, Version=1.9.3.2

[System Info]
Operating System
-Microsoft Windows 7 Enterprise
--CodeSet = 1252
--CSDVersion =
--CurrentTimeZone = 600
--FreePhysicalMemory = 1947848
--OSArchitecture = 32-bit
--OSLanguage = 1033
--ServicePackMajorVersion = 0
--ServicePackMinorVersion = 0
--Version = 6.1.7600

[Machine]
--Manufacturer = Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd.
--Model = P35-DS3L
--TotalPhysicalMemory = 3756515328

========================================

Build

ExceptionReporter has a dependency on the .NET4 Framework - so can go as low as supporting Windows XP

ExceptionReporter.NET.sln - this uses the new csproj format that was introduced in .NET Core but is backward compatible for .NET projects (like this).

There is a suite of Unit Tests to support ExceptionReporter using Moq and NUnit libraries - see src/Tests/Tests.ExceptionReporter.NET

There is a Cake script to build the project and run all tests

• build/build.sh for OSX/Mono
• build/build.ps1 for Windows

WPF

I have worked a WPF version of ExceptionReporter into the solution by using a Shared Project. There is no nuget library for the WPF version yet, so it's in a kind of alpha-mode. The usage is slightly different as it's implemented as a UserControl, so you create your own Window object and set the Content property to the WpfExceptionReporter - see the Demo.WPF project for an example. The WPF version cuts out the resizing and the less/more detail view. For "Show Details" we just show the report in a read-only text component. I'm actually liking the simplicity, so I don't think it will take long to progress this into a sister nuget library.