Posted by tangent on October 8, 2005 at 9:55pm
5 followers
| Project: | Project issue tracking |
| Version: | 6.x-1.x-dev |
| Component: | Issues |
| Category: | feature request |
| Priority: | normal |
| Assigned: | Unassigned |
| Status: | active |
Issue Summary
Currently, an issue submitter may add an attachment (screenshot, patch) to an issue. Generally a patch goes through many revisions before being accepted and each revision is added to a new comment. This makes it extremely difficult to locate the latest revision of the patch. The optimal solution would be to list all attachments at the top in a single list, preferably with obsolete patches striked out as in bugzilla (see attached screenshot).
This would require either allowing issue commenters to add attachments to the issue node or adding logic which displays comment attachments at the top instead of/in addition to in the comment.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| attachments.png | 9.82 KB |
Comments
#1
Thought I'd clean up some old issues in this queue—hope that is OK.
While not implementing the exact functionality described here, over three years ago, the current "Jump to: Most recent attachment" seems to address the usability issue identified here. Going to mark this as fixed—probably a duplicate of other issues that actually led to the link but not that easy to find.
#2
Move to correct queue.
#3
Automatically closed -- issue fixed for 2 weeks with no activity.
#4
Reopening this one...
I am attaching a 'fresh' screenshot to update the one posted in #0 + listing features and ideas that I think we should 'borrow' from the way bugzilla does it:
- Group posted attachments together and place them on top of the page, near the issue's summary (#569552: Provide a mechanism for issue meta discussions)
- Distinguish attachments. For example based on color (if it is a patch, so we know its status), text stroke (obsolete by another attachment) etc.
- Hide obsolete attachments by default (so that only the latest patch is shown), but provide links to show all or obsolete ones only.
#5
...and here's a second screenshot that shows how the upload is handled:
- uploader has the option to select the type of the attachment (patch, screenshot etc.)
- previous versions of the patch can be marked as obsolete.
#6
Any thoughts? Does anyone like my proposal? No? Do you think it would be a useful feature? Can it be implemented relatively easily? Anyone??
#7
Maybe it would be better/simpler to make the default view collapse to the latest patch/attachment plus the latest ten comments, with a "Read more" link to show the rest of the context.
#8
That would be really great Bob, but only if these 10 (or whatever) comments were not 'subscribe' and/or '+1' messages. I like the summarized + 'read more...' link idea, but how do we filter useful comments? You know most people will not even look at the 'read more' link.
Anyways, my whole idea was (to a certain point) based on the same initial idea behind #1036132: Provide a mechanism for issue summaries but for comments. That issue has taken another way though -using the Flag module-. Perhaps the same module could be used to flag attachments. I don't know.
#9
Well, if there were some way to +1/subscribe without leaving a comment, that would solve the problem, wouldn't it?
#10
Yep, it would, but my point here:
...was that some comments are simply not worth being displayed (and I mean this in a nice way as in: 'They don't directly help the issue progress'). I was just using the extreme, most-hated case as an example. Consider the few dozens of 'How do I apply the patch in post #x?' messages or 'Dev version? I see no dev version in the downloads section?' + the few dozens 'Here's how/where' replies as another example if you wish. These will never go away.
I would love to see -for example- the fruits of #1036132: Provide a mechanism for issue summaries being shown and the rest of the messages filtered out in a 'read more...' link. But that's a thing to be addressed in that issue I guess. This one is about attachments.
If you take a look at the screenie attached in #5, you'll notice how attachments can be (optionally) marked as being obsolete by new ones. If this 'mechanism' is implemented for attachments (especially patches) in d.o, we'll also have a "patches/attachment summary" besides an issue summary. This summary would include only the latest patches/files and have a 'more...' or 'older versions...' link like issue summaries. Now, if this piece of info is gathered all in one place and is somehow placed near the issue summary(ies) one will be able to actually speed-read through an issue with ease.
PS: See? ...this talk made me come up with an even better title for this issue. Let's hope it makes it more 'attractive' too ;)
#11
Here's a screenshot that shows how obsolete files are hidden from view by default, but can still be toggled in view if one desires to see them:
#12
This is the direction we're moving in the D7 port of project_issue. See #1545922: Issue page redesign for more.