CVS messages view is a maze of twisty passages

You need to look at the CVS repository itself. Some projects don't add that link, which is annoying. :-) But you can find the entire repo online at http://cvs.drupal.org/viewvc.py/drupal/. For a particular module you need http://cvs.drupal.org/viewvc.py/drupal/contributions/modules/MODULENAME

Or click on the revision number in the cvs messages view (the 1.1.2.5 in the example).

I got your point, but it is without merit.

The file you selected is basically the same information, but for some files it is a bit more interesting ( http://drupal.org/cvs?file=/modules/views/views.module for example).

If you have ideas on how to improve this interface please do share. Complaining that it's not interesting is...not interesting.

Whether it is almost the same thing or not depends on your project. If your project has 4-5 or 24 files, limiting the commits to one file filters out commit to the rest 3-4 or 23 files.

To be fair, I agree with joachim. I think clicking on the filename should take you to the CVS repository view for that file, not the commits view for that file. That transition is confusing and makes little sense, and it is not consistent with the other 2 clicks.

Actually I take it back; it is consistent with the branch click. That said, it seems like going to the CVS repository is more what I've always expected. Maybe it just needs an additional link to go to the file in CVS instead.

I am re-opening this since I disagree and I think there is some merit here; I remember being very confused by this as a new developer.

Fair enough, but let's categorize properly.

To fix in the current code it would be cvslog module. That's (hopefully) dead with the d6 ugprade so I will make it a feature against the future replacement of cvslog: version control API...

Fair enough, but Commit Log of Version Control API already tries its best to provide interesting links. It links the file name to the log view (*), the revision identifier to the file contents, and adds the diff view (which cvslog uses on the revision identifier) as additional link if its location is known.

(*) If the admin has set a log view URL of the repository viewer than that one is used, otherwise it falls back to the built-in log view like cvslog does.

I would indeed prefer to provide separate mini icons for the log and diff views, and have the file name including revision identifier always link to the file contents. But frankly, that is minor tweaking on stuff that already works well. I believe Commit Log does a "good enough" job on that matter today, and that this issue would not have been opened on Commit Log in the first place. (I disliked cvslog's link behavior as well, for the record.)

Reassigning to cvslog where it belongs. You may choose to close it as "won't fix" if no such adaptations are going into cvslog anymore, but Version Control API / Commit Log is clearly the wrong place for this issue. (It's also not clear how long it will take to get it running on drupal.org, without further help this might still take some time, and cvslog will at least survive the initial D6 port.)

Nope, *that* particular route is straightforward. There's a "Browse the CVS repository" link directly on the project page which does exactly that, unless the project maintainer was lazy. (It might make sense to hardcode this for d.o project, but then it might not as we can't tell if the repository isn't hosted somewhere outside.)

@joachim: If that's what it boils down to, the answer is here: #156118: Automatically generate the value of 'Link to webcvs/viewcvs' field for a project

Project maintainers that know what they're doing fill in this link on their own project nodes, for example:

http://drupal.org/project/signup

There's a Browse the CVS repository link directly on that page, under the "Development" heading.

So, if your request is about making that link always present instead of giving project maintainers control over it, I'm all in favor.