1157968 - Directory listings should extract <title> and summaries from documentation comments like MXR

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Webtools Graveyard :: DXR, defect)

Description

[Matthew N. [:MattN]]

MXR extracts metadata about files to display in the "description" column of directory listings to provide more information about a file. This is useful especially for test files to figure out which file one should add a test case to since people try to keep file names shorter and there was a bad habit of file names like "test_bug798843_pref.html". That name isn't useful for skimming initially but the description shown in MXR helps a lot: "Test that SVG glyph context-* values can be pref'ed off"

Off hand I think that MXR extracts from <title> and from doc-comments.

Comment 2

[Peter Elmers [:new_one]]

Useful information from bug 1177125:

"For directories that contain a file called README/README.txt the description is taken from the first non-empty line in that file.

For files that begin with a Doxygen style comment the description is taken from the first line of that comment."

Comment 3

[Peter Elmers [:new_one]]

Digging deeper, it looks like MXR's implementation is governed by two routines.
fdescexpand (https://mxr.mozilla.org/webtools-central/source/mxr/Local.pm#27) pulls descriptions out of files.

descexpand (https://mxr.mozilla.org/webtools-central/source/mxr/Local.pm#251) describes folders in listings.

Comment 4

[Peter Elmers [:new_one]]

Attachment: pull #561

https://github.com/mozilla/dxr/pull/561

Comment 5

[[github robot]]

Commit pushed to master at https://github.com/mozilla/dxr

https://github.com/mozilla/dxr/commit/adc8428520efe88e4385f5a426fb3c272916387b
Add a descriptor plugin that emulates MXR's descriptor column.

Also add some framework for plugins to supply needles on folders and
adding headers to the browsing view.

Fixes bug 1157968.