12284 - let me specify which columns to display in a bug list

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Bugzilla :: Query/Bug List, enhancement, P2)

Description

[Matthew Tuck [:CodeMachine]]

It would be nice if you could specify the initial columns on the query screen.
I've seen that change columns seems to be permanent regardless of query, this in
my experience is not what I want.  I think it would be better to put this in the
URL and allow it to be specified.

This would allow you to store or bookmark which columns you wanted to appear in
a particular query.  I think the notion of a default set of columns can already
be handled be the default query mechanism.

Comment 1

[Terry Weissman]

[e-mail] is the new owner of Bugzilla and Bonsai.  (For details,
see my posting in netscape.public.mozilla.webtools,
news://news.mozilla.org/38F5D90D.F40E8C1A%40geocast.com .)

Comment 2

[Matthew Tuck [:CodeMachine]]

*** Bug 51097 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 3

[Stephan Niemz]

Adding default QA contact to all open Webtools/Bugzilla bugs lacking one.
Sorry for the spam.

Comment 4

[Matthew Tuck [:CodeMachine]]

Moving to new Bugzilla product ...

Comment 5

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Taking. This shouldn't be hard.

Comment 6

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Attachment: diff -u buglist.cgi: use $::FORM{'columnlist'} if defined

Comment 7

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Attachment: same as above, but as diff -wu (for review only)

Comment 8

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

This is basically a two-liner. Ok, it's just the backend, no UI yet, but I think
the UI can be added later, in a second step. The backend alone is already
useful, e.g. to embed queries in other html pages.

Comment 9

[Matthew Tuck [:CodeMachine]]

I disagree about the UI.  HTML often requires you do that back-end in a specific
way.  We should decide whether the back end matches what we would like so we
won't have to change it later, resulting in backwards compatability cruft.

Do we want a checkbox to say "use last set of columns", and ignore the parameter
otherwise?  Or do we want no specified columns to mean that?

The former is properly more user-friendly while the latter matches the code that
is here.

Comment 10

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Attachment: patch to buglist.cgi, v.2 (supports multiple "col" args)

Comment 11

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Attachment: same as above, but as diff -uw (for review only)

Comment 12

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Attachment: patch to query.cgi, v.2: colchange.cgi w/ multiline <SELECT>

Comment 13

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Attachment: HTML page generated by query.cgi with no args

Comment 14

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

I don't think backwards compatibility cruft would be a problem. You can easily
support multiple different ways to pass the columnlist information to
buglist.cgi. Even if we choose to use a different way on query.cgi, it is still
convenient to have support for a "columnlist" string: e.g. when you put a query
link in you html page, you can simply add &columnlist= and copy your COLUMNLIST
cookie value (ok, you have to change spaces to +).

Anyway, feel free to propose and implement a better UI. One alternative would be
to use checkboxes, e.g. with names "column_$i" as in colchange.cgi .

Another thing to think of is whether the user should be allowed to specify the
the of the columns. For this, we could offer multiple selectboxes, each offering
all possible columns.

However, the best UI I can think of is the following (but I can already hear you
cries): Use a long text field for the user to specify the columnlist, and offer
two select boxes to add and remove columns through JavaScript (like Myk's patch
in bug 80169 "[RFE] JavaScript-enhanced keyword editing", attachment 38530 [details] [diff] [review]; you
can test this on http://bugzilla.mathweb.org/show_bug.cgi?id=76 ).

Comment 15

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

... to specify the _order_ of the columns ...

Comment 16

[Matthew Tuck [:CodeMachine]]

*** Bug 99660 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 17

[Bradley Baetz (:bbaetz)]

*** Bug 101173 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 18

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

This might be rolled in to mpt and kiko's new query.cgi interface.

Gerv

Comment 19

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Attachment: minimum patch to support columnlist parameter in url

Comment 20

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

This patch is the same as the very first one (attachment 48713 [details] [diff] [review]), except that it
uses /[ ,]+/ instead of / / to split the columnlist value into parts. It is a
robust, minimal patch to support a columnlist parameter in the url.
This is essentially a two-liner, so it won't create any problems with backwards
compatibility, should we ever decide to support other ways of specifying which
columns to display.
Please review and checkin asap. If someone rewrites bugzilla, this is ok with
me, but it shouldn't hold up this simple fix.

Comment 21

[Gervase Markham [:gerv]]

That should be if ... elsif... else rather than if ... else { if ... else }..
Change that, and you have r=gerv.

Gerv

Comment 22

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Attachment: robust minimal patch, v.3 (using "elsif")

Comment 23

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Comment on attachment 52930 [details] [diff] [review]
robust minimal patch, v.3 (using "elsif")

Recording r=gerv.

Comment 24

[Christian Reis]

Andreas, Gerv: I'm unsure of how this bug should be solved. I mean, the
patch looks good and all, but AFAICT this will leave us with no UI to
access the parameterlist.

My proposal: we file a bug _specifically_ for adding this UI capability
, make the query.cgi redesign bug 98707 depend on that bug, and make
this bug block on that one. That way I won't forget it nor will we lose
track of what started it all.

bug 98707 query.cgi -> new bug -> this bug 12284

If that is done, r=kiko and check this in. I would file the bugs but I
don't really know what is involved.

Comment 25

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Attachment: UI patch to colchange.cgi (very rough, not for check-in!)

Comment 26

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

kiko: If you need a bug for a UI in query.cgi, feel free to file one. Otherwise
we can use this bug for it.

I have attached an example patch that lets you restrict the columnlist in
colchange.cgi, but without changing the cookie. I'm not sure whether this
already counts as having a UI available, but it demonstrates that the patch to
buglist.cgi is actually useful.

Comment 27

[Christian Reis]

Comment on attachment 52930 [details] [diff] [review]
robust minimal patch, v.3 (using "elsif")

r=kiko
Please file a new bug for the UI please, and we'll take it from there.

Comment 28

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

Filed bug 105110 for the UI.

Comment 29

[Andreas Franke (gone)]

-> default owner. (Pulling myself out.)

Comment 30

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

-> patch author

Comment 31

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

checked in.

/cvsroot/mozilla/webtools/bugzilla/buglist.cgi,v  <--  buglist.cgi
new revision: 1.154; previous revision: 1.153