240763 - Flags should use text labels instead of symbols

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 178852

(Bugzilla :: Attachments & Requests, defect)

Description

[Tim Powell]

The help page at http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/flag-help.html describes the
symbols used for flags. It would be clearer to just use the described text
labels in the UI instead of using the symbols. Showing ? + and - in the UI is
exposing an implementation detail and seems to confuse users. Fixing this bug
would likely make bug 180194 irrelevant.

I'd suggest a dropdown list with the following 4 entries:

requested
granted
denied

The first option (unset) is just a blank text string.

There may be some layout concerns. It looks like the column currently used for
the Requestee could be used for the name of the person who requested, approved,
or denied the flag. It doesn't appear that bugzilla keeps track of both the
requestee as well as the person who approved the request. Or if it does it isn't
shown in the UI.

So instead of this:
Flags (Help)                 Requestee:
asa:  	blocking1.7 [- [v]

You'd have this:
Flags (Help)                By:
blocking1.7  [denied [v]    asa

Comment 1

[Tim Powell]

It appears that you can use the query page to find bugs with particular flag
values, such as search for Flag = blocking1.7? to find the bugs that are
requesting blocking1.7. I'm assuming review, superreview, and approval for
attachments are special cases of the more global flags I was talking about. The
combination of the flag name with its state somewhat surprised me. I expected to
search by both flag name and flag value. It doesn't necessarily impact this bug,
but after it is fixed it might be good to support searching for Flag =
blocking1.7requested as well.

Comment 2

[Frédéric Buclin]

This is from bug 178852:
"I'd suggest abandoning -/+ and using 'granted' and 'rejected'."

This is exactly what you ask here...


*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 178852 ***