275757 - Turning on help loses entered info

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Bugzilla :: Query/Bug List, defect, P1)

Description

[alanjstr]

If you're working on the form and you've entered data, suddenly realizing you
need help, clicking the link to turn on help popups will reload the page and you
lose your stuff.

Suggestions:
1) Put a little question mark (or image with alt of a ?) to the right of each
field that can be hovered over to show help.
2) Pass all info to the query form like you do for Edit Query.
3) Turning on help could just add a listener for onmouseover instead of
reloading the page.  

I prefer the first solution, since it is much easier to only show help for those
you want help with.  This could always be there and not require someone to click
a link in the first place.  It would also make bug 275756 moot.

Comment 1

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

It was originally decided to have it reload the page because the help
information was fairly verbose and would make the page significantly larger to
load if it was included.  (This isn't really noticible unless you're on dialup,
but then, boy is it every noticible! :)

Comment 2

[alanjstr]

4) A combination of 1 and 2.  You turn them on, but they don't appear unless you
specifically hit the little more-info mark.  

Comment 3

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

Reassigning bugs that I'm not actively working on to the default component owner
in order to try to make some sanity out of my personal buglist.  This doesn't
mean the bug isn't being dealt with, just that I'm not the one doing it.  If you
are dealing with this bug, please assign it to yourself.

Comment 4

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

I think the average user's connection is good enough nowadays that it should be fine to load the JS always and just have the link enable stuff without reloading the page.

This feature came up in pyrzak's students' research:

"If information is entered into the Advanced search page, and then the “Give me some help” button is clicked. The page refreshes and loads a pop‐up help feature. Unfortunately this removes all entered fields.

"This feature allows for a high level of help for the advanced search page.  It also gives a warning that the page will reload. It does not warn you that your entered data will be discarded.

"While Frequency and Persistence [of this problem] are on the low end, this 
problem has a very high impact on new users. Frustrations while using Bugzilla for the first time will quickly lead them to seek other sources for bug tracking, or abandon the project entirely."

Comment 5

[Guy Pyrzak]

(In reply to comment #1)
> It was originally decided to have it reload the page because the help
> information was fairly verbose and would make the page significantly larger to
> load if it was included.  (This isn't really noticible unless you're on dialup,
> but then, boy is it every noticible! :)

So right now the help is about 4kb which compared to the size of the page 195kb is almost insignificant. So maybe we just include the help and the link just sets a "turn it on" flag?

Comment 6

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

No longer relevant, since this help system is gone from 4.0.