283667 - Highlight row in buglist on mouse-over to make it easier to read across rows

Status: REOPENED

(Bugzilla :: User Interface, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Sujee Maniyam]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041107 Firefox/1.0

When a query result is displayed, if the full row is high lighted during mouse
over, it would make it much easier reading a rather long buglist.

I am sure this can be done via CSS at individual intallations.  But would be
nice to be a feature in basic bugzilla as a configurable user option

example site:
 
http://phpmyadmin.sourceforge.net/phpMyAdmin/tbl_properties_structure.php?lang=en-iso-8859-1&server=1&db=phpmyadmin&table=nuke_auction_doneitems

move the mosue over the database row

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

What version are you using currently?  We have odd/even row highlighting
currently, is that sufficient?

That said, this would be easy to do by adding copies of the bz_odd and bz_even
classes with :hover selectors.

Comment 2

[Sujee Maniyam]

I am using KDE bugzilla (http://bugs.kde.org).  Not quite sure about thier
bugzilla version though.  Yes they do highlight alternating rows.  But when
ploughing through 300+  bugs in a page
(http://bugs.kde.org/buglist.cgi?cmdtype=runnamed&namedcmd=amorak), it just
does't quite cut it :-)

I still think, high lighing the full row during mouse over, would go a long way
in usability area.

Comment 3

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

I agree, I think this would be a nice and useful enhancement, even if we just
implement it using :hover (so only Mozilla/Safari users see it).

Comment 4

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

If we did this, we should make it possible for you to go to the bug report by
clicking anywhere in the row.  Highlighting of sections of a page is strongly
associated with linking in many users' minds, and it'll be frustrating for users
not to be able to click a row after highlighting it to go to the bug report.

Comment 5

[Sujee Maniyam]

I like the behavior of the sample site in <a href="#c0">Description </a>.  The
row is highlighted as mouse enters.  But there a multiple clickable 'hotspots'
in a row.  The mouse pointer changes (to a 'clicky') accordingly when it is over
a clickable link.

So I don't think users want to go to the bug by clicking any where on the row.

Comment 6

[Jacob Steenhagen]

Red Hat does this with their version of Bugzilla in addition to the slight
variation in the even/odd rows.

https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?component=udev&resolution=---&cmdtype=doit

Comment 7

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to comment #6)
> Red Hat does this with their version of Bugzilla in addition to the slight
> variation in the even/odd rows.
>
>https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?component=udev&resolution=---&cmdtype=doit

exactly. very nice.

Comment 8

[Jason Spiro]

Attachment: The JavaScript Red Hat uses in their Bugzilla to get this functionality

Perhaps we can copy Red Hat's JavaScript?

Their table row headers look like this:

<tr class="bz_high bz_high bz_ASSIGNED  bz_even" onMouseOver="bug_over(this, 0);" onMouseOut="bug_out(this, 0);">

bug_over and bug_out are defined in the ten-line file https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/js/functions.js - I have attached a copy of the file.

Comment 9

[Frédéric Buclin]

(In reply to comment #4)
> If we did this, we should make it possible for you to go to the bug report by
> clicking anywhere in the row.  Highlighting of sections of a page is strongly
> associated with linking in many users' minds, and it'll be frustrating for users
> not to be able to click a row after highlighting it to go to the bug report.

Personally, I don't like this behavior. I suppose this won't let you select any text in the bug list anymore.

Comment 10

[Frédéric Buclin]

Also, note that making the whole row clickable break mass-change as clicking a checkbox redirects you to this bug.

Comment 11

[victory <[e-mail]>]

Attachment: patch for tip, tr.bz_bugitem:hover

Comment 12

[Frédéric Buclin]

Comment on attachment 251356 [details] [diff] [review]
patch for tip, tr.bz_bugitem:hover

>+tr.bz_bugitem:hover{
>+  background: #ccffcc;
>+}

Nit: I would prefer to see background-color instead of background alone.

Looks good (except the missing whitespace after :hover) and works fine. r=LpSolit

Comment 13

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

(In reply to comment #9)
> (In reply to comment #4)
> > If we did this, we should make it possible for you to go to the bug report 
> > by clicking anywhere in the row.  Highlighting of sections of a page is 
> > strongly associated with linking in many users' minds, and it'll be 
> > frustrating for users not to be able to click a row after highlighting it 
> > to go to the bug report.
> 
> Personally, I don't like this behavior. I suppose this won't let you select 
> any text in the bug list anymore.

It should be possible to make both selection and linking work, if not with an anchor tag, then via an onclick handler for the row that takes you to the bug.


(In reply to comment #10)
> Also, note that making the whole row clickable break mass-change as clicking
> a checkbox redirects you to this bug.

Which just means we'd need to make the whole row except that checkbox clickable.


Frankly, I don't understand the usability win for this hover effect.  It doesn't help me scroll through a list.  In fact it slows me down, since it requires me to move the mouse in synchrony with my eyes as I scan down the list, and it creates distracting movement on screen in the meantime.

I guess I could use it to highlight a specific row so that I can return to it more easily after glancing elsewhere, but selecting the row accomplishes that goal, and it doesn't require me to keep my mouse still.  Selection also allows me to highlight multiple rows.

The effect would probably make it easier to count the number of items in a bug list if each row in the list were uniform in appearance, but no bug list I've ever encountered is uniform in appearance (at least the summaries are very different), and I never need to count rows anyway, since every bug list page displays the number of rows in the list.

So I see no discernable benefit to this enhancement.

Comment 14

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

Err, sorry, this is targeted to 3.2, not 3.0, so rescinding approval until the tree reopens for 3.2 fixes.

Comment 15

[Frédéric Buclin]

(In reply to comment #13)
> Frankly, I don't understand the usability win for this hover effect.
> So I see no discernable benefit to this enhancement.

In this case, close this bug as wontfix, and deny approval.

Comment 16

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

i don't understand why visibly or technical why https://bugzilla.redhat.com/bugzilla/buglist.cgi?component=udev&resolution=---&cmdtype=doit is bad - it helps me. (Although it would be better if the moused over row stayed highlighted when you tab away and tab back)


>So I see no discernable benefit to this enhancement.

do you mean the bug's request, or the patch's implementation?

One usability aspects of highlighting a row in a long list of bugs is simple - it makes it easier to read across rows, not just the highlighted row but the one above and below. 

Analogy: Is it bad to highlight the currently selected mail message in a list of messages? I don't think so, rather it enhances usability.  A bug list isn't quite the same, but there are similarities, no?

Comment 17

[Dave Miller [:justdave]]

I don't think it's enough the same to make a huge usability win.  I'd be rather disappointed to lose the ability to select text out of a buglist, for example.

Comment 18

[Frédéric Buclin]

I played with this patch for several days, and I agree with myk, it's more distracting than helpful. I will leave this bug open for now but don't be surprised if we finally decide to mark it as WONTFIX. The current patch doesn't satisfy us (approvers) as is, so marking a- till someone can come with a better fix.

And for those who wonder, my r+ in comment 12 is about the technical aspect of the patch only, not about its usefulness.

Comment 19

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

(In reply to comment #16)
> i don't understand why visibly or technical why [list with hover highlight]
> is bad

I don't see a technical reason why it's bad either, but I do note at least one usability cost, which I mention in comment 13.


> it helps me.

How does it help you?


> >So I see no discernable benefit to this enhancement.
> 
> do you mean the bug's request, or the patch's implementation?

I mean the bug's request.


> One usability aspects of highlighting a row in a long list of bugs is simple -
> it makes it easier to read across rows, not just the highlighted row but the
> one above and below. 

Sure, I agree that it's good to make it easier to read across rows.  But we already have a feature for accomplishing this goal: we alternate the background color for rows in the bug list.  Is this feature insufficient?


> Analogy: Is it bad to highlight the currently selected mail message in a list
> of messages? I don't think so, rather it enhances usability.  A bug list isn't
> quite the same, but there are similarities, no?

I don't think these represent similar situations.  Specifically, the currently-selected mail message is selected, not hovered, which means that its state does not depend on the position of the mouse pointer, and commands that affect messages apply to selected messages but not hovered ones.

Also, multiple messages can be selected at once, and the selection highlighting serves the purpose of distinguishing the selected messages from non-selected messages, not to help you "read across" the information in the entries for selected messages.

Finally, when message lists are shown alongside (or above) a message display pane, the selection highlighting indicates what message is being displayed in the display pane.  Bug lists have no such display pane.

A better analogy would be to compare hover highlighting in the bug list with hover highlighting in a list of mail messages.  My mail client (Thunderbird) doesn't do hover highlighting.  Do others?

(In reply to comment #15)
> (In reply to comment #13)
> > Frankly, I don't understand the usability win for this hover effect.
> > So I see no discernable benefit to this enhancement.
> 
> In this case, close this bug as wontfix, and deny approval.

I don't think I'm involved enough in Bugzilla development these days to be making these decisions for the project.

Comment 20

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

Consensus is WONTFIX. Dusk already does this, BTW, it seems.

Comment 21

[Kohei Yoshino [:kohei]]

This can now be seen on GitHub. Will figure out if I want to solve this.

Comment 22

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

Dusk already does this

which is gone