305866 - Use crontab format for whining schedule entry?

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Bugzilla :: Whining, enhancement)

Description

[A. Karl Kornel]

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Build Identifier: 

Currently whining schedules use two drop-down menus to specify exactly when a whine should be 
executed.  However, those two drop-down menus do not allow for all possible combinations.  For 
example, see bug 277688.  I would imagine more requests of this type appearing as more people begin 
to use the whining system.

Rather than expand the drop-down menus with more and more items, I would like to propose an 
alternative entry system, where users simply type in a crontab line, which will be stored and parsed 
regularly to determine the next run time (this can be done relatively easily using DateTime and 
DateTime::Event::Cron).

However, I propose one modification of the crontab format: Whenever the 
string "last" appears, it is replaced with the last day of the current month.  I also suggest one 
restriction: Ensure that schedules will not run more than once every 15 minutes (as it is now).

So, I have 2 questions.  First, is this a good idea?  Second, should this be the only form of entry, or 
should be an "advanced" entry form (with the current drop-down menus staying for newbies)?  
Comments welcome!

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:

Comment 1

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

No, crontab format is confusing, and our current format is simple and
easy-to-understand.

Do you have a real-world example of a useful query that could not be run using
the current timing system?

Comment 2

[A. Karl Kornel]

Example 1: 

I want to get a daily report of all bugs changed.
(In reply to comment #1)
> No, crontab format is confusing, and our current format is simple and
> easy-to-understand.

Which is why I refer to it as an alternative entry system.

> Do you have a real-world example of a useful query that could not be run using
> the current timing system?

I like to receive a list of all newly-entered bugs, so that I can triage them
ASAP.  Whining is good for this because I do not want to actually run the search
in my browser, to do so would mean losing the results of my other saved search.

Setting up the saved search is easy enough.  Setting up the schedule is harder.
 I want it to run every 2 hours during business hours (M-F 9-5).  The M-F part
is already encoded, and the whine.pl script can handle every 120 minutes, so
only a simple template change is needed to add the "every 2 hours" option.  The
problem comes with the 9-5 part, which can not be done right now.  Another
problem also arises if M-F are not working days for me.  Both problems could be
solved using a crontab-style entry.

Comment 3

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

I think those problems could be solved with additional simple UI, without adding
a new module dependency to Bugzilla, and without having to use crontab format.

Also, there would be better ways of being notified of all new bugs, such as
having an email preference. (Something I'd like to see.)

Comment 4

[A. Karl Kornel]

If anyone is interested in reopening this, feel free!