342396 - It should be possible to specify default requestee for flags

Status: NEW

(Bugzilla :: Attachments & Requests, enhancement, P5)

Description

[timeless]

it should be possible for me to define a flag such that when a bug is filed a certain value is remembered as the default requestee for a flag.

possible values for flags should be:
0. none (default, equivalent to current behavior)
1. arbitrary user
2. reporter
3. original-qa
4. original-assignee
5. default-qa
6. default-assignee
7. current-qa
8. current-assignee
9. component-qa
10. component-assignee

example, imagine the flag's name is NEEDINFO with a default value of "reporter"
when a bug is filed and viewed, it would show up as:

Reported by: [e-mail]
Flags:
needinfo: [ |v] ([e-mail]) <- this has default requestee of reporter
approved: [ |v]              <- this is not specifically requestable
review:   [ |v] (          ) <- this has default requestee of none

--
an explanation of the prefixes:
original- this is picked and retained at the time of filing
default- this is picked and retained at the time of filing based on the component values (ignoring the actual assignee/qa that is specified by the reporter)
current- this is free floating based on the current values of these fields in the bug
component- this is free floating based on the current values of these fields in the component

Note that I don't need all these values today, so if only some are implemented, that's ok.

--
A secondary feature, which is necessary for reporter but can be useful for the others is the ability to change the default value of a specifically requestable field per bug.

In my example, this would be done by loading the bug:
Reported by: [e-mail]
Flags:
needinfo: [ |v] ([e-mail]) <- this has default requestee of reporter
approved: [ |v]              <- this is not specifically requestable
review:   [ |v] (          ) <- this has default requestee of none

and changing the flag to:
needinfo: [ |v] ([e-mail]) <- i'm not setting the needinfo flag, just updating its default value.
approved: [ |v]              <- i'm not setting the approved flag either
review:   [?|v] ([e-mail]) <- i'm setting review? just to show that I can, but this does not change the default value for this flag. to change the default value you have to leave the flag set to empty.

Anyway, for reference, I'll include a transcript from irc.

* timely sighs
someone here wants the possibility to change the reporter - i filed bug 94247 years ago. actually, they really want something that's different than a reporter field; they want a "responsible contact" field. imagine that a default bugzilla shipped w/ a "needinfo" flag which was specifically requestable. but unlike your normal flags, which default to (empty) requestee. the needinfo flag would default to the reporter. so if i need more info from the reporter, i'd just set the flag to ?, and it'd have defaulted to bugging the reporter. now, if the reporter dies or whatever, i could change the default needinfo person by simply changing the needinfo [ |v] ([e-mail]) field to a new value w/o setting needinfo?

personally i'd rather see 243198 implemented, it's considerably more useful
than what they want. but, at least, this would work for the stupid problem case

LpSolit worries the reporter might not care about this needinfo flag, but in this case, there's a company and people who have the ability to really nag.

LpSolit thinks this needinfo flag is nothing more than a normal flag (and it is). I'm not saying this needinfo is particularly special.

it only has 2 interesting bits:
1. a default requestee at creation
2. the ability to change and persist that default value without actually setting th flag to ?

LpSolit, I like the default value at creation :). this should be a new field in editflagtypes.cgi

Of course this would only be a default, if a user enters a requestee, it should override the default requestee.

to be clear to people, the default value would be visible, if someone wants to pick some other value, they have to replace it.

LpSolit notes that this would mean a new column in the flagtypes table.

LpSolit asked if this would be close to the actual CC list flag types have. but guys in this field would get the request, that's what you want, no?

But it isn't. end users have no control over those, and no visibility into them.
not precisely; it's just a default value. the cc list is a generic curteousy copy that's hard coded per flag. if someone marks needinfo (randomguy), i don't want the reporter to be nagged.

LpSolit asked if what I want is to be able to specify either "[e-mail]" as the default requestee or "%reporter%" or %assignee% or %qa_contact%.

As I wrote above, it's a slightly longer list, but yes.

Comment 1

[Max Kanat-Alexander]

I have very little time to read a *lot* of bug reports that get filed each day. I *do* try to read them all, but if you could make a two-sentence summary of this one, I'd really appreciate it.

From the summary, I'd say that we'd never implement the feature because it's unnecessary complexity.

Comment 2

[Frédéric Buclin]

One bug = one request, not ten at once!

The only thing I could accept is the default requestee feature, who can be set from editflagtypes.cgi. I still think it may be close enough to the CC list of the flagtype to not worth the implementation, though. Not marking it as WONTFIX for now, but I may change my mind in the future.