Flyspray - The bug killer!

When a Flyspray installation allows user self registration and has public but also more private projects, this feature could make the required configuration more clear:

In this case, keep the number of global user groups as low as possible and the global user group for basic or just registered users has only the ‘can login’ permission and nothing more.
Because that only would be useless for new registered users, adding them also to a basic user group of a public project could be useful.

So my suggestion is:

A new optional global setting: Something like ‘default project user group’ (store 2 values: a project_id and a group_id). Validity of that setting must be checked during any user registration, so that project must exists now and at later time as also that project user group within that project. (’Checks’ of admin prefs)

So it would be like this for a new registered userA:

1. userA is in a basic default global user group: only login permission to handle his account registration (login, logout, user preferences, password forgotten)
2. userA is in project X default user group: some basic permissions you want allow for every (new) registered user in project X
3. project Y: all ‘allow anyone ...’-settings are unchecked, userA not in any user group of project Y

The setting is probably best put below the ‘Default global group for new users’ setting in the global admin prefs tab #userregistration as

Either: A dropdown list with all public projects with an existing user group and dependend on the selection the available basic project groups are loaded by ajax as a select list too.

Or: Only one dropdown list that contains a list of public projects with possible project user groups. Would not require extra ajax calls and is maybe enough because we could exclude project groups that have project manager permission or such configuration nobody would allow new registered users.

no default project user group
public projectA - simple user groupA1
public projectA - simple user groupA2
public projectB - simple user groupB
public projectC - simple user groupC

This idea could be enhanced further (put the new user to multiple public projects when he registers or let user choose from public allowed projects during registration process), but lets start simple.

Currently the sessions are stored by the webservers default settings.

Having this sessions under control by Flyspray by storing it in the database has following advantages:

1. Allows handling of all sessions of a user by Flyspray.
2. Providing a session management for each user. The user can see on which devices he is currently logged in and could also force a logout on selective devices.
3. A forced logoff of all or some user sessions is easy implementable for admins.
4. Statistics about how many users and who is logged in. (user status: hide always, online, offline, do not disturb, ..)
5. Could make onpage-notifications easier to implement.
6. .. ?

Disadvantages:

1. A potential unknown security bug in Flyspray that could lead to reading a session db table could leak informations like who is currently online/active and make further attacks more focused or makes session takeover easier.
2. .. ?

Layouts from 320 pixel mobile portrait, tablet sizes and up to 4k monitor landscape mode using

@media queries

Mockups required not only for different sizes, but also different project configurations, user permissions, and task relations.

Should look ok whatever project configuration is done or how weird a task description is.

On wider screens the comments could be beside the task description for instance.
Or some tabs or menus could be shown directly instead of grouping in the tabs.

The shortcuts help infobox should adapt to the current page type.

So when in editing a task for instance, the n (next task) and p (previous task) shortcuts are not available for a good reason. Listing them there with same priority as other keys then is not helpful.

The simpliest solution is probably putting some if-statements depending on the $do variable into CleanFS/templates/shortcuts.tpl ..

Closing a task with selected close reason duplicate should warn when there is no comment or FS # id is given in the close comment text field.

The task is closed as duplicate without any further notice. The information to which task it is duplicate or a description (if the problem is logged/handled outside Flyspray) is lost.

Possible solutions

Frontend hints

Backend deny

So closing a task

FS#1

with

reason: duplicate

and close comment

FS#1

referencing to self should be detected to avoid such user mistakes.

no task description

Motivation

Proposal

When a user is deleted from Flyspray, their opened tasks, closed task and task comments are then shown as Anonymous Submitter, the same way as anonymous reporters (not really anonymous, just that user does not have login account, but usually their email address is stored within that task data).

Currently just the entry from users table are deleted when a user is deleted. Their internal user_id integer is still within tasks and comments fields, and maybe some other tables too. So there is not a ON DELETE SET NULL rule or something like that applied. As it is just an autoincremented number by the system, this is not personal data imho and should be no problem for GDPR, but gives Flyspray the ability to distinguish between anon reporters and deleted users. Well, we could also look if there is an email address within task table entry for notification of anonymous reporter, but there are also tasks possible that have no user_id nor an email address.

It might by useful to present that information differently like deleted user or showing the info differently like icon + title-tooltip with explanation.

Also interesting what happens with mentions of a deleted username in a comment or task description. (see FS#2322)

The user isn’t in database, but deleting that now gone user should not modify tasks or comment where that username was mentioned I think.
But what if another user registers under that now gone username? In that case that new user would inherit that mentions. Probably we can ignore that edge case as there will be not much things will happen with an old mention in old tasks/comments.

I played with adding a dark mode color theme to the default CleanFS theme.

To make the dark theme just simple exchange some colors, the bitmap icons should be replaced with alternatives.

Easiest would be using the fontawesome font icons as Flyspray still uses them and they can simply get a css color assigned.

Examples

Navigation and Forms

Editors

To fix some other open tasks, an update of the CKEditor4 files is probably the best way.

Starting with CKEditor4 ‘Basic’ preset, evaluate every additional Plugin before adding them to the config.

Because the selection of plugins starts with the ‘Basic’ preset, some configs are disabled in the resulting config.sys like the ‘Strike’ button or the Copy/Paste functionality.

I am also evaluating the possibilities to make some of the options configurable within the Flyspray configuration. It is probably required to analyze if a setting applies to only CKEditor syntax or would be also by used for installs using dokuwiki syntax/engine.

I can also imagine enable/disable features based on Flyspray user permissions. (but that requires not only CKEditor config, but also server side changes like HTMLpurifier settings.)

Languages

Theme selection

Plugins

Mentions

Auto Grow

Auto Link

Baloon Toolbar

Blockquote

Code Snippet

Format

Remove Format

Show Blocks

Source Editing Area

When a tasklist contains the duedate column and the user sorts by duedate ascending, the tasks that do not have a duedate set should not be listed first. Instead they should be listed after the tasks with duedates.

This way a user can see the task with the earliest duedate first instead of seeing a bunch of probably not so important tasks without duedates set.

I have been working with Eventum (http://www.mysql.org/downloads/other/eventum/) for quite sometime now and in contrast, I like Flyspray for its simplicity and practicality. But one thing I badly miss (and something that Eventum scores high) is a Workflow Engine. If not a sophisticated W.E., I (as an Admin / Manager) should be able define role-based state transition rules of the tasks reported in a particular project. For example, I should be able to implement the following scenario:

1. For a “Developer”, the subsequent tasks from various states. Likewise for other roles
2. “Developer” should not be able close out the bug reports. He/she can only flag them as implemented. The “Reporter” of the bugs or the “Manager” alone should be able to close out issues
3. ..
4. .. it will go on like that

This feature, in my opinion, is very crucial for corporate organizations to give a serious consideration to Flyspray.

Currently, the Vote functionality provides users a way to say "this issue is important to me". In addition to that functionality, it would be great for users to have a "Verify" ability on open issues; it would provide users a way to say "yes, this happens to me as well".

A "Verified" label would fit nicely right under "Votes", to the right of the label would be "Yes | No", each option being a link. After clicking Yes or No, or if unable to specify (lack of permissions), the text would display "Yes - # | No - # (% verification)" where '%' is the result of ((Yes/(Yes+No))*100).

This feature should not show up on all issues, though. It does not make sense to "verify" a feature request or todo item, for example. When defining task types, the administrator would specify if a type was "Verifiable" by checking a box in a column next to "Show".

If implemented, two great, mini extra features would be:

1. The ability for the administrator to set the number of "Yes" verifications an issue would need before it was elevated to the next priority, severity, or both (specified by the administrator).
2. The ability for the administrator to set the number of "No" verifications an issue would need before it was lowered to the previous priority, severity, or both (specified by the administrator).

Both settings should have an option to be incremental (priority / status increased every x verifications) or not (increases once, no matter how many verifications are received); an "Incremental" checkbox would do nicely. Also, a little "Enabled" checkbox next to both settings would be clearer than having zero act as the disable mechanism.

As with voting, a permission should exist to enable or disable this option for a user group. For larger projects, moderators tasked with verifying bugs could be given the permission whereas smaller projects may leave verifications up to the community.

Lastly, a way to send a notification once the number of "Yes" verifications reached a certain value would also be a great addition.

Flyspray should be able to render attached patches visually like, for example, Bugzilla: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/attachment.cgi?id=4807&action=diff

Allow individual users to define custom views of the task tables much like the project manager can for the entire project; only on a user scale.

An option for the user to "use default" project settings should be possible and should be the default.
Only pro users will change it to their needs, not the average reporter.

Interesting would be the possibility to change it dynamic on the tasklist view, not only on the myprofile setting page.

Open Question: Simple or complex implementation?

• Simple: A new varchar field for the user table like it is in the project table and provide the same field chooser like on project setting page.
• Complex: User settings for global tasklist view and each project. Needs extra 'project_user' (or 'user_project' ) join table. Well, maybe over engineered.

This information is already stored in the table "reminders" in field "last_sent". It might be helpful in some situations, if this date/time would be visible to the user on the reminder list, too.

In version 0.9.9.5.1 (unfortunately I couldn't select this version in the dropdown list on the left), reminders can only be created and edited by Admins and Project Managers. I recommend to give Assignees the permission to create reminders for themselves. To minimize any programming impact, his may be done as part of the "edit own tasks" permission.

This topic has been reported by Engie as part of Bug #713 for version 0.9.8 as well: "Also it would be useful if a user could create reminder for himself." Although that bug is already closed ("fixed in devel"), this part is not yet solved in the current version.

I would like the feature to have a sitemap.xml file be generated, say every xx days, set in the configuration.

In the advanced search, there is "Tasks not blocking other tasks"

Implement a related: "Unblocked tasks" (i.e. Tasks not blocked by other tasks)

the installer does not check for reserved characters when writing to flyspray.conf.php, causing parse_ini_file() to return an invalid database password.

I would love a option to allow anom users to write comments! Maybe with CAPCHA...
I allow anom users to report bugs, but when I have a question to this bug, or the reporter wants to make a additions, he has to register...

I tried hacking it in the core: In the class.user.php at the end of the get_perms method I added:
$this→perms[$proj_id]['add_comments'] = 1;

But I has nothing changed. The I removed the check if the user had the right to make a comment in the template file, now I have a comment field for everyone, but anom user get a error message saying, that they should enter a comment... I searched a lot in the core files, but I don´t find the point where the comment a written in the database... I would a great help if you could give at least a hint :)

Another thing i tried was changing the user contructor, that every user with a negative ID get the ID 2, witch is a special "anom" user. But then you could not log out, a the admin not in...

Here the link to my site: bugs.thekingdomofdarkness.de

For a combination of archiving / "notify bot" reasons I have found it useful to have a single global notification address where all bug reports / updates / comments go.

In the past I've used this to automatically dump updates into a IRC / Jabber chat room as well as provide a way for a project manager (me) to keep an idea of the amount of activity. Please let me know if you have questions about this.

Forms should be submittable by using keyboard shortcuts.
S for submit.
Set-able via the accesskey attribute on HTML inputs.

Hi there,

I was looking for some issue management tool for the company I work for and Flyspray turned out to be almost perfect solution. I installed it easily and it works GREAT!
As I said, this turned out to be almost perfect solution, and this is because it lacks some features that my company needs.

• Due Date with Hour/Minute part - to choose till what time during that day should task be done (ie. 27-12-2012, 17:27)
• FS#2064
• FS#1962

Away with needs of my company, I believe that these features will make Flyspray very interesting and more suitable for many small/medium companies.

Best regards,

Milan Vlajnic