Flyspray - The bug killer!

It should be made clear to the user what related links are in the
"new task" and "edit task" form and what a user should input in these fields.

Currently only a small portion of adjustements on a task is available in the “edit task” view.

To add or modify stuff in the current tab sections (comments, related tasks, notifications, effort tracking,..)
a user must go from edit task to view task page.

This not optimal for work flow.

To solve this quite much changes are needed. Because currently they are different http requests each with its own checks and request anwsers.

If effort tracking started by a user on a task, maybe we should add a small widget on the page, so
user sees which tasks are currently running as his own time tracking.

Currently the appearence of the task list table is configured system wide for all project view and project wide for project task list views.

Even more fancy and for power users would be if the user can set his own project column list view preferences for projects.

While the project columns for the task list are configured by "visible_columns"
we could use the project wide "visible_fields" as allowed columns the user may configure as his personal preference. If the user doesn't configure his own list, the project default list is used. The user should have the option to reset to project default. (e.g. empty personal "visible_fields" )

In this case the description for setting "visible_fields" on the project management configuration page must be adapted too.

Probably a new table required something like:

CREATE TABLE {user_projects} (
user_id int,
project_id,
columns varchar(255) DEFAULT '',
);

or

CREATE TABLE {user_projects} (
user_id int,
project_id,
columns varchar(32) DEFAULT NULL,
sort int,
);

Keyboard navigation is not documented

grep -r 'accesskey' *

Some project and user settings should be able to set back to its default or 'auto' option.

• flyspray or project wide task list length, currently hard coded to 250
• user tasks_perpage setting
• user notifytype
• user timezone
• user language (system/project and auto (browser detection) selectable)
• ...

There are 5 possible cases that IMHO should be handled more user friendly:

1. There is no cronjob for the reminder (schedule.php) setup → Reminders are never sent
2. Reminding is disabled in the global settings → Reminders are never sent
3. Reminder setting 'email' only → Reminders are only sent to users who set their notification setting to 'email' or 'both' and setup an email address
4. Reminder setting 'jabber' only → Reminders are only sent to users who set their notification setting to 'jabber' or 'both' and setup a jabber address
5. Project notification setting not set → ??? (research...)

• If notification is disabled (1. or 2.), the notification tab on 'task details page' should adapt to that I think. (by css style or message or tooltip)
• If notification is restricted to only one notification channel, the current user should be informed on notification tab on 'task details page' if he would receive notifications with his current notification settings.

The Flyspray Manual ( http://www.flyspray.org/manual/ ) does not even hint of it, and as long as i am not logged in there's no indication anywhere in the interface that i would eventually get to do it after i manage to log-in.

In fact, i've come here to learn how to use your software, considering the fact that the site where it was deployed did not provide much help. And after i logged in into that site ( http://www.uzbl.org/bugs/ ) i still don't see any "add new task" option. That's IMO a discover-ability fail, and it originates in your own design: disabled features should not be hidden, lest users think you didn't bother to code such features. Also, you say i shouldn't report bugs against versions earlier than 0.9.9.7, but how do i know which version of Flyspray are they using?

This could be done by a textarea field (like comment text or task description) on the myprofile page and stored in a new field (of type text for instance) in the user table.

This allows the user to introduce himself to the other users.

Should be restrictive, for instance only simple text allowed, no html or tags.

On the user page

/index.php?do=user&area=users&id=*
or
/index.php?do=user&area=users&id=*&project=1
or
/index.php?do=user&area=users&id=*&switch=1 (project switch select)

an info could be shown how many votes a user has given.

Maybe show the tasks on mouse hover (:hover) if permission to view them exists.

Needs to be considered:

• Show count only for current project or all projects? (project param is optional on user page)
• counts of hidden, closed or restricted projects (user permission)
• How to handle votes of private tasks?
• Show votes of closed tasks too? (votes on closed tasks should don’t count for max votes per project)
• When personal “max votes per project” (open tasks) is active, this is of more value.

One of my task has 8.9166666666667 days left. This is very very very very accurate !

A rounding would look better !

Running Alpha2 now, Cannot use this on 'reported version' here on this site

Edit: Rounding is adhoc fixed on 2015-06-21 in dev in template file, but code should IMHO be centralized, not template, see comments

Thomasz wrote:
The other thing that I cannot find how to make the text to be visible in the whole column (as with the summary I get the ... at some point of the text).

The root of this is found in scripts/index.php in function tpl_draw_cell():

case 'summary':
            $value = tpl_tasklink($task, utf8_substr($task['item_summary'], 0, 55));
            if (utf8_strlen($task['item_summary']) > 55) {
                $value .= '...';
            }
            break;

We live in a world now, where the view port ranges from 320 pixel width mobile screens up to 4k+ wide tv screens, the amount of columns is configurable from minimal to all available fields of a task. We currently let the browser automatic decide how wide he renders each column depending on table content and available window size.

Well, that ellipsis problem can be handled at different levels:

• motivate the task creators to use short task summary if possible (e.g. show a hint/tooltip when typing the summary gets over a limit, in our case the hardcoded limit is 55. ). Short task topic/summaries are easier to read/scan for the users.
• replace the hard ellipsis by a pure css solution, that adapts to users browserwindow size/space in in the columns for summary
• drop the ellipsis thing complete, task summary always shown full length, table rows adapt in height automatically.

Possible CSS solution:

• text-overflow now works in all big browsers. For instance see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2108740/how-do-i-indicate-long-text-into-a-smaller-fixed-column-with-css
• Combined with :hover on the shortened summary the full summary can be shown without the list table starting to flicker/resize.

If a project has no versions defined yet and there are also no 'global' versions defined,
there is not need for displaying the version selects.

Same for categories. If no categories in project and no global categories then no need for displaying a cat select.

Maybe a tooltip/hint in the extended search form to inform the user that the fields were hidden for that reason.

It's old. There has been a newer version 2.0. Even that one is not supported anymore, although some documents still remain available. The calendar component relies on its language translations files to be complete, or it breaks. Unfortunately, as I found out a few weeks ago, they are not, after switching the default language from english to my native one. Without having a good replacement for it, some of the translations for flyspray itself we've been getting lately are half-way unusable. Not for an ordinary user, but for anyone actually having to edit a task and its due date.

Check if the install, setup and upgrade instruction are correct:

• dev/github versions (using composer for dependency resolving)
• release versions (using composer or complete bundled binary releases containing all dependencies (ADODB, oauth2, ..)

need add option for can set default Severity and Priority of new creating tasks

Need add view of grouping in Task List by Category

this one is somehow tricky, it doesn't happens always but sometimes when fields or filenames contain national characters (I'm in Spain) flyspray returns an error looking like this one:

Query {INSERT INTO `flyspray_attachments` ( task_id, comment_id, file_name, file_type, file_size, orig_name, added_by, date_added) VALUES (?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?)} with params {189,711,189_9c5d837bb10b7e0989a3c8be8d,application/pdf; charset=binary,736986,Guia de aplicación medidas difusicón y publicidad.pdf,4,1441827828} Failed! (Incorrect string value: '\xCC\x81n me...' for column 'orig_name' at row 1)

here we have a pdf named "Guia de aplicación medidas difusicón y publicidad.pdf" but I had this error also with titles or descriptions containing spanish letters...

“Markdown is a lightweight markup language with plain text formatting syntax designed so that it can be converted to HTML and many other formats using a tool by the same name.[6][7] Markdown is often used to format readme files, for writing messages in online discussion forums, and to create rich text using a plain text editor.” - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown

With the existence of now two peoples named “Peter” on bugs.flyspray.org (I - peterdd , and PeterTheOne)
there are several places where the full names are display instead of usernames and the user can’t know who is which “Peter” until he visits the users profile page.

Different solutions possible:

• more profile image/gravatar usage where user names are shown, on mouseover link title attribute shows username and realname
• display user name (username) instead of full name (realname)
• display full name and username (where much space available and precision needed)
• …

When adding the mention feature, the username will be probably the prefered setting as the username is unique but the realname not.

Currently the task list columns are used, which are choosed by admin or project manager for the task list view.

Just moved issue #110 from https://github.com/Flyspray/flyspray/issues/110 to here for centralized task tracking.

Maybe just needs testing with current github master.

On some forms, when the user presses the reload button of this browser, the POST submit can be resubmitted.

Browsers can warn about this (Chromium, Firefox, Konqueror tested and they show a warning dialog) before executing the second POST.
But people on Flyspray mailing list wrote they experienced double comments.

Simple solution is just HTTP GET redirects after a successful POST. (HTTP 303 or HTTP 302)
But maybe there is a better method than a second roundtrip always needed?

Success, Error, or Warn-messages to the user are stored in the $_SESSION variable for displaying on the second GET request.
But I think that this is a bit ... mmh... not perfect.

For example, I would like to have in the direct response at which position in a form an input error is, not just the message bar in the top center as it is currently that just dissappear after a few seconds.

Also take care the browser back button still works as expected for the user.

As discussed with the team some time ago, a consolidation of places where issues are discussed is wanted.

One of the results was, that we do not want people post issues to github.com Issues and instead use our own bugs.flyspray.org
and to prefer "to eat our own dogfood" and a have central place to handle tasks.

As a result we tried to reduce the open issueas on github.com. I was in the process of moving 2 of still 7 open issues there to bugs.flyspray.org when suddenly the Issues on github.com were closed. Now the last 5 issues there are lost at the moment for me and the audience, which where mostly informations to interested users, not bugs.

I think just closing it without an easy accessible alternative is not the best solution.

At least we should wait until the oauth2 authentication for github users should be implemented and setup on bugs.flyspray.org , so people browsing github.com, finding Flyspray project just can
"Login with github"-feature on bugs.flyspray.org.

The blocker to do this: Currently there is missing an option to "connect" an oauth "Login with github"- Login with an existend flyspray userlogin.

So that one userid in flyspray can:

• login with username and password
• login with one or more of his social accounts (github, facebook, microsoft, g+) if they are enabled (would it restrict to github.com accounts for bugs.flyspray.org)

We have no API yet for Flyspray.

But someone could write a simple php-file that can be called by a github.com auto notification, whenever:

• a commit on github.com for Flyspray/flyspray is made

Github.com provides the configuration of such notification for a possible target like

https://bugs.flyspray.org/api/github.php

or

https://bugs.flyspray.org/api/github.php?project=1

in the settings of a project.

What the file needs:

• import some of the existing Flyspray classes from includes/
• config or load the secrets that are provided by github.com in the setup for the automatic notification
• check that secrets and more for authentication and authorization of requests coming from github.com
• parse the messages for Flyspray identifiers like ' FS#1234 ' or 'fix  FS#1234 ' or 'related to  FS#1234 '
• take actions on the results of that message parsing like making adding comment or modifying a task status