Flyspray - The bug killer!

For Flyspray installations with many users (several thousands) a pagination of the user list in the admin area is required.

2000 users no problem to display (aside the PHP max_input_vars limit which is only 1000 by default, so maybe not all checked checkboxes are handled.)

More users might send your mysql to long running blocking queries creating temp tables … bad!

(I killed them by watching show processlist; and kill id; on mysql console.)

At several places it could be useful to let the user view available tags:

1. When editing a task a toggle popup could show a list of selectable and existing tags.

I found several nice vanilla-js-multiselect-with-autocompletion scripts, but none yet that still works at a basic level when javascript is turned off.

My plan is now:

• Keep the current basic input text field for input tags and show current assigned tags like exampletag1;exampletag2;exampletag3 separated by ‘;’ that is sent to the server when saving the task and server handles evaluation of that string (validation, duplicates, removed, added, creating new tags if allowed for current user)
• A CSS only toggle that shows available tags that can be assigned (works even with js turned off), similiar to other places within Flyspray like advanced search toggle.
• If js turned off, the user must type the tag - not as fancy, but at least works. (I thought also about using a html select with multiple=”multiple” attribute, but was not convinced due styling not possible in modern browsers without js)
• If js is enabled, more fancier stuff is possible:
  • The input text field is hidden by display:none and instead the styled tags are shown.
  • The current added tags also get a little x to remove a tag by clicking it. The content of the hidden input text field is updated to reflect the current editing status. (click eventlistener)
  • A generated text input field for typing with autocompletion list shown of matching availbale tags. An unknown tag is added to the list if user is allowed to create tags. Clicking a item in the autocompletion list adds the tag and resets the autocompletion input text field for the next autocompletion action.
  • The tags within the toggle list with all available tags get also a click event listener, so clicking it adds them to the hidden text input.
  • Not sure yet if an added tag should be removed from the all available tags list or just make an CSS indication that a tag is still added, currently I tend to keep the list untouched, just highlight used tags of the task.

• Optionally make the all available tags sortable by:
  • list_position (default)
  • alphabetic
  • global or project level
  • popularity (count of tasks using a tag (n + unnumbered private)), requires adding a data attribute.
  • group by detected prefix like shape:triangle shape:circle shape:rectangle could show a group of tags as: shape: triangle circle rectangle

1. Make the list of tags searchable for the advanced search. added with FS1.0-rc10 by just using search key words also for searching list_tags table.

From: https://groups.google.com/forum/?hl=en#!topic/flyspray/rAnks5y_uLk

19-04-09 // More one year ago.

There are not http → https redirections.

Only one example:
- http://www.flyspray.org/docs/download/ is not redirected to https://www.flyspray.org/docs/download/

Note: It is better to have the main website in https://flyspray.org/.

http://www.flyspray.org/ + https://www.flyspray.org/ + http://www.flyspray.org/ must be redirected to https://flyspray.org/

I understand this is likely due to some sort of XSS CSRF protection, but the delay doesn’t appear to be long enough to be useful for a lengthy comment to be posted. I’ve now lost two detailed comments in our tracker because the software threw everything out and generated a meaningless error.

Further, attempting to do the normal thing and making the browser resubmit the page results in Flyspray throwing “Error #3” something something repeated action and causing a redirect to the homepage.

Surely there has to be a better way to handle this that doesn’t incur data loss?

Trying to add a new user having the same email address as an another user in the do=admin&area=newuser section results in

“That username is already taken. You will need to choose another one.”

instead of

“Email address has already been taken”

(I’ve stumbled on this issue because I have an older disabled user with the same email address)

• On the myprofile page have a section to show all my votes I put on tasks. done!
• Add the possibility to remove own votes from tasks. done!

• Implement a limitation of the amount of votes a user can put on tasks for a project. Can be enabled/disabled and amount configured. Done!
• project based vote limitation

• When a task is finished/closed, remove the user votes from the task and make that vote again available to the user. Maybe safe the existing historic voting count in an extra field of the task as the votes would drop to 0 on closing the task. removed.

We keep the votes, because a task can be reopened everytime and then the old voters and votes should be visible again. In this case the amount of votes on active task could be a bit greater than allowed, but thats no real problem.
The calculation of done votes and available votes based only on open task and project voting limit.

For example on uservoice.com you have 10 voting points. So you as user has to decide where your priorities are to put your votes.

So all users have more or less the same power to vote for tasks.

maybe yet fixed in 1.0 dev, but here bugs.flyspray.org my account is shown twice for selection if u edit a task.

Internally in the form also with the same id, so probably not a big problem.

I registered some years ago, maybe this year jordan(?) added me again or with another email adress? Maybe I have two addresses under on account here, which is a feature, not a bug.

But for the assignee list it should “group by user_id”.

I think the button advanced search button should not be placed right beside seach input field as full button.

Maybe a small down arrow under the simple search form with a horizontal line and a title tag as tooltip.

Any comments?

Tags can only be added on the "new task" page, not managed on the "edit task"-page.

Both is a bit illogical, but both is currently possible!

1 ←- 1

So when setting the parent task id checked for creating loops is needed:

Loop with 2 tasks: 1 ←- 2 ←- 1

Loop with 3 tasks: 1 ←- 2 ←- 3 ←- 1
Loop with n tasks: 1 ←- ... ←- n < – 1

As I think there are currently no recursive reads that could lead to an endless loop, but should be kept in mind when someone wants to programm rendering a gantt chart.
E.g. by limiting the depth of subtasks for example.

Notice: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /*/setup/index.php on line 883 
Notice: Only variables should be assigned by reference in /*/setup/index.php on line 949

The HTML accesskey attribute feature is differently accessible dependent of operating system, web browser and web browser configuration, and users keyboard layout and user language.

By taking advantage of the User-Agent HTTP header value provided by default by web browsers, Flyspray could better know of what kind of keyboard and browser the user sits in front off and show the key combinations for the accesskey feature that best fits the users environment.

PHP 7.4 is out now and a few things should be done to make Flyspray work well with it.
Nothing really breaks, but a view deprecation warnings should be fixed.

Flyspray source itself: Just a few new notices, most are yet fixed in the master branch.

Watching the PHP7.4 compatibility of dependencies defined by composer.json:

• ADOdb/ADODb: 5.20.15 should be OK for Flyspray
• swiftmailer/swiftmailer: We still use 5.* branch, so either do quickfix for a notice in a fork or upgrade/rewrite our integration to the 6.* branch.
• ezyang/htmlpurifier: 4.12 OK
• thephpleague/oauth2-client: unknown, we still use 0.13, last real source change was Nov 2018, to upgrade requires rewrite of integration into Flyspray and there is low demand for OAuth2.
• dapphp/securimage: seems to be OK
• jamiebicknell/sparkline: OK, but probably obsolete for us in future due
  • still annoying problems with our github/travis tests (problem of travis, not sparkline itself)
  • better solution (interactive hover infos, scales, screen size adaptive) by Flyspray source planned

We don't close the tasks until the release is "made", that is we let them under "Requires Testing" with 100% complete. When the release/testing cycle is finished, somebody has to go task by task, and start closing them... it's a PITA ;)
It would be nice to have to option to select all the tasks you want to close, and that the "popup" when you enter the reason/etc, applied to all the tasks I selected...

I recall reading something about this in the past, but haven't found it; and if this is implemented, I haven't seen a way to do it in 099beta1

In the task list the responsible persons are shown as "first person name, +n" where n are the count of further responsible persons.

I think this can be done a bit better.

Ideas:

• show as it is now, but on css :hover show all persons
• use initials like "CR FS JM" for Cristian R., Florian S., Jordan M. and on css :hover show a list with the full names, this can make the column width a bit smaller.
• use tiny avatar icons in a row like you can see here https://github.com/Flyspray/flyspray/blob/master/header.php for example, and showing the names on css :hover.

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, ..)

Bugs

Missing features

When I scroll down the page to see more of the task list and then click on one of the column headings to sot by this heading, the answer page doesn't scroll down to the table.

I think there are 2 technical solutions for that:

1. set an name/id a-anchor on top of the table and on each column heading link add for example '#tasklist'.

2. add a js-sorter with complete extra search and sort ajax-backend with e.g. libs from http://datatables.net/ This requires aleso writing a server side handler for taking the ajax requests (respecting user permissions!) and is only usable if js in enabled in browser. So this second solution can only be a luxury comfort function.

for toplevel, roadmap and task list view.

For roadmap: replace the current ‘-’ between the task id and task summary with icons.

For toplevel: most wanted tasks and assigned to myself

<style>
ul.tasks li {clear:left;}
li.tid:before{
content: "\code";
font-family: FontAwesome;
float:left;
margin-left:-12px;
}
</style>

On task list the column text can be replaced by icons, moving the text to title attribute.

Maybe use css :content-before or :content-after for that.

I suggest following font-icons from fontawesome are the easiest way to implement:

• Bug Report use fa-bug , red color
• Feature Request use fa-star , yellow
• TODO a bold T, blue ( or blue fa-check?, but check mark maybe too ambiguous)

Gain: you faster see what types of task are on roadmap milestones and task list exists.

The register spam by probably bots in 2016 is annoying.

I ticked the setting, that an admin must accept a new registration. It helps to reduce spam task, but now admin must decide if the registrations are ok or just spam bots.

Beside the need of antispam-plugins, the management of users can be improved:

• column sorting of user list, similiar to the tasklist
• filtering user list, similiar to the tasklist
• pagination of user list (25,50,100,200,all?)
• more columns like ‘last login’, ‘last activity/tasks/comments created/votes/edit’ that may help to decide what status or settings a user should have in future.
• show time zone setting and language setting of users implemented in userlist now

• mass accept/deny of a list of user registrations waiting for admin approval.

1. Find a good configuration name just reuse relnofollow as used by dokuwiki
2. Find a good translation keyword for that config relnofollow
3. Find a good translation keyword for config description (title attribute)

Goes into prefs table as it is sitewide configuration.

As first implementation a simple checkbox should be ok. Should be on the tab with other spam handling stuff like captcha configuration.

Is enabled by default (1).
Adapt setup xml files, upgrade procedure.

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.

Hello together,

it would be nice, if you could mention user in your ticket or comment which are not following the task.
for example when i will type @nickname, the user “nickname” should be get a e-mail that he is mentioned in the ticket.

(if we are “fancy” then we can print a automcomplete after the @-sign ist typed)

Convert all the JS to using one library. Seems there is scattered JS scripts all over and we need to pick one solution that could be long term and has plenty of features for improving FS.

I vote for JQuery w/ Bootstrap which has some nice JS effects using JQuery.

Someone should go through all the changes from 1.0.0 and figure out which features should be ported to 1.0 devel and open tickets for them, and/or open tickets for the items that should be done in 2.0