Flyspray - The bug killer!

When entering the wrong SMTP information and then adding a user through Multiple New Users page, the error message is bad. It just says 'this should never happen'. Instead, we need to detect that it is an SMTP authentication error and report that issue to the user more clearly.

So, the new website is now online, the codestyle part is empty and I think we need to speak about them...

I can happily reformat the whole project once we have decided the whole thing. Don't forget, too strict code style leads to code style not being respected, so crap like max line length should be avoided. I personnaly don't know anybody coding from their mobile phones. I sometimes do check some code on it, but long lines never disturbed me as long as the line is not 5k chars long.

I think we should go for a standard one.

Things like:

- Do use brackets even if single lined condition
- Variable names have spaces replaced by the next words first letter in capital, start with a lower case
- Same goes for functions
- Etc etc. Pretty much of PSR-1 maybe 2

What I don't understand is the use of spaces, and I'd be for tabs instead of 4 spaces (some files use 2 spaces, some 3...). Most of the dev tools are by default set to use tabs and not spaces. And be seeing the code now we see that it clearly. So i'd be for reformatting into tabs, the whole, and same time fixing the broken identation in every files.

I could write it down for the website

Upon my implementation for an easier date selector, I think we should rework it as follow:

• Drop extended date concept
• Add a Time format
• Extended dates field become a concatenation of date format and time format.
  • The above make it easier to select your preferences

• Rename GMT to UTC
• Add automatic daylight saving configs

If I write a task and press the back button in the brower and go forward again, my expection is that the
text I wrote is still existing, even if I didn't save it.

It is frustrating losing a well thought issue editing and having it to rewrite.

Most (or even all?) of the selectable events should be preselected in the selection list.

Well, title is self explanatory, but adding a vote button in the overview in task list whould be nice. And that backedup with an option to enable it or not in the admin panel

Idea by Wertandrew

similiar to facebook.com or github.com show new unread notifications on the topbar.

moved from FS#1697 into a separate task.

This is a parent task for all small helping or explaining tooltips that can be maybe added where approriate.

Many people don't like reading external documentations, which sometimes often is also not up to date with the current used version.

If you are doing something in Flyspray and you don't know exactly how it works or have to be done rigth and you must look at documentation, it breaks your workflow.

The best case is if its all perfect intuitive and you don't have to read any help texts. But in the case of more complex operations or things that do many things behind the scene a helping tooltip or explanation can give you a mental map and more trust into what the tool is doing.

• 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.

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.

and simplify interface:

• If the tasks are collapsed, show only the expand all link/button
• If ths tasks are expanded, show only the collapse all link/button

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?

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.

We have severity field.
We have priority field.
We have estimated effort field.

But we don't have a fíeld to see how hard a task is to solve. Something like in doom 3d shooter a face from normal/easy to angry/bloody/very hard.

Imaging you have some people in a company, some base educated, some high educated, some are experts in their field, some do repeating easy tasks.

By adding the ability to set a 'doom level' on tasks this can complete the view over a project in addition to severity,priority,effort.

This task can maybe splitted into separate sub tasks.

Task properties

Current situation

Ideas

Multi select option styling

Custom fields

Well, it needs a cleanup, per example:

fixed now http://127.0.0.1/flyspray/task/3?project=1

That should be something like:

• http://127.0.0.1/flyspray/project1/tasks/3 (project id not needed, Flyspray knows it from task data)
• http://127.0.0.1/flyspray/task/3

The actual one is actually half a rewrite and half a GET version

"Sorting by columnXYZ" - possibly in $_SESSION?

On Mac OS Safari:

I just closed a task and wrote the following into the comment for closing:

"See also F.S.#.14" (of course without the points). When I then click the link in the comment box (below the task details) I'm redirected to:
"http:/flyspray.stefan-herz%0Aog.tld/index.php?do=details&task_id=%0A14". No matter if #14 is closed or not.
It worked with Firefox.

Any suggestions?

Due to the needed implementation of an anti csrf system into Flyspray 1.0,
this are a side effect issues we need to address:

Due the required replacement of action links to form buttons:

• The user cannot just see anymore the target url of the action by hovering over the link. We can compensate that in the simpliest case by using the title-tag as additional info to the user. Trust not full reestabilished that way, but better than nothing and user has fear to click a form button.

Javascriptless CSS3-toggles:

• Some clickable labels don’t show pointer icon when :hover. CSS issue, easy fix.

They are currently two separate mechanisms. Shouldn't be so. Events happen always, notifications when someone should be or have chosen to be notified about those events.

Besides, the current code is just a total mess that should be fixed/rewritten anyway, and we unfortunately also overlooked during the development phase 2 things: one new table, users_emails, and the fact that the user is now allowed to give several email addresses separated by a semicolon.

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”.

It's a little like "text version". So you could use this exported changelog within a new release.

I think good was:

• Only resolved tasks ordered by date (but of course without displaying the date) and only public accessible tasks
• Without task number ("FS#...")
• A download function via button

Title says all. Small usability fix that will be big

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.

When adding peoples with the autocompleter the name itself is not always enough, especially with a growing number of registered users.

We now have the avatar icon as helper, but for quick verification it would be easier to see also the role of the user in the current project to identify the right user account.

( The red rectangle at peterdd autocomplete row is from a broken avatar upload, ignore it for this task, see  FS#1979  instead .. )

If on the reports page some get params aren't set, there are notice warnings on the report result page

like

index.php?do=reports&events[]=30

without start date,end date,result size

But it can be useful to have a bit shorter urls for sharing between authorized users instead the full params url.

Result page should use user default and project default settings fallbacks for the unset get params.

Currently it seems a user needs two accounts
to login by normal user-password and oauth2 login with facebook,g+ etc.

Better would be if a normal username-password registered user could connect a oauth2-login with his existing login.

I find it irritating to have the oldest activity on the right side and newest activity on the left side of the small activity bars.

There is also no time scale description. This could be added by showin it on :hover to keep the simple appearance.

A complete new feature would be to replace the image generation by rendering the bars in the html in the same request, e.g by inline svg or canvas element. This would enable adding some interactivity with the activity bars..
A related feature request is FS#1991 (project progress)

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

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, ..)

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
• display username instead of full name
• display full name and username (where much space available and precision needed)
• ...

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)