Flyspray - The bug killer!

I was really impressed with Flyspray and about to use it as our bug tracker, but then I discovered quite a big problem. You can't restrict users from seeing full task details.

I would really love the ability to let them only see the summary. My reason being is that I'm needing a bug tracker for my game, and bugs reported can be easily abused, and will be abused, if people can just read bug reports and see how to replicate them.

The reason I don't like just unchecking the "View Tasks" option, is because they wont be able to see if there is already a task about the bug, so we would just get flooded with duplicate reports on the same bugs.

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

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.

I vote for removing $fs->prefs['page_title'] from title-tag.

flyspray> grep -r 'setTitle' *
includes/class.tpl.php:    public function setTitle($title)
index.php:$page->setTitle($fs->prefs['page_title'] . $proj->prefs['project_title']);
scripts/lostpw.php:$page->setTitle($fs->prefs['page_title'] . L('lostpw'));
scripts/newtask.php:$page->setTitle($fs->prefs['page_title'] . $proj->prefs['project_title'] . ': ' . L('newtask'));
scripts/register.php:$page->setTitle($fs->prefs['page_title'] . L('registernewuser'));
scripts/details.php:$page->setTitle(sprintf('FS#%d : %s', $task_details['task_id'], $task_details['item_summary']));
scripts/depends.php:$page->setTitle(sprintf('FS#%d : %s', $id, L('dependencygraph')));
scripts/index.php:$page->setTitle($fs->prefs['page_title'] . $proj->prefs['project_title'] . ': ' . L('tasklist'));
scripts/admin.php:        $page->setTitle($fs->prefs['page_title'] . L('admintoolboxlong'));
scripts/gantt.php:$page->setTitle($fs->prefs['page_title'] . $proj->prefs['project_title'] . ': ' . L('gantt'));
scripts/roadmap.php:$page->setTitle($fs->prefs['page_title'] . L('roadmap'));
scripts/pm.php:        $page->setTitle($fs->prefs['page_title'] . L('pmtoolbox'));
scripts/reports.php:$page->setTitle($fs->prefs['page_title'] . L('reports'));
scripts/myprofile.php:$page->setTitle($fs->prefs['page_title'] . L('editmydetails'));
scripts/toplevel.php:$page->setTitle($fs->prefs['page_title'] . $proj->prefs['project_title'] . ': ' . L('toplevel'));
scripts/newmultitasks.php:$page->setTitle($fs->prefs['page_title'] . $proj->prefs['project_title'] . ': ' . L('newtask'));
scripts/user.php:$page->setTitle($fs->prefs['page_title'] . L('viewprofile'));

It would be great to sort the task list by recent activity. This would mean any change to an issue, including new comments, would rise to the top. This would make it easy to keep up on recent discussion even if you don't want to get every single detail via notifications.

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.

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?

"Sorting by columnXYZ" - possibly in $_SESSION?

Title says all. Small usability fix that will be big

Keyboard navigation is not documented

grep -r 'accesskey' *

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.

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

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

Summary of TODO I found on the net:

• There is a very old project site of flyspray on sf.net . The info there should be updated or removed.

• Update info and keep an eye on http://alternativeto.net/software/flyspray/ from time to time.

• Keep an eye and update Flyspray info on wikipedia for example:
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bug_tracking_system
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_issue-tracking_systems
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_project_management_software
  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_help_desk_issue_tracking_software
  • http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Issue-Tracking-System

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.

After I upgraded to version 1.0 (the upgrade was successful), flyspray only shows a white page (and the source in firefox shows, that the page is completely white).

Please help us finding the roots of these bugs!

Please report what you were exactly doing before this happend, report us your steps made, the used php version, used OS version, and such information.

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.

In global permissions there is 'View tasks'. This makes it so a user can view all tasks. Need a way instead that they can view only their own tasks, for example a permission called 'View own tasks'.

If 'View own tasks' is checked for a user, in the project list we should only show projects which contain tickets that that user is a part of. Within a given project we should then only show tickets that the user is a part of if they have that permission set.

So for example if 'View tasks' is set, show user all tasks. 'View tasks' is not set, but 'View own tasks' is set then show them only their own tasks and projects.

• 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.

An account should be able to have multiple email addresses associated with it. For example, my primary email might be jordan@thevelozgroup.com, but I should also be able to log in via jordanmendler@gmail.com or other addresses I add.

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

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.

I think it is time to think about an theme optimizied for mobile Devices.

We will not maintain several themes. We will review the current CleanFS theme to make it responsible instead.

When some url to a bug is redirected to the login page, because the user does not have the right to see the bug without login, the user should be redirected after the login to the url he wanted to see.

Maybe redirect to /login/?next=/task/X and put the next-url in a hidden field in the login-form, so flyspray can redirect to the correct page after login.
Even preserving anchor-urls (#comment-YYYY) would be cool, but i guess this needs Javascript to work.

I have done a very quick bit of work to bring ldap (through active directory) authentication to flyspray for our implementation in the office. I hope it will be of use to others. There is a readme.txt inside talking through the process and the patch to apply. My plan is to expand on this and make it part of the setup process but this will take a bit longer.