[Gnu-arch-users] Re: ViewARCH-0.0.2

[Miles Bader]

Tez Kamihira <address@hidden> writes:
> I made ViewARCH-0.0.2 and its cache generator.

It's looking very sweet!

Here are some comments:

 (1) Changeset browsing is very good.  Some minor points:

      * There seems to be no way to easily see the contents of an
        added (or deleted) file in a changeset.  Just making the
        filename a link that shows the raw contents would be good.

      * An `all patches' button would be handy, which just shows all the
        patches appended together (BK's changeset viewer has this, and
        it's a great way to see all changes at a glance).

      * It would be nice to have a button to go from a changeset view to
        the corresponding directory view (I know I can just append `/'
        in the address entry widget, but there should be a button).

 (2) When directory browsing, I think it should be a little bit more
     like ViewCVS, with each file having buttons to access the following
     things:

      A. The raw text of the file, suitable for downloading.

      B. A file-specific history of the file; this info isn't in arch,
         of course, but you can generate it in the same way my
         `tla-file-log' shell script does.[*]

      C. Blame/chrono annotated versions of the file, like now.

 (3) `Blame' charts don't include who's to blame!  It currently contains
     lines like this:

        0: foo foo fo foo foo foo fo bar

     but maybe it could instead contain this:

        address@hidden     0 : foo foo fo foo foo foo fo bar

     An optimization would be to detect the (currently common) case
     where all changes are by the same person, and just put a note at
     the top of the page instead, like `All changes by address@hidden',
     and use the old blameless format...

 (4) The blame and chrono charts have [back to here] and [back to there]
     buttons, which seem to do nothing useful (the resulting page just
     says ...empty...).

 (5) The old format of directory browsing entries was perhaps too terse,
     but the new one is a bit too verbose; something like the following
     seems like a good compromise:

        =THANKS    (text) (history) (chrono) (blame)

     [note I've also added the additional buttons I suggested above, and
     a bunch of whitespace to help separate the filename from the
     buttons; presumably this would eventually use tables or something
     like ViewCVS to line things up more nicely.]

 (6) In the revisions view, the `(directory browsing)' button sounds a
     bit funny; how about `(browse directory)' (or just `(directory)').


Thanks,

-Miles


[*] See address@hidden/tla-tools--devo--0/tla-file-log'.
    (btw, do people find this notation for a particular file in an arch
    archive intuitive?  I mean `the file called tla-file-log in the arch
    revision address@hidden/tla-tools--devo--0')
-- 
I'm beginning to think that life is just one long Yoko Ono album; no rhyme
or reason, just a lot of incoherent shrieks and then it's over.  --Ian Wolff