Improve the display of multi line commit messages in the Timeline

[Jonas Borgström]

The timeline will currently try to render the whole message as one long wiki formatted line.

Only the first line should be visible in the timeline view by default. But it should also be possible to view the complete message.

[daniel]

This has been improved in the new templates.

[daniel]

That would be in changeset [103]

[daniel]

Falsehood, lies and untruth i say! :-)

[daniel]

Fixed in [121]

[Christian Boos]

This is definitely not correctly done: see [1535].

The original content of the changeset message was:

Added a {{{comment}}} wiki processor.

This makes it easy to add comments into wiki pages
using an already familiar syntax:

 * multi-line comments:
{{{
{{{
#!comment
Those links are not working yet, find out why:
  svn://repos.edgewall.com/projects
}}}
}}}

 * inline comments:
{{{
This is important. [[comment(TODO: explain why this is important)]]
}}}

which renders here as:

---

Added a comment wiki processor.

This makes it easy to add comments into wiki pages using an already familiar syntax:

• multi-line comments:

  {{{
  #!comment
  Those links are not working yet, find out why:
    svn://repos.edgewall.com/projects
  }}}
  

• inline comments:

  This is important. [[comment(TODO: explain why this is important)]]
  

---

The problem is that by adding [[BR]] macros for every newline in the original comment, this can break valid formatting, as shown above.

[Christian Boos]

The problem reported above, though related to the original summary of the ticket (Better support for multi line commit messages.) is not really related to what is written in the description of the ticket. It is instead related to the problem described in #1181.

So what I'll do:

• write a follow-up to the above problem in #1181
• change the summary of this ticket to better match its description
• leave it open, as the current behavior of the Timeline is exactly as originally described:

The timeline will currently try to render the whole message as one long wiki formatted line.

Only the first line should be visible in the timeline view by default. But it should also be possible to view the complete message

I could implement it using a similar approach to what I did for the Revision Log: add a Show full message check box in the preference panel.

[Christopher Lenz]

Please not another option for the timeline at this point!

Just use trac.util.shorten_line() on the log message.

[Christian Boos]

I did what you suggested in [1561].

But I keep this ticket open, since there's currently no support for viewing the full message log in the timeline, as requested.

I also experimented to see what it would be with the full message log: I think it's nice, you have at a glance the full information…

[Christian Boos]

I would propose to close this ticket soon:

1. either as wontfix, consider the timeline to be a teaser for the full changeset information, available by clicking
2. or by adding a TracIni [timeline] option, changeset_show_full_log (consistent with the existing changeset_show_files)

I'd prefer option 2.

[Christian Boos]

On top of r2409 + attachment:ticket:2232:oneliner_simplify_blocks.3.patch​, the following changes would allow for 3 display modes for changesets:

[timeline]
changeset_display = full|compact|short

full

the full changeset is shown, similar to what appears in the changeset view.

short

the truncated oneliner version is shown.

compact

the oneliner version of the full message is shown (this is more compact but also less readable than full)

The setting would default to short.

trac/versioncontrol/web_ui/changeset.py

@@ -124 +124 @@
                                    util.escape(util.shorten_line(message)))
                         href = self.env.abs_href.changeset(chgset.rev)
                         message = wiki_to_html(message, self.env, db,
-                                               absurls=True)
+                                               absurls=True,
+                                               escape_newlines=True)
                     else:
                         title = 'Changeset <em>[%s]</em> by %s' \
                                 % (util.escape(chgset.rev),
                                    util.escape(chgset.author))
                         href = self.env.href.changeset(chgset.rev)
-                        message = wiki_to_oneliner(message, self.env, db,
-                                                   shorten=True)
+                        display = self.config.get('timeline',
+                                                  'changeset_display')
+                        if display == 'full':
+                            message = wiki_to_html(message, self.env, db,
+                                                   absurls=True,
+                                                   escape_newlines=True)
+                        else:
+                            message = wiki_to_oneliner(message, self.env, db,
+                                                       shorten=mode == 'short')
                     if show_files:
                         files = []
                         for chg in chgset.get_changes():

[Christopher Lenz]

Actually, I would suggest we mark this ticket as closed. Showing the complete commit message is a separate issue, and I don't think it'd be a good idea to add options for such things to trac.ini. Maybe there should be a option in the [timeline] option that would control truncation of all the different kinds of messages. That is however a bit hard to implement, as it would require adapting all the individual event providers.

[Alec Thomas <alec@…>]

I replace wiki_to_oneliner() with wiki_to_html() on TracHacks and find it a lot more useful than the truncated one line message. Personal preference though I guess.

​This patch adds an optional checkbox under the changeset checkbox, which toggles full log messages.

It doesn't store the toggle in the session though, and it special-cases changesets in the timeline.cs though, so…

[Alec Thomas <alec@…>]

Actually now it does put the state in the session, but it still special-cases :\

[Christian Boos]

I think we should consolidate the discussion about having verbose timeline entries in #2360.

I'll mark this one as fixed, as [1561] did most of the job concerning the initial problem.