Merge the browser-quickjump branch

[Christian Boos]

I think the VcRefactoring/BrowserQuickjump branch is now ready for integration.

This branch adds the possibility to have a list of preselected paths where you can easily jump to, in the TracBrowser.

For example, with the Subversion backend, you can specify the following configuration options:

[svn]
branches = /trunk,/branches/maintenance/*,/branch/test,branches/experimental/*
tags = /tags/maintenance/*,/tags/milestone/*

By default, the preselected paths are the traditionally expected ones: branches = /trunk,/branches/* and tags = /tags/*.

But this will be even more handy for people having lots of branches which are sometimes deeply buried in the hierarchy ;)

For TracMercurial, this will give the ability to jump to known tags and branches.

Diff of the changes: diff:trunk@4320//sandbox/browser-quickjump@4326

[Christian Boos]

Branch merged in trunk in r4438.

I've modified the description to reflect the current convention for the new TracIni entries [svn] branches and [svn] tags.

[Ryan Ollos <ryano@…>]

I used this ticket and the results of my own testing to make some edits to the TracBrowser documentation and the description for the [svn] section of TracIni.

• (1) TracBrowser
• (2) TracIni

[Ryan Ollos <ryano@…>]

I have a couple of comments about the syntax used here. (Btw, is it proper form to comment on a closed ticket? It doesn't seem worthwhile to open a ticket for these questions / comments; Also, it does not seem right to reopen the ticket).

My [svn] section of trac.ini looks like this:

[svn]
branches = /Common/trunk, /Common/branches, /Utilities/trunk, /Utilities/branches, /Test and Measurement/trunk, /Test and Measurement/branches, /Presto/Product/Software/trunk, /Presto/Product/Software/branches, /Presto/Product/Docs/Released/trunk, /Presto/Product/Docs/Released/branches, /Presto/R&D/Software/trunk, /Presto/R&D/Software/branches, /Presto/Prototype/Verasonics Matlab Simulator/trunk, /Presto/Prototype/Verasonics Matlab Simulator/branches, /Presto/Prototype/PSI Development/trunk, /Presto/Prototype/PSI Development/branches
tags = /Common/tags, /Utilities/tags, /Test and Measurement/tags, /Presto/Product/Software/tags, /Presto/Product/Docs/Released/tags, /Presto/R&D/Software/tags, /Presto/Prototype/Verasonics Matlab Simulator/tags, /Presto/Prototype/PSI Development/tags

As you can see, it is difficult to read, spot typos, and make changes. Imagine however, that the syntax was like svn:externals in TracIni.

01 = /Common/trunk
02 = /Common/branches
03 = /Common/tags
04 = /Utilities/trunk
05 = /Utilities/branches
06 = /Utilities/tags
07 = /Test and Measurement/trunk
08 = /Test and Measurement/branches
09 = /Test and Measurement/tags
10 = /Presto/Product/Software/trunk
11 = /Presto/Product/Software/branches
12 = /Presto/Product/Software/tags
13 = /Presto/Product/Docs/Released/trunk
14 = /Presto/Product/Docs/Released/branches
15 = /Presto/Product/Docs/Released/tags
16 = /Presto/R&D/Software/trunk
17 = /Presto/R&D/Software/branches
18 = /Presto/R&D/Software/tags
19 = /Presto/Prototype/Verasonics Matlab Simulator/trunk
20 = /Presto/Prototype/Verasonics Matlab Simulator/branches
21 = /Presto/Prototype/Verasonics Matlab Simulator/tags
22 = /Presto/Prototype/PSI Development/trunk
23 = /Presto/Prototype/PSI Development/branches
24 = /Presto/Prototype/PSI Development/tags

Actually, for my case I could make things a lot simpler by using the wildcard match.

01 = /Common/*
02 = /Utilities/*
03 = /Test and Measurement/*
04 = /Presto/Product/Software/*
05 = /Presto/Product/Docs/Released/*
06 = /Presto/R&D/Software/*
07 = /Presto/Prototype/Verasonics Matlab Simulator/*
08 = /Presto/Prototype/PSI Development/*

It looks like I could also make my current [svn] section simpler by using wildcard matches and grouping all of my paths into either branches or tags, and this would be fine for me, but it's not very clean and might be difficult for someone else to interpret were they to encounter my configuration (thinking now in more general usability terms for the Trac project).

My questions are:

1. Why group the [svn] options into branches or tags? Wouldn't the quickjump facility be more general if it just took a list of paths? I mean, the user could really configure the quickjump facility to point to any location of interest in the repository, so why not make the general usefulness of the quickjump facility more obvious to the user, and state that the quickjump facility is generally used to point to trunk, branches, tags?
2. Is the [svn] section used for any other purpose? Would making changes to the [svn] section affect another component or function of Trac?

[Ryan Ollos <ryano@…>]

Screen capture of quickjump facility

[Ryan Ollos <ryano@…>]

I see now that I have this setup that the quickjump facility menu organizes the directories under branches and tags.

[Christian Boos]

It's perfectly fine to take a closed ticket for discussing a particular implementation detail. I think it's even preferable than trying to discuss it on the mailing list, as it's more focused and you reach the people directly interested in the feature. If you'd like to gather feedback from a broader base, you could still do both and refer to the ticket in the mailing list.

Ok, now for the specific questions you raised here. First, the quickjump thing is, as most of the rest of the versioncontrol module in Trac, designed to support other systems than just subversion. For example, in TracMercurial, the quickjump menu simply list the existing branches (*) and tags, you have nothing to configure.

For Subversion, the "standard" trunk, branches/* and tags/* is really too restrictive, hence some kind of flexibility. But for setup like yours (the "​calc" setup ;-) ), it could be useful to have no tags and branches groups and simply a list of entries, or, alternatively, freely configurable groups.

Those "extra" groups could indeed benefit to any backend, so we could implement it using a new [browser-quickjump] section (as we could have other quickjump lists in other contexts). Each entry in this section would be a comma separated list of patterns, much like the current [svn] tags and branches. Btw, there's no real usability issue with the way it is done currently, as a value for a given entry can be written on multiple lines.

So the "ideal" configuration could be in your case:

[svn]
branches = 
tags = 

[browser-quickjump]
Common = /Common/*
Utilities = /Utilities/*
Test and Measurement = /Test and Measurement/*

Product =  /Presto/Product/Software/*,
           /Presto/Product/Docs/Released/*

Prototypes = /Presto/Prototype/Verasonics Matlab Simulator/*,
             /Presto/Prototype/PSI Development/*

R&D = /Presto/R&D/Software/*

The only usability issue left would be the order of the groups themselves, as for now the order of appearance of the entries in the configuration file is ignored. If this is really important, an easy workaround for now would be to use a number prefix for the groups.

[Ryan Ollos <ryano@…>]

It does seem like it would make more sense to name the corresponding section [browser-quickjump]. I also like the idea of being able to define groups within the section. The options to have no groups (or equivalently, a single group without a heading) would also be nice. So, assuming you need an index, having a 'special' index that will not be displayed as a heading, would be a nice option.

Thanks for the feedback!

[Ryan Ollos <ryano@…>]

Should I open a ticket for this issue? If we decide on a definitive way to proceed, this might actually be something that I could work on, since it seems to involve relatively straightforward changes were I could use the existing code as a guide.

[Christian Boos]

Please do so (enhancement ticket for 2.0, which will be moved to an earlier milestone as soon as there's a patch).

[Ryan Ollos <ryano@…>]

Ticket opened. See ticket #8611.