Allow adding comments to source in browser

[michaeljt]

This is something I have had in my mind for a while. Given that many people are likely to use the trac browser to study the source of a piece of software they are not fully familiar with, it would make sense if they were allowed to add comments corresponding to that source as they understood how it works. I could imagine something on the lines of a matching ticket being created for comments added by users which developers could handle and close (making the user comments disappear again) once they had transferred the comments to the actual code (or decided not to add a given comment). I realise that this is not a trivial enhancement request, although there may be smarter and simpler ways to achieve the same thing.

[Ryan J Ollos <ryano@…>]

It sounds like you are asking for a simple code review tool, and there are plugins (​th:tags:codereview) that feature such as these, though in my experience none of them are very good.

[michaeljt]

This would be somewhat simpler than a code review tool. Streamlining my thoughts a bit it might look like the following:

• an icon in front of each line of code to add a comment before it
• when a user clicks on the icon a text field appears above that line with instructions and a "submit" button
• the user enters their comment in the field, formatted correctly for the programming language in use and presses "submit"
• a new ticket is opened in their name with a patch against the source containing the comment as an attachment

Out of interest, how hard would it be to write something like this as a trac plugin (I have never even looked at how trac plugins work)?

[Peter Suter]

Possible duplicate of:

#2035

Changeset commenting

#3519

browse source - edit feature?

[anonymous]

Adding inline commenting with ticket creation could streamline collaboration. Plugins like codereview might serve as a foundation.