[Buildbot-devel] Adding comments to builds

[Brian Warner]

>> We should change the Waterfall display to add a link to the per-Build box
>
> This part has already been taken care of. Tinderbox has some fancy-schmancy
> CSS/Javascript to do this. Clicking on any of the 'L' links at
> http://tinderbox.mozilla.org/showbuilds.cgi?tree=MozillaTest will give you an
> example of this. I think it's a bad idea to require Javascript though, I will
> be putting that functionality on the BUILDER/builds/NUMBER page as well.

That's pretty slick. Yeah, having the popup if javascript happens to be
enabled, but being able to go through the per-build page to add comments
regardless, feels like the right approach to me. I tend to leave javascript
turned off (through the wonderful NoScript extension) unless the site really
makes it worth my while, so I'm keen on web interfaces that retain the full
functionality (albeit not quite as nicely presented) when used without
javascript.

If there are comments on a particular build, and javascript is turned off, it
would be nice to make it obvious that there is something worth reading about
that build. Maybe add the "C" link to the BuildBox if there are comments
present.. a link that people with javascript enabled would probably never
use, because they'd always use the link in the popup instead?

>> From there on out, it's all a question of UI. Probably a little "C" link
>> on the yellow Build box (perhaps "c" if no comments have been made yet),
>> that takes you to a page with a text form that's been pre-filled with the
>> previous comments.
>
> I'm not sure if I understand correctly, is the intention of pre-filling the
> form so that the previous comments are not lost? If that's the case perhaps
> it would be better to getProperty("comments") and append the new one to
> that.

Yeah, I was assuming that the getProperty("comments") for each build is a
single string, and people are editing it in-place (like a wiki page). Making
it an append-only log of comments is probably a better way to avoid
accidentally losing comments.

>> It might be reasonable to add a Waterfall argument that sets the mode: no
>> comments, read-only comments, and read-write comments. This way you could
>> have an internal Waterfall page (which allowed Force Build and writing
>> comments) and an external one (which didn't allow Force Build and gave
>> read-only access to comments).
>
> A new Waterfall argument seems appropriate. As I envision it now there will
> be some sort of icon beside the 'Build NN' link when there is comments. The
> 'add comment' page will be accessible through the pop-up dialog or
> BUILDER/builds/NN page.

Sounds good. Let's call the Waterfall argument 'comments=', and say that True
means read-write, False means no comments at all, and "read-only" means just
that.

For the group as a whole: any feelings on what the default value of this
argument ought to be? If your upgraded Waterfalls suddenly acquired
user-writable comments, would you be concerned about graffiti?

cheers,
 -Brian