[ANNOUNCE] Webserve, new release

[Andrew Voznytsa]

> -----Original Message-----
[skip]
> 
> > Also do you consider changing UI design? http://www.viewvc.org
> style/concept
> > is much better, user friendly and requires fewer moves to do what user
> > typically does.
> I have to admint that my (aesthetich) style isn't too good, but I don't
> think
> that viewvc has more feature... I will check in any case.

It is not question of number of features but rather usability questions.

For example, if we compare http://svn.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg/trunk/ and
http://goffredo-baroncelli.homelinux.net/bazaar-dev/bazaar-webserve-dev?cmd=
inventory;rev=ghigo%40venice-20070502195913-dlv45hjdjc3rabvd;pathrevid=ghigo
%40venice-20070502195913-dlv45hjdjc3rabvd;path=

ViewVC has much more information in this mode and is more user friendly. A
few points:

a) I'm able to easy identify each entry if it is file or directory by icon.
Parsing a lot of -rwxr-xr-x (BTW 755 looks more hakish; with all respect) is
tiring and such information is need much rarely than just File/Directory
identification.

b) ViewVC has more compact view. You use much more space than required for
each column.

c) ViewVC shows last revision for directory. Age column is useful - it is
easy to identify if something inside dir was changed since last visit or no
(for example). Frequently used.

d) Author field is also frequently used. I need to click to get this info in
your case. I'm lazy. Everyone (mostly) too.

e) Last log entry - I need extra click in your case.

f) You don't provide way to switch between repositories quickly (if you
support multiple repositories, sorry did not tested this yes)

If compare http://svn.mplayerhq.hu/ffmpeg/trunk/Changelog?view=log to
http://goffredo-baroncelli.homelinux.net/bazaar-dev/bazaar-webserve-dev?cmd=
changelog;rev=ghigo%40venice-20070422161342-e73pa5znl6fz09vj;pathrevid=ghigo
%40venice-20070502195913-dlv45hjdjc3rabvd;path=__init__.py I find that your
view is more complicated - there is a lot of symbols on the page but only
small number of them is really need in typical use case. For example it is
unclear for me why should I always look on fully qualified revision id
instead of just short revision number? Those long numbers might be useless
for 90% cases. I guess there is need some option 'Show full revision id'.

I may continue but it will be just IMHO. My summary is that ViewVC UI is
much more comfortable. Comfort is something what I like too (and most of
people).

If I get task like yours then it would be very likely that I decide to
develop browsing engine from scratch (to support all features of underlying
VCS) and borrow UI design from the most popular solution, extending it to
fully cover VCS features. One of them, as John mentioned, might be flat view
of branch changesets (as you already did it but without terrorizing my mind
with fully qualified revision id :))
 
> 
> > Also it might be worth to just extend ViewVC.
> No, webserve is designed to be included in bazaar itself. You can do
> 
> $ cd my_bzr_project; bzr webserve
> 
> and go to
> 
> http://127.0.0.1:8088
> 
> and browse you source code
> 
Hmm, nice feature.

Best regards (and thanks for patience),
Andrew Voznytsa