Repository and branch format descriptions - bug 264730

[Matthew Revell]

Hello,

I'm going to tackle bug 264730 for Launchpad and would like your
thoughts on how best to tackle it.

The bug concerns the branch and repository format descriptions given
on Launchpad branch overview pages, such as:

  Branch format:  Branch format 6
  Repository format:  Packs containing knits with rich root support

AFAIK Launchpad takes these descriptions from Bazaar itself. From what
I can see, the repo format strings reside in pack_repo.py.

My approach to this bug would be to:

 1. Rewrite the strings in pack_repo.py to make them more immediately
understandable, while keeping them concise.
 2. Add further help links in the Launchpad web ui for anyone who
needs more explanation than we can fit into the pack_repo.py strings.

For Launchpad, I'd like to rewrite the branch and repository format
descriptions so that on reading them a person would know what they can
or can't do with those formats and, maybe, if there's a performance
gain to be had. At the moment, the bzr strings give a technical
description of the format but, AFAICS, don't make much sense unless
you're already quite familiar with the way Bazaar works.

So, would it be appropriate, from Bazaar's POV, to rewrite the
pack_repo.py strings? Or should I write my own versions of them for
the Launchpad web UI? I'd rather do the former because I have a
suspicion that it'd be useful to Bazaar users as well as people using
Launchpad.

Either way, I'd be grateful for any help in making sense of the
existing strings and looking at how we can make them more useful.

I've been reading through http://bazaar-vcs.org/BazaarFormats and that
helps to some extent - in particular the Weave and Knit pages - but it
appears the page is not comprehensive.

Thanks :)

-- 
Matthew Revell - Launchpad.net - free software collaboration and project hosting