Proposed Features for Launchpad Bugs 3.0 - call for help!

[Cody A.W. Somerville]

I figured I should get my feedback in :-)

On Fri, Aug 1, 2008 at 4:28 AM, Reinhard Tartler <siretart at ubuntu.com>wrote:

>
> Hello from the lp liaison,
>
> (you are receiving this mail because you are either a member of the
> motu-sru or motu-release team. A copy is also sent to
> ubuntu-motu at lists.ubuntu.com)


<snip>


>
>
> Thank you for you collaboration!
>
> --
> Gruesse/greetings,
> Reinhard Tartler, KeyID 945348A4
>

<start braindump>

===== My 5 =====

1. Launchpad UI
2. Make staying on top of everything easy
3. Project pages aren't as useful anymore
4. Associating teams/users with projects & ACL
5. Speed

 1. Launchpad UI

    1.1 "Main pages"

The "main/front page" is almost useless for someone signed in. This includes
the front pages for subdomains such as bugs.launchpad.net. Instead of
showing the latest 5 bugs reported and fixed globally, maybe show
information that is relevant to me? I think some sort of "homepage" for
users logged in that shows relevant and useful information would be a huge
plus (ie. activity/status of bugs reported by the user, activity/status/new
bugs in projects/packages user is subscribed to, recent commits to branches
of interest, list of bugs that need to be looked at if you're a bug
contact/subscriber for project/package, blueprint stuff, etc. etc. etc.)

    1.2 Breadcrumb

One huge problem I have with launchpad is that I have to often edit the url
manually to get back to where I just was or move to a less detailed view.
Navigating the view hierarchy needs to be much easier and it should never be
easier to take the time to manually modify the url than to use the actual
launchpad interface.

Luckily, my biggest annoyance (project branches) has already been fixed.

    1.3 The new buttons

Sometimes the new icons/buttons to do actions make the interface easier to
use because they assist their previous lone textual link counterpart.
However, in contrast, sometimes the textual counterpart has been removed
entirely leaving an ambiguous icon all by its self. Furthermore, sometimes
these icons become very distracting because there are so many of them in one
small part of the screen real estate and they're distracting and look out of
place.

This being said, I think this item may now be moot as it appears work has
gone into improving it.

    1.4 Context relevant information

The bug page for projects show the last five bugs reported on the left and
last five bugs touched on the right. Under the bug number and title, it says
"reported by on $D by $N"... for both. What would be much more interested to
me on the right for the last five bugs touched would be the date and name of
individual who last touched said bug instead of when and who reported it.

 2. Make staying on top of everything easy

Launchpad contains a lot of data. There are a lot of bugs for someone such
as myself to look at each day from a lot of different teams (Xubuntu
packages, universe sponsor queue, SRU approval requests, Canonical,
non-ubuntu projects, etc.). Launchpad needs to make it easier to stay on top
of everything.

    2.1 An "open" status

There needs to be a status that says "someone has looked at this but the bug
isn't confirmed, triaged, whatever". Preferably, the transition from "new"
to "open" should occur automatically when someone (or maybe just members of
the bug squad, bug contact, etc. whatever) take action on the bug such as
make a comment.

    2.2 I want to fix that!

Right now, there is no way to say "Okay, I can't fix this bug right now but
add it to my todo list" except by assigning yourself and setting the bug as
in progress so that it shows up on your profile page under "$N is working
on...". First off, if anything, if the bug isn't closed and you're assigned
to it then it should show up in the "working on" section. But alas,
assigning a bug to yourself because you *plan* to fix it will only result in
people complaining if you don't fix it within a day or two (depending on the
package/bug). I think it would be helpful to have some other mechanism to
say "add this to my todo/watch/favorite list" to avoid that.

    2.3 Tell me what to do

Launchpad should be able to suggest to me what bugs to work on similar to
how it suggests what blueprints to work on. I would personally find it very
helpful if launchpad was that personal assistant that I've been dying to
hire. :P

    2.4 Remind me what to do

Some people such as my self would also enjoy reminders, daily/weekly
reports, and the what not. They should be completely optional and as useful
as possible. An example might be an overview of what happened in your
projects/subscribed packages over the last week (just to make sure you
haven't missed anything)

    2.5 Wave a flag

When you get assigned to a bug, a special e-mail should be sent so that you
can easily recognize it from mass of bug reports and other crap that makes
it way through my inbox each day.

    2.6 Now just shut up! :)

With that all being said, it should be very easy to shut launchpad up
including disabling bug mail that you might receive due to specific group
memberships.

 3. Project pages aren't as useful anymore

I'm not a big fan of the new layout/look for project pages. I much much
preferred the old one. The new one is so bland and contains very little
information.

 4. Associating teams/users with projects & ACL

I use launchpad for non-ubuntu projects. I'd like to be able to associate a
"team" with a project but not make it the registrant. Projects need some
sort of "membership" functionality along with ACL so that you can associate
people and teams with it.

ex. Project Xyz has xyz-core-developers as the registrant.
  . xyz-core-developers is member of xyz-developers
  . xyz-developers owns the mainline branch
  . xyz-core-developers are associated with Project Xyz but not
xyz-developers

In this case, I should be able to (and want to) associate xyz-developers
team with the project.

 5. Speed

 As others have mentioned, speed needs to be addressed pronto. Although,
this is far from the biggest issue for me as I guess I'm used to slow being
a Xubuntu dev and all.

===== Top 15 =====

CaptureDistroSeriesWhenFilingBugs      || UI to allow the user to say "I
don't know/Hardy/Intrepid/..."
MaloneMeToo                            || Being able to say and record "this
bug affects me to"
Crash reporting                        || Provide a repository of crashes
linked to bug reports, possibly integration with Breakpad?
Bug Activity UI Interleaving           || Displaying activity in the
comments view
Code review UI                         || Allow code review of patch
attachments, feature-parity with Bugzilla

Quick summary/description/tags editing || Allowing people to change these
fields without two pageloads
Better package name UI guidance        || If the user selects "don't know"
then lead him to an explanation
CompleteActivityLog                    || Ensuring bug activity captures all
bug changes
Import a remote bug UI                 || One-push importing and
task-annotation from Debbugs & Bugzilla
TagDiscipline                          || Actually using OfficialBugTags for
something!

ExplicitSearchFilteringAndCleanURLs    || Let users see and understand what
search filters are on, and clean up default search URLs
FixingIrrelevantComments               || Marking and hiding irrelevant
comments.
BugFreezing                            || Marking a bug as frozen,
disallowing new comments from non-bug-team-members
CollectingBugStatistics                || Pre-requisite for the triage
report and useful to external report builders
Bugtask forwarding relationships       || Mark bugs as needing to go
upstream

===== Runner Ups =====

Workload estimation                 || Story points/hours
Flip Incomplete to New              || Automatically flip bugs from
Incomplete when information is provided
Negated Tags in Searches            || Allow searching for bugs with some
tags, but without others
Email first-time bug-reporters      || A welcome message and guide to
triaging process
IgnoreSubscriptionsRevenge          || Unsubscribing implicit subscribers
from specific bugs

===== Depends on how it works =====

Proactive bug imports                 || Enabling complete syncs from
plugin-enabled sites
Package-specific reporting guidelines || Bonus points for a syntax for
including screenshots
No more Confirmed                     || With Me Toos and Triaged, removed
this confusing status
Expired bugs                          || Allowing us to track expired bugs
separately from invalid, including a textual rationale
Qualifying bug reporters              || Redirect non-qualified people to
answers; based on Karma, Ubuntu Members, Referees, etc.
Version-tracking of bugs              || Being able to specify that a bug is
present or was introduced in version X, and later fixed in version Y (*)

=====  DO NOT WANT AT ALL =====

Timebomb New bugs || After 6/N months, all New bugs become Incomplete

</end braindump>

-- 
Cody A.W. Somerville
Release Engineer
Canonical OEM Solutions Group
Cell: 506-449-5899
Email: cody.somerville at canonical.com
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