launchpad-dev team mailing list archive

[Tom Berger <tom.berger@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

= Reliable Bug Syncing - UI Changes =

In order to reliably sync Launchpad bugs with bugs tracked in external bug
trackers, we want to improve the UI for monitoring bug watches. The goal of the
proposed changes is to make it easier for Launchpad users to monitor and
control the status of a bug watch they are interested in and for project and
bugtracker owners to monitor and control the status of the bugtracker. As a
result of these changes, we hope, the quality of bug syncing will improve as we
will be able to distribute the work of monitoring them more evenly and get more
timely attention to problems, when they arise.


== User Stories ==

* As a Launchpad user, I want to know what is the status of a bug synced to an
external bugtracker, so that I can know whether the information in the
Launchpad bug is up-to-date.

* As a Launchpad bugtracker owner, I want to know what is the syncronisation
status of the bugtracker I'm responsible for, so that I can detect and fix
synchronisation problems promptly.

* As a Launchpad bugtracker owner, I want to be able to trigger bugwatch
synchronisation for the bugtracker I'm responsible for, so that I can get the
bug information I need in a timely manner after fixing a problem.


== UI Changes ==

=== Indicate sync status using the bugwatch icon ===

Looking at a bugwatch on the bug page, it is impossible to tell whether the
information provided by the bugwatch is up-to-date. A bug assigned to a bug
watch could have been updated recently, or it could be out of sync for a long
time. This presents two problems. First, users cannot trust the information
brought over from bug watches, since the accuracy of that information varies
greatly from one bug tracker to another. Second, users are not able to help
the Launchpad administrators and user community identify problems with bugwatch
syncing effectively.

The proposed solution is to indicate that synchronisation status of a bugwatch
using its icon. We will use three version of the icon, one for unknown or new
bugwatches, one for bugwatches successfully synchronised and one for bugwatches
with recent failures.

The bugwatch itself should link to the new bugwatch page (description below),
but we should consider the usability implications of not linking directly to
the remote bug. The challenge may be to provide links to both the Launchpad
page and the remote bug.


=== Dedicated bugwatch page on LP ===

Currently, we don't have any page representing a remote bug watch. Bug watches
appear in bug pages and bugtracker pages, but there isn't a single place where
a user can go to look for all the information available about a specific bug
watch and its synchronisation status.

The bugwatch page will present:

* All the remote bug information available in Launchpad.
* Link to the remote bug.
* Link to the Launchpad bugtracker page.
* Information about the bugs this bugwatch is related to.
 * Bug number, title, targets (anything else?)
* Basic information about the bugtracker sync status.
* A control for initiating sync.


=== Changes to the bugtracker page ===

The bugtracker page is mostly good, but needs to present more information about
sync status and allow for initiating sync. Currently, it is imposible to tell,
looking at a bugtracker page, whether bug syncing is working, and if it isn't
working, what is the problem. Also, if there is a problem and it is fixed,
there is not way for a user to indicate this and request a sync to happen.

To indicate the sync status, each line in the table of bugs/bugwatches should
indicate the sync status of each individual bug watch. We will do this by
adding a column displaying the last sync time and whether an error occured.

For the bugtracker as a whole, we need to display information about sync runs,
and a way to trigger a new sync.

Attachment: bugtracker-page-mockup.png
Description: PNG image

Attachment: bugwatch-page-mockup.png
Description: PNG image