Granularity

[Gervase Markham]

I seem to be writing a lot of these "we need to think about..." emails 
at the moment :-)

This one's about "granularity" - at what levels should you be able to 
configure Bugzilla to do different things? Currently, for example, you 
define voting preferences on a per-product basis, whereas the mail 
formats are global. We have a number of features coming up, such as 
custom fields, for which a granularity will also have to be chosen.

This mail was prompted by MattyT's comments in 
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=169822 . He points out that, 
because the new flag types system is _per_component_, this means that we 
probably need _two_ intermediate screens when changing products on a bug 
- one to confirm the component, and another to confirm the flags once 
the component is chosen. He hasn't said so, but this may also mean we 
need a single confirmation screen when changing component, too - I'm not 
sure.

Anyway, I think that we should standardise on the Product as the 
granularity for all granular settings. Benefits:

- never a need for a second "changing" screen when changing product.
- simplicity in code (single variable to check) and database
- consistent story to tell customisers
- it makes semantic sense

This obviously doesn't preclude e.g. UI customisation template hacks on 
a per-component, or per-anything basis (so you could hide a custom field 
in a particular set of components, for example), but IMO the Bugzilla 
back-end logic should have product granularity.

Comments?

Gerv