Bugzilla enhancements

[Sean McAfee]

Gervase Markham <gerv at mozilla.org> wrote:
>Sean McAfee wrote:
>> Database utility routines
>> -------------------------
>> 
>> These are already present in my last custom fields patch, but they're so
>> useful it might be appropriate to put them in Bugzilla.pm or Bugzilla/DB.pm or
>> wherever.

>As I think someone else said, last time we wrapped the database routines 
>(SendSQL()), we regretted it, and we've been undoing it ever since... I 
>don't know if this is different.

It is.  The old wrapping routines required multiple function calls per
database transaction, requiring the system to maintain state in between.  My
routines carry out the entire prepare-execute-fetch-finish process within a
single function call; no state required.

>> Links
>> -----

>> The schema supporting links is very simple, consisting of a single table,
>> LINKS, with two columns, BUG_FROM and BUG_TO.  

>If you add a third column, RELATIONSHIP, you can subsume dependencies 
>and even duplicates and have various other relationships (caused by, 
>similar) as well.

Good idea.

>> Transactions
>> ------------
>> 
>> All changes to custom fields, and a few standard fields, are logged with the
>> date/time and identity of the user making the change.

>Do we currently not do that (for standard fields) in the bugs_activity 
>table?

Yes, but in a lossy fashion, as I've complained about in the past.

>> Journaling fields
>> -----------------
>> 
>> Another Teamshare feature.  Long string fields may be tagged as "journaling".
>> Such fields are append-only. 

>Ick. We have this in the bug system at work. It's a really, really 
>inferior system to discrete comments. Let's not inflict it on the rest 
>of the world.

Fair enough.  I'm not crazy about the feature myself; I only included it
because it involved a nontrivial amount of work to implement, which I'd
prefer not to see go to waste.

>> Quick search
>> ------------
>> 
>> This is a means of letting users avoid going through query.cgi by putting
>> common searches in the page footer.

>This is very swish, but is there much advantage to it over just hacking 
>the templates to add the UI?

Perhaps not much, other than my previously-established aversion to
template-hacking as part of routine system administration.  I'd much rather
it be done through a web interface.

>Did you do an admin UI as well?

No, not yet.

>> Custom query results
>> --------------------
>> 
>> The list displayed by buglist.cgi is grouped by product. 

>Grouping (or sub-sorting, or both) would be cool.

I hadn't even considered sub-sorting, but it wouldn't be hard to do via an
additional column in BUGLIST_COLUMNS, say "sortorder" (unfortunately
"sortkey" is already taken).  If it's an integer N, sort the results by that
column Nth in order; if null, don't sort by that column.  Yet another column
could more precisely describe the sort, say ascending vs. descending, or
even sorting by some site-specific algorithm.


--Sean