Branch listings could do with status filtering

Hi Daniel,

filter out abandoned branches is bug 58889. Do you need any other status filtering or that bug address your use case?

Thank you for your report.

Thanks Diogo - I didn't find it, when I filed the bug before.

However I think that one should be able to filter for specific branches. https://features.launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/code-review will generate huge branch lists, where this would be nice to have.

ugh, I thought I would get somewhere else by clicking that. Sorry for the spam :(

Daniel, can you be more specific on the specific sort of filtering you want (in addition to bug 58889)?

I'd like to be able to select branches in any status separately. In https://code.launchpad.net/people/ubuntu-core-dev/+branches you can already see that the list gets hard to read. But for code-review I expect it to be much longer.

So, you want to be able to display only branches with lifecycle "New", or only branches with lifecycle "Mature", right?

Would you be happy with:
1. fix to bug 58889
2. on default listings (no merged or abandoned), a dropdown with the options "Any", "New", "Experimental", "Development", "Mature", and a button to perform the filtering
3. on the pages with complete listings, the same dropdown with additional items "Merged" and "Abandoned".

Or do you required the ability to filter by combinations of status, like "Experimental OR Development", "New OR Mature", "Merged OR Abandoned"?

Or do you need even more advanced filtering (assignee, full text search, etc.)?

Just trying to understand what are your needs.

I myself would think that 1-3 should be sufficient.

+1 for David's design (since he asked:-).

+1 with additions.

Add a branch status called "Vintage" for those "Mature" branches that you don't want to see all the time.

Initially the branch view will show all branches except those with a status of "Merged", "Abandoned" or "Vintage".

A drop down list has the following selections:
   - Current
   - All
   - New
   - Experimental
   - Development
   - Mature
   - Vintage
   - Merged
   - Abandoned

Where "Current" is the initial selection (and default) selection.

> Add a branch status called "Vintage" for those "Mature" branches that you don't want to see all the time.

How is this practically different from "Abandoned"?

I guess that it is intended for things like historical unmaintained release branches. But then it's equivalent to "Abandoned" for all intents and purposes.

The current set of status is already quite long and complicated. I think additional status should be recorded with orthogonal properties. For example branches of series could be displayed first, in a distinct way, that would address the use case of easily finding historical release branches.

> A drop down list has the following selections: [...]

I had to think a bit to understand the purpose of "Current", but I think it is a good idea. To make it more understandable, branch listing pages should have an explanatory block of text below the dropdown.

 - "Listing *Current*: all branches with status New, Experimental, Development or Mature."

 - "Listing *Development*: useful work that is expected to be merged eventually."

etc.

On 6 Dec 2006, David Allouche <email address hidden> wrote:
> > Add a branch status called "Vintage" for those "Mature" branches that
> you don't want to see all the time.
>
> How is this practically different from "Abandoned"?
>
> I guess that it is intended for things like historical unmaintained
> release branches. But then it's equivalent to "Abandoned" for all
> intents and purposes.

It has a different connotation of the quality of what's in the branch.
However, I think we can go ahead with filtering without blocking on
adding this.

I agree with the basic approach of allowing filtering to either specific
statuses or to useful standard subsets.

--
Martin

> It has a different connotation of the quality of what's in the branch. However, I think we can go ahead with filtering without blocking on
adding this.

Discussed this with Tim yesterday. We considered making "Inactive" an independent flag, so there would be a clear distinction between Mature+Inactive and e.g. Experimental+Inactive. Since I am also contemplating making "Merged" a separate flag (useful when we will have automatic status updating and landing-target), I think we should postpone adding more lifecycle-status until we have a clear view on how we want to evolve branch status in the next months.

Thanks guys!