BugzillaImprovements

This is the collected input about changes community members would like to make to bugzilla.mozilla.org (June 2009).

Code

UI

Simpler Layout

Collapse all the non-required and less-frequently used fields by default. This would simplify the layout of bug reports and make it less daunting for new participants. Allow user prefs to control what gets expanded and collapsed by default for each user. More familiar, easier for new users, streamline navigation. -- chofmann

• Bug: none.

No default UI changes

I don't want any changes to the bugzilla UI. Firefox's needs are clearly sufficiently different from the rest of the world's that accommodating them is painful and invasive. I just want the tools to build a UI and workflow that suits us. -- shaver

Text Area Visible On Filing

When I'm filing a bug, the text area in which I am to describe the bug should be above the fold. Everything else (including the component it's in) is subsidiary to the bug description itself, and should be farther down (or invisible -- why do I care who the default CC: is? why would I ever change the QA contact?) -- shaver

• Bug: none.

Fix Mid-Air Collisions

Fixed mid-air collision handling, such that:

• there are no more false positives (mid-airs that don't actually over-write)
• changes to unrelated fields do not conflict
• changes to related fields are resolved "humanely" (if I added a dependency, and someone else removed another, those are not hard to reconcile)

-- shaver

• Bug 107306 - Smart midair collision handling with line-item overrides.
• Bug 69447 - Make CC changes not cause midairs.
• Bug 395970 - mid-air collision pages cry wolf.

Historical Queries

Ability to do historical queries on bug attributes ("what were all the bugs with blocking-firefox3.5+ on Friday?") so that people can stop scraping daily queries or trying to figure out the charting system.

• There is a WONTFIXed bug, but I can't find it right now.

Flexible Fields

No mandatory fields; all fields should be able to be multi-valued (this would let us solve the resolved-vs-fixed-keyword problem, as well as "vista and win7 but not win XP", and would let us have bugs in multiple components, multiple assignees for bugs, etc. -- we can argue about whether we want to permit that in different parts of our product as a matter of policy, but the mechanism should be there) -- shaver

Bug: none.

Multiple Statuses/Resolutions

I guess that finding out a better way to have "fixed here, but needs fixing somewhere else" would be cool, and support for that in queries. -- axel

Bug: none.

Deprecation

Ability to orphan components/bugs/flags/etc. without a ton of noise. I should be able to make "fixed1.4.1" never show up in the keyword autocomplete without having to do a pile of bug-munging. -- shaver

• Bug 456743 - Add the ability to disable field values (mark them as inactive). Being worked on by ghendricks.

JavaScript Autocomplete

I would like to see someone finish (or rewrite) the patch I attached to - JavaScript autocomplete for review request field. For bonus points, the same backend code should be used anywhere else that you currently enter someone's bugmail in the UI. I waste an awful lot of time guessing at people's bugmail. -- ted

• Bug 386600 - JavaScript autocomplete for review request field (patch, July 2007)

Nicer Graphs

Nicer graphs would be good. -- dtownsend

Bug: too many to list. ;-)

Accounts

Hide from Autocomplete

Relatedly, people should be able to hide their accounts from auto-completion or partial matching. -- shaver

• Bug: none.

Server

API

A full REST+JSON API, so that anything currently possible through the bugzilla web UI (read or write) can be done through another program on another server. -- shaver

Including chart data. -- dtownsend

• A JSON API already exists; need to assess completeness and level of documentation.

Server-Side Hooks

Server-side hooks for basically every action, so that f.e. I could write something that did component watching the way I want without having to even discuss it with upstream, let alone make it sufficiently general to be accepted. -- shaver

Shorter Query URLs

Shorter query URLs by default. -- axel

• Already implemented in Bugzilla 3.4.

Bounce Tracking

Bug 209181 will save lots of time when processing a lot of bugs and you need to know if reporter mail has not bounced. -- Nikolay Shopik

• Bug 209181 - Bounce on bug reporter email should be noted.

Speed

Parallelization

Support for parallelizing queries across multiple servers, since mining this data will become increasingly resource-intensive. -- shaver

Caching

Intelligent caching of API and web-UI results, based on modification time for bugs; "generate on change" via the server side hooks would be a DIY option, certainly. -- shaver. Endorsed by axel.

Configuration

Reduce Product and Component Count

At least 80% fewer components, and many fewer products. We have 8 different DOM components, but nowhere obvious to put postMessage; 7 Java-related components; 12 different layout components; SQL (not supported anywhere, and not related to our own sqlite use or APIs); 9 different widget components, etc. -- and that's just Core. Mostly these subdivisons seem to be used as ways to narrow queries or get bugmail people want, all of which I think would be done better through attribute-based notifications/queries instead of something between the reporter and the bug. (I routinely have to take an entire minute just to figure out what product+component I want to file a bug, and I usually already know what code it's in!) -- shaver

Remove Platform and OS

Remove platform and OS, use keywords for them instead (until the multi-value thing is resolved above) -- shaver