Thanks for adding qrun to Bazaar Explorer (revno 315)

[Maritza Mendez]

On Sun, Nov 22, 2009 at 12:41 AM, Ian Clatworthy <
ian.clatworthy at canonical.com> wrote:

> Maritza Mendez wrote:
> >
> > This is a very nice addition.
>
> It is. With a little more love, it could be a quantum leap forward,
> bringing in the richness of dozens of plugins to the GUI. Here's what
> I'm thinking:
>
> 1. Tweak the qrun UI.
>
> 2. Add configurable toolbars to Explorer that can call into it. e.g.
>   right click on the toolbar presents a list of toolbars and you'd
>   pick the one you want (or add one).
>
> The goal is something like "I want to use a pipeline now. Switch to the
> pipeline toolbar." Ditto loom, scmproj, rebase, builddeb, etc. Under the
> covers, the various toolbar actions would just call into qrun to do most
> of the work.
>
> Here's my thoughts on tweaking qrun:
>
> 1. Turn the combo box holding the list of commands into something that
>   allows easier finding of commands. "bzr help commands | wc -l" gives
>   240 for me which is way too many entries for a flat list. I'm
>   thinking something like ...
>
>   Category:       Commands:      [ ] Show hidden commands
>   +------------+  +-------------------------------------------------+
>   Core            cmd-1    cmd-5
>   plugin-a        cmd-2    cmd-6
>   plugin-b        cmd-3
>   plugin-c        cmd-4
>   +------------+  +-------------------------------------------------+
>
>   core is still 60+ which is a bit big so sub-categories may make sense
>   there, e.g. Basic, Administration, Miscellaneous. When run from
>   Explorer or qbzr-eclipse say, that would be quite useful because the
>   Basic commands already have custom dialogs: it's the others (e.g.
>   break-lock) which users will be looking for. Down the track,
>   we can add logical categories, e.g. "Favorites", "Aliases".
>
> 2. Like "Insert Directory..." and "Insert Filenames...", add
>   "Insert Options..." and "Insert Global Options..." buttons to help
>   build up the parameter list. The first would use the metadata in the
>   command object to build a basic form with checkboxes for boolean
>   options, combo-boxes for registry options, text fields for string
>   options, etc. The second would present a custom dialog that made it
>   easy to turn on the various debug options (e.g. -Derror), profiling,
>   etc.
>
> 3. Add a Reset button that reset the form so users could do that instead
>   of having to Close and re-start qrun. See bug
>   https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/qbzr/+bug/486373 (raised by you).
>
> Does that sound useful? If so, any volunteers to help with the various
> pieces? They sound relatively independent.
>
> Also, if this gains some momentum, I wonder what changes to bzr's
> command infrastructure would help. Maybe we want to mark selected
> commands as "interactive = True" and mask those out by default? Maybe we
> also want to mark commands that assume fixed font output so that
> "columns" within the output appear correct in qrun's display?
>
> Nothing beats a well-designed dialog optimised for a task. OTOH,
> investing a little into a generic solution like qrun could pay a large
> dividend by providing a "good enough GUI" experience across 95% of our
> ecosystem (thanks to bzrlib's well-designed Command+Option framework).
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Ian C.
>


These are all excellent.  I have wondered before (and am wondering again now
for qrun) what the "best" way of organizing the commands might be.  The list
is alreadt long, but It seems like no one way of organizing them would make
me happy all of the time.  I figure if I can't agree with myself then for
sure different people will have different preferences.  And maybe that's
good.  Each of us or each project might have its own natural workflow.  So
perhaps qrun "should" support customizable categories.  Or maybe
customizable toolbars in Bazaar Explorer would eliminate the need for
organizing commands in qrun at all.  Just wondering out loud.  Like I said,
I am not sure I could convince even myself right now much less anyone else.

~M
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