Improving dt's UI

[Vlad Skvortsov]

David Wolever wrote:
> As I lay in bed, my mind was racing with thoughts of building the  
> ideal issue tracking software... It would be entirely filesystem  
> based, a command line wrapper to make things easier, it would support  
> all sorts of searching...
> Now imagine my disappointment when I found out that it was already  
> implemented!
>   

Oh, I'm sorry for your disappointment! :-)

> Anyway, after some playing around with dt, it seems to do exactly  
> what I want... With one small exception: I've found the UI to be very  
> "clunky".  I'm not a huge fan of all the prompts -- I'd much rather  
> be put in $EDITOR.  For example:
> - The 'add' command forces you to pick a version, and there is no way  
> to set a default (breaking train of thought)
>   

Hmm, we just never had such a requirement, but it seems to be trivial to 
implement. It needs to be configurable though.

> - There is no clear way, in one "action", to close an issue and  
> include a commit message
>   

Just use 'c' and 'e' commands in the same session. Or, for 
non-interactive use, dt act $ISSUE -a close:fixed -m "Your commit message".

> - There is no clear way to "just add something (comment, header, etc)  
> to a ticket"
>   

Again, just invoke 'dt act' and then use 'e' or 'h' commands 
respectively. Or, dt act $ISSUE -m "Some comment"; dt act $ISSUE -a 
change-header:header=value.

> It seems to me like it would be a lot easier to be given $EDITOR with  
> the appropriate headers for any given action (ie, a `dt close` would  
> add the "DT-New-Status: closed" header for you), then after $EDITOR  
> is closed, check that everything is there, prompting (with a default,  
> so enter can be mashed) for any missing values.
>   

Hmm, currently -m or -F options are mandatory if -a is supplied to 
'act'. We could make them optional, and if they are omitted, drop into 
$EDITOR with "preset" headers. Would it work for you?
> So, the question is: is there any technical reason not to do this?
> And, next question, if I was to do it, would that make people happy?
>   
Patches are always welcome. :-) We just to make sure that the whole 
workflow is consistent after adding new features.

-- 
Vlad Skvortsov, vss at 73rus.com, http://vss.73rus.com