Improving dt's UI

[David Wolever]

On 19-Jun-08, at 4:03 AM, Vlad Skvortsov wrote:
>> 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.
Ok, sounds good.  When I get into work today I'll tinker with it it a  
bit and see what I can do about a patch.

>> - 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.
Clearly I need to brush up on my RTFMing skills...
While that is much easier than I thought it was, I still (at least in  
theory) don't like the two steps -- it strikes me as a common use- 
case that should be simpler...
But, of course, I don't _actually_ know what I'm talking about  
because I haven't used dt for any amount of time yet... So I'll keep  
my mouth shut until I've got some evidence or a patch :P

>> 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?
That wouldn't be bad, but is there any reason not to just add another  
command?

>> 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.
Wonderful :)
Hopefully I'll have some diffs to review shortly.