Discussing a "Submit the whole topic" button, yet another button or cleanup the UI?

['Stefan Beller' via Repo and Gerrit Discussion]

As you may have noticed I am currently exploring how we can get
more atomicity into gerrit[1].

So I want to have a way of merging changes in different projects at
the same time.
Reusing topics for such atomicity seemed great to me as we don't want
to introduce
yet another grouping feature apart from topics and #hashtags.

So the first thing I came up with was the idea to merge atomically in
one topic[2].
This isn't necessarily a good change as it will confuse the user. ("I
clicked on submit,
but it doesn't merge, why?")

Instead a button is needed to "submit the whole topic" iff all of the
changes in the
topic are in submittable state. This would be the more user friendly way. Adding
yet another button may be also confusing as there are already quite a
lot of buttons.
So how to get rid of buttons while adding new buttons?

We should think about grouping them together.
Please, have a look at the following:

Loading Image...

You'll notice that there is no "edit commit message" button nor the buttons like
"cherry-pick", "follow up", "rebase", "Submit", "Abandon".

Instead there are three new buttons which are labeled with categories
"New", "Modify" and "Done" which each has a default action. At the right
side of each of this button there is a drop down menu, which let's you access
all of the buttons for that category:

New
cherry-pick
follow up

Modify
rebase
"edit commit message"

Done
Submit
Submit whole topic
Abandon

I picked the defaults in the image at random, they can be changed of course.


Any ideas/feedback on this mockup would be very welcome.

Thanks,
Stefan

[1] such as the "Change behavior of topics in Gerrit" discussion
before christmas

['Jonathan Nieder' via Repo and Gerrit Discussion]

I like the idea of "edit commit message" and rebase being the same button,
in the same top-left pane where "edit commit message" currently is.
Existing users would panic at the rebase button going away, though --- is
there some way to ease the transition? As a far-fetched example, if
clicking the existing Rebase button caused the "edit commit message"
drop-down to open and click then it would be more obvious where the new
button for that is. There's probably a less far-fetched way to accomplish
that --- e.g. a "where did the other buttons go?" link to documentation.

Merging cherry-pick and follow-up into a single button might also be nice,
but it's less obvious to me.

I quite like the concept of "Submit topic", "Submit single change", and
"Abandon" sharing a button. The default could be "Submit topic" since I
suspect it's what people will want most often. The same issue about "Where
did Abandon go?" would apply here, and hopefully the same "add a link to
help puzzled people" fix would take care of it.

The buttons could save some space by leaving out the "New -", "Modify -",
and "Done -" labels.

Post by 'Stefan Beller' via Repo and Gerrit Discussion
As you may have noticed I am currently exploring how we can get
more atomicity into gerrit[1].
So I want to have a way of merging changes in different projects at
the same time.
Reusing topics for such atomicity seemed great to me as we don't want
to introduce
yet another grouping feature apart from topics and #hashtags.
So the first thing I came up with was the idea to merge atomically in
one topic[2].
This isn't necessarily a good change as it will confuse the user. ("I
clicked on submit,
but it doesn't merge, why?")
Instead a button is needed to "submit the whole topic" iff all of the
changes in the
topic are in submittable state. This would be the more user friendly way. Adding
yet another button may be also confusing as there are already quite a
lot of buttons.
So how to get rid of buttons while adding new buttons?
We should think about grouping them together.
http://i.imgur.com/AgBb08c.png
You'll notice that there is no "edit commit message" button nor the buttons like
"cherry-pick", "follow up", "rebase", "Submit", "Abandon".
Instead there are three new buttons which are labeled with categories
"New", "Modify" and "Done" which each has a default action. At the right
side of each of this button there is a drop down menu, which let's you access
New
cherry-pick
follow up
Modify
rebase
"edit commit message"
Done
Submit
Submit whole topic
Abandon
I picked the defaults in the image at random, they can be changed of course.
Any ideas/feedback on this mockup would be very welcome.
Thanks,
Stefan
[1] such as the "Change behavior of topics in Gerrit" discussion
before christmas

[David Ostrovsky]

Post by 'Stefan Beller' via Repo and Gerrit Discussion
As you may have noticed I am currently exploring how we can get
more atomicity into gerrit[1].

[...]

Post by 'Stefan Beller' via Repo and Gerrit Discussion
We should think about grouping them together.

+1

[...]

Post by 'Stefan Beller' via Repo and Gerrit Discussion
Instead there are three new buttons which are labeled with categories
"New", "Modify" and "Done" which each has a default action.

This is too disruptive change. Users got used to the current location of
buttons,
and the core buttons (that used very often):

* Change commit message
* Rebase
* Abandon
* Submit

should stay by default where they currently are. Also note, that in context
of change edit series i was
trying to remove "Edit Commit Message" entirely because the change in the
workflow, but this idea
was rejected.

At the right

Post by 'Stefan Beller' via Repo and Gerrit Discussion
side of each of this button there is a drop down menu, which let's you access
New
cherry-pick
follow up
Modify
rebase
"edit commit message"
Done
Submit
Submit whole topic
Abandon
I picked the defaults in the image at random, they can be changed of course.

Be prepared for never ending bikescheding what the right default is, then.

Post by 'Stefan Beller' via Repo and Gerrit Discussion
Any ideas/feedback on this mockup would be very welcome.

Instead of defining number of static categories with static defaults and
hiding the core buttons
how about:

Preserve core buttons per default where they are and add one new
"Others..." drop down, and
move not often used actions, like "Follow-Up" and "Cherry-Pick" and new
ones you've mentioned
in this new category? It would be also possible to divide "Others..."
category in subcategories or
groups, by using "-----" line, e.g.:

Others... <dropdown>
Group A <non clickable>
Action_A_1
Action_A_2
---------------------------------
Group B <non clickable>
Action_B_1
Action_B_2
---------------------------------
[...]

The content of "Others..." category must be customizable, with sane
default. The users
should be able to move actions in and out to/of this category. For example
someone could
move "Abandon" action in "Others..." category and pull "Cherry-pick" action
as standalone
button. With moving user preferences from the database to Git, such
customization can be
easily implemented (dynamic My-Menu in user preferences screen is
implemented this way).