My initial reaction is that I do not like it, but I think that might
partially be because I do not understand some of the ideas you have for
using the log dialog. I am certainly not against giving your proposal a
shot. All that being said, here are just some thoughts I have, some are
in response to subsequent comments you have made.
1) Running multiple merges could become very tricky and introduce a lot
of side effects you were not expecting. I do not know what those all are,
but it just seems logical to me that if a file was changed multiple times
within the range, or other things like that, then you could run into
problems.
2) I most often use the "long-lived" branch approach, where I am keeping
a branch up to date with trunk. When I work on a branch, the way I do a
merge is to Show Log on my WC so that I can find the last revision I
merged. I then take the merge option, find the URL in the drop-down, type
the revision I previously looked up, and then usually click HEAD for the
To revision. What would help this process the most is to have the merge
dialog intelligently remember what I did the last time, and pre-fill with
that information. Ideally, it would take the To revision of my last merge
and make it the From revision. If nothing else, just having the URL
remembered would help a lot. This new dialog would not help at all. There
is nothing in the log messages of the trunk that is going to help me know
what revision I last merged in. To get that information, I have to look
at the log of my WC.
3) I personally like the way you input revisions in the current dialog
better than typing in a URL. I can probably get over it. Would I enter a
range like this?
url://host/project/trunk_at_123:456
4) I am torn about figuring out the right range for the user (in other
words subtracting one automatically). I think that could ultimately add
to the confusion. At a minimum, I would at least recommend that the
revisions you show in the dialog, are the ones you are going to pass to
the command. So if I select revisions 100-200 in the Show Log dialog, you
should show 99-200 when I come back.
Personally, I would rather see you move in the direction of Simon's last
design for the UI and then try to incorporate some of your ideas into
that. In other words, let's try to improve the terminology but also lay
out the dialog so that the WC is the last item shown. I think that
emphasizes the From -> To -> Into relationships. I think you could take
his basic design and still add your ideas for how to use the Show Log
option. This would make the dialog still easy to use for people like me
that know what we are doing, but also provide some ease of use for a
novice.
I also think you would get a big usability win if you either remembered
the last URL used for a merge in that WC, and/or in the remembered URL
list for this dialog, saved the list by WC. We do the latter in Subclipse
and it really helps the UI. In my case, there is always just one
remembered URL for each project and this makes it much easier to use.
Thanks
Mark
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Received on Mon Jan 24 15:29:14 2005