mail_thread._message_get_auto_subscribe_fields needs a tracking_visibility to track a field

[Guewen Baconnier @ Camptocamp]

Concerns the method openerp.addons.mail.mail_thread.mail_thread._message_get_auto_subscribe_fields:

    def _message_get_auto_subscribe_fields(self, cr, uid, updated_fields, auto_follow_fields=['user_id'], context=None):
        """ Returns the list of relational fields linking to res.users that should
            trigger an auto subscribe. The default list checks for the fields
            - called 'user_id'
            - linking to res.users
            - with track_visibility set
            In OpenERP V7, this is sufficent for all major addon such as opportunity,
            project, issue, recruitment, sale.
            Override this method if a custom behavior is needed about fields
            that automatically subscribe users.
        """
        user_field_lst = []
        for name, column_info in self._all_columns.items():
            if name in auto_follow_fields and name in updated_fields and getattr(column_info.column, 'track_visibility', False) and column_info.column._obj == 'res.users':
                user_field_lst.append(name)
        return user_field_lst

(BTW, unrelated to my issue but the auto_follow_fields arg should probably not be a mutable argument.)

Use case:

I create a model, I want to automatically subscribe a 'specialist_user_id' when defined so he will receive messages.
Note: the model does not automatically track and displays the changes.

    class my_model(orm.Model):
        _name = 'my.model'
        _inherit = ['mail.thread']

        _columns = {
            'name': fields.char('Name'),
            'user_id': fields.many2one('res.users', string='User'),
            'specialist_user_id': fields.many2one('res.users', string='Specialist'),
        }

        def _message_get_auto_subscribe_fields(self, cr, uid, updated_fields, auto_follow_fields=['user_id'], context=None):
            follow_fields = ['specialist_user_id']
            follow_fields += auto_follow_fields
            return super(my_model, self)._message_get_auto_subscribe_fields(cr, uid, updated_fields, auto_follow_fields=follow_fields, context=context)

Result:

user_id and specialist_user_id are not subscribed when changed

Expected:

user_id and specialist_user_id are subscribed when changed

Note:

If I put the _columns:

        _columns = {
            'name': fields.char('Name'),
            'user_id': fields.many2one('res.users', string='User', track_visibility='onchange'),
            'specialist_user_id': fields.many2one('res.users', string='Specialist', track_visibility='onchange'),
        }

It works, but I don't understand what is the relation between the track_visibility and the auto subscription.
I think that's 2 different things and that I shouldn't need to define a track_visibility to subscribe the users.

Workaround:

Define the columns with a dummy track_visibility as follows:

        _columns = {
            'name': fields.char('Name'),
            'user_id': fields.many2one('res.users', string='User', track_visibility='never'),
            'specialist_user_id': fields.many2one('res.users', string='Specialist', track_visibility='never'),
        }

[Martin Trigaux (OpenERP) (mat-openerp)]

Hello,

Sorry but it's not something that we want to have currently. We don't want to autoscubscribe every user fields.
We consider autosubscribe fields are quite important (eg: responsible of a task) so it's good to track them (why was I added as follower ? can see in the chatter)

Regards

[Guewen Baconnier @ Camptocamp (gbaconnier-c2c)]

Thanks for your answer.

Can you point me to the correct solution to automatically subscribe a user when it is changed (i.e. in a 'specialist_user_id' field)?