Status grouping order makes files jump around

[Mark Shuttleworth]

Putting the "added" files next to the "unknown" files in the "bzr status" listing might feel more polished.

If the "added" file group and the "unknown" file group were next to one another in the listing, then adding a previously-unknown file would give a more natural feeling to the eye. Imagine you type "bzr status" and see an unknown file. Then you "bzr add" that file, and type "bzr status" again. At the moment, the file jumps right to the top of the listing, into the added files group.

I think it would be less jarring for the added files to be listed just above the unknown files. That way you would look for the file in the same place, then see that it has moved just a little bit.

A very very minor nit, but I thought I would file a bug in any event. Has the sequence of groups in the status listing been discussed in detail, is there a published rationale for the current sequence?

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

> A very very minor nit, but I thought I would file a bug in any
> event. Has the sequence of groups in the status listing been
> discussed in detail, is there a published rationale for the current
> sequence?

It's an interesting point. I don't think it's been discussed except
that we did talk about whether files should be grouped by status or just
sorted by name. At the moment unknown files are listed at the end
because every other name mentioned is that of a versioned file.
That distinction may not be useful or evident to users.

--
Martin

[Michael Ellerman (michael-ellerman)]

I'd vote for not grouping at all, and just printing "modified foo", "added bar" etc. on every line. That would solve Mark's problem, scales better (ie. header doesn't scroll off the screen), and works with grep.

[Aaron Bentley (abentley)]

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Michael Ellerman wrote:
| Public bug report changed:
| https://launchpad.net/malone/bugs/35515
|
| Comment:
| I'd vote for not grouping at all, and just printing "modified foo",
| "added bar" etc. on every line. That would solve Mark's problem, scales
| better (ie. header doesn't scroll off the screen), and works with grep.

I really dislike having these discussions as per-bug mini-mailinglists.
~ Where it's not an obvious bug, it's much better to do it on the mailing
list, where we can have a better discussion and hopefully reach a better
conclusion.

I think sorting by filename is better for the query "what happened to
this file?". And sorting by status is better for the query "Are there
any files with status foo"? I think the second is usually more
important, especially in cases where there are so many files listed that
a header would scroll off the screen.

I also think grouping is not necessarily tied to the decision to use
headers vs prefixes. You could easily have:

~ added abc.py
~ added zyx.py
unknown def.py
unknown uvw.py

Aaron
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[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Listing unknown files at the end does make sense, so this would
work-for-me if added files were listed second-last. As for the rest of
the discussion, back to you guys, and probably to a wiki page as Aaron
pointed out :-)

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

What info do you need, Martin?

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

Confirmed, just needs a decision on how the should be presented.

So far it looks like people would lilke the status repeated on each line, and an option to group either by status or just sort by filename.

[Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl)]

Will it *feel* more responsive to push the results out to screen as they
are discovered? If you sort or group you need to do it all before
displaying anything.