pages only on subdomains cause user confusion (e.g. launchpad.net/project/+activereviews is a 404)

[Björn Tillenius]

URLs such as https://launchpad.net/landscape/+activereviews now returns a 404. It seems that I would have to write code.launchpad.net/landscape/+activereviews to get it to work. Why? I can't see any reason for having me write more than I should have to write. I always forget to write "code" in the beginning of the URL, since my thinking goes:

  1) I want to see something in Launchpad (typing launchpad.net/)
  2) What project do I want to see in Launchpad (typing /landscape)
  3) Oh, right, I want to see something code related... oh well, back to the beginning.

I don't care if launchpad.net/project/+activereviews redirects to the right place.

[Tim Penhey (thumper)]

This url you are mentioning isn't linked anywhere from the website, and must have been manually typed in. Perhaps it is bookmarked incorrectly.

We could fix it by registering a different type of view to redirect from everything but code, but I don't really see the benefit.

For me, I just type "active" in the URL bar, and LP active reviews is one of the first. So no URL hacking needed.

[Björn Tillenius (bjornt)]

On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 10:08:31PM -0000, Tim Penhey wrote:
> This url you are mentioning isn't linked anywhere from the website, and
> must have been manually typed in. Perhaps it is bookmarked incorrectly.
>
> We could fix it by registering a different type of view to redirect from
> everything but code, but I don't really see the benefit.

Come on. One thing that is nice about LP URLs is that it's easy to type
them. Why break that for no good reason?

> For me, I just type "active" in the URL bar, and LP active reviews is
> one of the first. So no URL hacking needed.

Sometimes I do that, sometimes I write the whole URL. Again, why do you
want to make it harder for people to type in URLs manually?

[Robert Collins (lifeless)]

I think it would be nice for this to work, by default, across the site.

[Martin Pool (mbp)]

I sympathize with bjornt but would also note this is just one instance
of a larger pattern. If you can do this why not
launchpad.net/bzr/+filebug or launchpad.net/bzr/+bugs/123,
launchpad.net/+bug/1 and so on?

We know the $app.launchpad.net pattern has some performance problems
and I think it also complicates the url space presented to users.
Perhaps we should consider whether the reasons it was originally done
still make sense.

[Tim Penhey (thumper)]

On Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:11:23 Björn Tillenius wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 10:08:31PM -0000, Tim Penhey wrote:
> > This url you are mentioning isn't linked anywhere from the website, and
> > must have been manually typed in. Perhaps it is bookmarked incorrectly.
> >
> > We could fix it by registering a different type of view to redirect from
> > everything but code, but I don't really see the benefit.
>
> Come on. One thing that is nice about LP URLs is that it's easy to type
> them. Why break that for no good reason?

It wasn't no good reason. The AJAX failed to set properties when the root
site was wrong. With more API use it becomes more important that the root
site of the URL is on the correct vhost for the object that you are modifying.

[Björn Tillenius (bjornt)]

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 10:11:45PM -0000, Tim Penhey wrote:
> On Tue, 31 Aug 2010 18:11:23 Björn Tillenius wrote:
> > On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 10:08:31PM -0000, Tim Penhey wrote:
> > > This url you are mentioning isn't linked anywhere from the website, and
> > > must have been manually typed in. Perhaps it is bookmarked incorrectly.
> > >
> > > We could fix it by registering a different type of view to redirect from
> > > everything but code, but I don't really see the benefit.
> >
> > Come on. One thing that is nice about LP URLs is that it's easy to type
> > them. Why break that for no good reason?
>
> It wasn't no good reason. The AJAX failed to set properties when the root
> site was wrong. With more API use it becomes more important that the root
> site of the URL is on the correct vhost for the object that you are modifying.

Then maybe re-open this bug? I'm not alone in finding this a useful
feature, and fixing this regression doesn't mean reverting what you did.
A redirect is fine.

[Ted Gould (ted)]

I think that if it's going to stay an error, at least the error page could describe how to fix it. I've used this URL a lot, and perhaps others have too. It seems at least worth a helpful error.

[Robert Collins (lifeless)]

So this is a core zopish issue; the fallout is going to be all over the place. I do think its nice to be generous in what we accept, if we can. I'm assigning wishlist because its not strictly a defect : we don't link to the urls that are not now working; anything in someones bookmarks should still be working. It sure would be nice to have it work though.

[Tim Penhey (thumper)]

I agree with Rob's triage on this.

I didn't want to have to add specific redirect code for every page.

We are likely to see more pages being restricted to specific subdomains as more
ajax is used. If we can automatically redirect, that'd be great, but it
should be done at the foundation level not requiring explicit settings for
every url.

[Björn Tillenius (bjornt)]

On Thu, Sep 02, 2010 at 11:19:04PM -0000, Tim Penhey wrote:
> I agree with Rob's triage on this.
>
> I didn't want to have to add specific redirect code for every page.
>
> We are likely to see more pages being restricted to specific subdomains as more
> ajax is used. If we can automatically redirect, that'd be great, but it
> should be done at the foundation level not requiring explicit settings for
> every url.

You know, you could also turn that argument around ;) Are you ok with
explicitly setting each page in Launchpad to a sub domain? Shouldn't it
be easier to have AJAX work across the board, rather than add specific
code for every page?