'fixing' or 'rejecting' bugs are separate actions from leaving a comment

[Robert Collins]

A common sequence for me is to
* note why a bug is fixed or not a bug
* mark the bug as fixed or not a bug

Its very slow having to click around to do this as separate actions, conceptually its a single step: 'I've committed the fix, closing the bug'

[Brad Bollenbach (bradb)]

Are you confident that we've fixed this in a way that conveniences the day-to-day Malone user?

For example, I just accidentally assigned a bug to myself when I meant to assign it to BjornT. So, I immediately changed the assignee to bjornt. To be a little more clear to the casual observer as to what happened there, I would have liked to make a comment that I had made a mistake in assigning it to me, and meant to assign it to bjornt.

Are "status notes" appropriate for this purpose? Is it reasonable to assume that users don't want to add a comment to the bug when they edit something about that bug in their context?

[Christian Reis (kiko)]

If instead of status notes the field was called task whiteboard, the answer would be obvious, wouldn't it? :-) I think yes, the status notes should be used to indicate this sort of thing.

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

That's not true: the reason for a reassignment doesn't belong in the field no matter what it's called. That a bug has been reassigned is not visible in the task page, so presenting the reason for the reassignment would be a non-sequitur.

[Christian Reis (kiko)]

Matthew, aren't you confused? Tasks are reassigned on the task page -- bugs themselves don't have assignments.

Oh, perhaps you are referring to assignment /changes/ not being visible in the task page (they aren't, but nor are they visible in the bug page). Well, let me put it this way: if I reassign a task and I want to let people know why I did it, what field do you think I'm going to use to note that?

[Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)]

In some future field for e-mail notifications that aren't retained in the bug report. Anyway, such discussion doesn't belong in this bug report, because this bug is fixed.