3 Improvements For Collaboration on the Request Page

Today we want to tell you about three significant improvements we have just introduced that make it easier to collaborate on the request page. Those improvements are part of the beta program.

We started the redesign of the request workflow in August 2022. Then, in September 2022, we focused on the support of multi-action submit requests. We continued in October 2022 with improvements regarding the Build Results tab and superseded conversations, and we presented build results with a pinch of salt in November 2022. In January 2023, we worked on facilitating the review process. In February 2023 we enhanced the review process with comments on changes. Later, in April 2023, we focused on improving the comments on changes and supporting new types of actions. In June 2023 we worked on maintenance action types. In July 2023 we introduced Set Bugowner action and diff comments for non-beta users. In September 2023 we focused on Build Results Summary Gets Into Shape. Later 2023, in November, we added the Build Status Refresh and Other Insights on Our Request Page. The year 2024 started with Revamping the Request Build Status Page and Introducing the Dark Mode. We continued in February with Build Results Summary Chart Links to Build Results Overview and in April with Improvements On the Redesigned Request Page.

More Clarity on the Diffs

The diff tab now shows small highlights (called eyecatchers) that show the exact change. Those eyecatchers will help you see what exactly is new or changed and allow you to focus better on those differences, making it easier to review the request.

Less Clutter in Conversations

Before we had two boxes on the conversation timeline: if you wanted to write a comment, you had to find the comment box, if you wanted to give a reason because you declined something you had to find the decision box. Now, you only have one box, so you don’t have to think where you write things anymore because there is no choice!

Less Noise in the Build Results

The build results of a request were showing a lot of information that is not really useful to decide if you should merge the request or not, like the “Excluded” state. We limited the build results in the overview to succeeded/failed and building now. This will make easier for you to understand the state of the request and help you make a decision about it.

We hope those changes will help you focus better on the important bits of a request. As always we are eager to know what do you think about this!

How To Give Us Feedback

There are two ways to reach us:

• On GitHub, by opening an issue and / or commenting on an already opened issue.
• On IRC, by talking directly to us. We are in the channel #opensuse-buildservice on Libera.Chat.

Please note that we favor GitHub to gather feedback as it allows us to easily keep track of the discussions.