On 30. 3. 26 21:59, Timofei Zhakov wrote:
Hello all,The problem I would like to address is that actions like picking the right branch in a repository are sometimes annoying with the current UI of the command-line. Although all operations are really well-designed, the user still needs to manually input the whole URL of a branch/or use the relative path syntax. There is not enough user feedback. When interacting with a repository through the CLI it feels like some abstract thing that exists somewhere on the remote target - not a file-system tree. The current way we usually do that is one of the following: 1. Imagine what we have on the server in our minds. It's often not that big of a deal to type 30 characters when switching/merging stuff. 2. Use the web interface (if any). 3. Use third-party tools like TortoiseSVN Repository Browser (and the whole ecosystem including branch picker in switch/merge which I believe is almost the same thing). 4. Borrow the right command with the exact path from another resource (like when first time checking out a new project). The 2 and 3 are not always possible as the standard web interface is very limited in terms of functionality and not always do we have the pleasure to use the GUI apps. What I believe we need to improve overall workflow with Subversion is a way to browse repositories (without checking it out) directly in a terminal. Luckily because of the way accessing remote targets is designed in Subversion, it's possible to retrieve information of any arbitrary node without a need to fetch it entirely. I would like to propose introducing a tool for browsing remote repositories (svnbrowse). It will be a TUI (terminal user interface) like-ish application where a user could navigate the repository like in a web browser. I have tried to implement it. A patch is attached below. I generally liked the user experience it brings. There are also a few issues we might face when implementing this feature; 1. It currently loads items pretty slowly; Initially I used the svn_client API. However, it creates a new ra_session per each call. I believe it would be better to switch to using svn_ra directly. 2. We might load the tree recursively for faster navigation between directories. This would also allow fuzzy searching. But it makes the operation unbounded. 3. Should it work over a working copy or it's a web browser replacement? Using URL from a working copy makes it much more convenient to use as a user only needs to type 'svnbrowse' to get into it. 4. The revision issue; What revision do we use? If implementing it like in the rest of the commands (with --revision that defaults to HEAD), how often should we resolve it? The RA API (and the protocol) also allows fetching the contents of the HEAD directory (using svn_ra_get_dir2 with SVN_INVALID_REVNUM revision). However, there is no way to get the revnum back (without making an extra request). 5. Should it be a separate program or something like an option in 'svn list --please-let-me-browse-it'. I personally think that it should not be in 'svn' command. By conceptual conventions of 'svn' there are minimal interactions and it can be used for scripting as well. I believe it would be much better to separate it into a different program. 6. I suggest limiting the scope to directory browsing as it's the simplest to implement but it improves the experience by a lot. Later on, adding file content browsing and log would be natural. Also it may act as an alternative to svnmucc if a commit operation was implemented. 7. Do we use ncurses (library that the majority of TUI apps use) or figure out something else? This list is not complete and I may have missed something; To conclude, there are plenty of things to be done and many problems with on obvious solution. Better we try something out and get some feedback and vision of what is to be improved. The prototype represents the general wireframe of what it should like. I made it in like an hour to get an overall impression. Please feel free to express your opinion about this idea. Dear svndev, it's time to discuss some UI things >-<
So, if I'm reading this correctly, you're basically proposing a nicer interface for svnmucc? Or just the read-only part of it?
-- Brane
