Matthew Thomas wrote:
> Greetings, Mozilla hackers and bugjockeys > > This is a courtesy note to let you know that sometime in the next few > weeks, you will become extremely disoriented and frustrated for a period > of two or three days. (This is in addition to any non-Mozilla-related > disorientation and/or frustration you may normally experience over the > holiday period.) > > The cause of the misery will be that I have designed, and Gerv has > implemented <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=98707>, a > complete redesign of Bugzilla's search page. So when > bugzilla.mozilla.org is next updated from Bugzilla CVS (either the tip > or the 2.16 release), <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/query.cgi> > will start looking completely different from how it looks now, and it > will take some time for all of us to get used to the new design. > > I have redesigned the search page for two reasons. > > Firstly, a noticable part of the pathology of the Mozilla Project is > that potential contributors try to report a problem, get told to look in > Bugzilla, and find it horribly difficult to search for bug reports. (You > can see this reported regularly in postings to n.p.m.general and > n.p.m.mail-news in particular.) > > Secondly, even for those intimately acquainted with Bugzilla, the search > UI is extremely inefficient. The page is very long, requiring lots of > scrolling, the most commonly used fields are at the bottom rather than > the top, and the Search button (obscurely labelled `Submit query') is > hidden just about as well as it could be without using CSS. > > Those changes in the new design which will benefit novice users include > the following. > * The most common fields are at the top of the page, with less common > fields further down. > * Fields are more clearly labelled, e.g. `A description entry:' is now > `A comment contains:'. > * `Submit query' is now `Search'. > > Those changes in the new design which will benefit experienced users > include the following. > * In many cases, you should now be able to carry out a basic search > without scrolling your browser window at all. > * Even for a complex search, you will need to scroll much less than > you do currently, as the page is more compact and related controls > are grouped together. > * If you are using a Mozilla build from the past few months, or if > you are using a browser other than Mozilla, you will now be able to > press Enter anywhere in the form to carry out the search (at the > moment, Enter just adds another row to the boolean search form). > > Here's roughly how it'll look: > <http://landfill.tequilarista.org/bbaetz/query.cgi> > > Here's roughly how it'll look, once Gerv has fixed the residual UI bugs: > <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=50517> > > Since I had so much fun doing that, I'm currently working on redesigning > Bugzilla's home page (again), to cure more of what ails the Mozilla > Project -- the problems where unresolved and unverified bugs, and > unreviewed patches, often get lost and forgotten. > >
