URL: <https://savannah.nongnu.org/support/?111315>
Summary: CSS needs refresh plus related issues
Group: Savannah Administration
Submitter: kurahaupo
Submitted: Thu 18 Sep 2025 03:41:37 PM AEST
Category: Savannah trackers - bugs, tasks, etc.
Priority: 5 - Normal
Severity: 3 - Normal
Status: None
Privacy: Public
Assigned to: None
Originator Email:
Operating System: None
Open/Closed: Open
Discussion Lock: Any
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Follow-up Comments:
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Date: Thu 18 Sep 2025 03:41:37 PM AEST By: Martin D Kealey <kurahaupo>
Despite having been actively involved in open source software for almost as
long as the FSF has existed, I'm a complete novice at using Savannah, so I'm
still having trouble finding things that are "obvious" to more experienced
users. This is a very frustrating experience.
Savane does a lot of things differently from other common platforms like
Gitlab, Bitbucket, or Github, and while I'm not suggesting that emulation of
other platforms should be a goal, there would seem to be some aspects that
could be learned from others.
1. After I log in, I don't see anything like /"groups I'm interested in"/.
There's no "watch this group", except by subscribing to the applicable mailing
list, and *that* doesn't give a link to the group's pages. So either I keep
some bookmarks on my PC, or I have to search for each group.
2. When a mailing list notifies me that there's a ticket that interests me, I
get a link to it, but there's no "watch to this ticket" facility. (I've since
been told that I should simply post an empty comment to the ticket, but that
strikes me as quite antisocial; do people subscribed to tickets really *want*
to be notified whenever someone starts merely watching a ticket?)
3. Having done that, there's then the question of how to *stop* receiving
updates on a ticket. I looked around for ages and couldn't find anything.
(Again, I was subsequently informed that the section heading "Mail
Notification Carbon-Copy List" is collapsed by an "accordion"; from my
perspective, the UI is an utter failure, see below.)
4. For the groups that I'm following, there seems to be an awkward disjunction
between the ticket tracker and the mailing list that receives "new ticket"
announcements. Replies on the mailing list are never seen by the the original
poster unless they're an experienced user who has already subscribed to the
list. On of the groups - bash - gives end-users a tool to submit bug reports
by email, but those wind up going to the list and not into the ticketing
system.
Is there a recommended group configuration that would ensure all issue
submissions and their responses are organised in a coordinated manner? Is
there a way to have replies on the mailing list be treated as comments to add
to a ticket, and/or create a new ticket, without imposing additional
requirements beyond what's normally needed to participate in a mailing list
(ie, not requiring everyone to register GPG keys)?
The invisibility of the accordion indicators caused me to publicly criticise
Savane for not having certain functionality, leading to some respondents
deciding I was an "ignorant idiot" who needed to be put in their place. I felt
more angry at Savane than at them, especially when I discovered I'd tripped
over an intentional mine-fieldin *frontend/php/css/internal/base.css*:
.minusorplus { font-size: xx-small }
which dates back to 2006.
When this is combined with the low contrast in the default theme (off white on
pale blue), the "(+)" and "(-)" symbol clusters appear to be no more than
fuzzy bullet points, not legible indicators of potential utility.
Firstly, this hasn't kept pace with modern ideograph conventions; it is now
far more common to see ► and ▼ rather than (+) and (-).
Secondly, I don't really understand why this content needs to be hidden in the
first place. Other than "Post a Comment", the only default-closed accordions
are right at the bottom of the page, where one's already scrolling down
anyway.
Lastly, two issues I discovered as I was writing this ticket:
1. There's no markup for "inline code sample", aka fixed pitch span rather
than div. I tried various permutations of markdown (``) and HTML (<code>) to
see if it was merely undocumented, but to no avail.
2. if you hit refresh (or go back and then forward again) while composing a
ticket, you're dumped out and have to start again; there isn't even a "start
again" link, you have to go back far enough to find the "submit new" button.
(Oh, and heaven forbid that you hit that button whilst in the middle of
composing a ticket.)
In short, _please_ can we have a CSS overhaul? If I were to submit patches to
make it look more in line with modern expectations, how likely are they to be
accepted? Or would this just generate endless arguments about how it doesn't
need changing and/or how my choices are ugly?
(The main thing I would do is move more of the base stuff into the themes, so
that people can choose what they want or need, and then create a new theme to
be the default for new users.)
PS: I appreciate I'm bundling up multiple issues here, but I really don't feel
like torturing myself repeatedly to submit multiple tickets.
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