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Date:      Thu, 09 Feb 2006 15:19:08 -0200
From:      Manuel Lemos <mlemos@acm.org>
To:        noackjr@alumni.rice.edu
Cc:        freebsd-cvsweb@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: File descriptions
Message-ID:  <43EB798C.3090807@acm.org>
In-Reply-To: <43DEE1C7.60809@alumni.rice.edu>
References:  <43C9913E.1050005@acm.org> <43DEE1C7.60809@alumni.rice.edu>

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Hello,

on 01/31/2006 02:04 AM Jonathan Noack said the following:
> Manuel Lemos wrote:
>> Maybe I am missing something obvious, but I could not find an option to
>> make the descriptions of each file appear at least in the page to browse
>> the file.
>>
>> I see the use_descriptions option in the cvsweb.conf but that seems for
>> module descriptions.
>>
>> Is there a way to make cvsweb display the file descriptions? At least it
>> should appear in the file page, but I think it would be nice if it could
>> appear somehow in the respective file listing too.
> 
> Right now it appears that use_descriptions only works for directories.
> Adding a Description column to files would make them very wide, although
> there's nothing preventing us from doing it.  Displaying the
> descriptions on the file page is a decent idea.  The descriptions file
> would have to be loaded for each page, so making it large would have an
> adverse effect on interactivity.

I am not sure what you mean by descriptions file. I mean the description
that you used when you add a file this way:

cvs add -m "Description here" filename.txt

In directory listings, the description could optionally appear in second
line below the file name, as at least in my browser, the file icon is
usually taller than twice the height of the current file name font.

The description could be clipped to not exceed a configurable length
limit. It could also take the whole table row span since it would the
only thing in a second line.

This would be an option, so other people that do not like the idea, can
disable file descriptions on directory listings. Personally I think that
a description is better than guessing what the file is from the file name.

Another complementary idea is to set the file link <a> tag title
attribute to the file description. That would make the description
appear in many browsers as tool tip when the mouse passes over the link.

As for descriptions in the file pages, that would be an obvious feature,
so I think it should appear at the top below the file path header.

BTW, one thing that I miss in file pages is a direct link to show the
HEAD revision of the file. I know it works with an URL like this, but
there seems to be no link directly to that.

filename.txt?rev=HEAD;content-type=text%2Fplain



> If you are having problems getting use_descriptions to work with
> directories, be sure you add the descriptions file to
> CVSROOT/checkoutlist as documented in section 9 of the INSTALL file.

No, I was talking only about files.

-- 

Regards,
Manuel Lemos

Metastorage - Data object relational mapping layer generator
http://www.metastorage.net/

PHP Classes - Free ready to use OOP components written in PHP
http://www.phpclasses.org/



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