Go: x/build/devapp: make it easier to see only release-blocker issues

[josharian]

If I want to look only at release blocker issues at https://dev.golang.org/release, it's not easy.

One really simple fix would be to use a unicode star instead of the image star, so I can use my browser's Find functionality to step from star to star.

Nicer would be some kind of filtering option.

Probably a pretty easy fix either way. Marking as help wanted.

cc @dmitshur

[kawakami-o3]

@josharian , I made a mock, https://kawakami-o3.github.io/Go%20Release%20Dashboard.html .
Is it what you want?

[josharian]

Looks good to me. @dmitshur @bcmills what do you think?

[bcmills]

I had honestly assumed that we were using a Unicode star to begin with. (It's AltGr+5 on my keyboard. 🙂)

[bcmills]

@josharian, it looks like we _are_ using the ★ Unicode character today. You just can't search for it because it's a CSS :before decorator rather than part of the content. (Same way you can't search for ◦ to find the bulleted lists on a page.)

[bcmills]

So I think the main thing to do here is to promote the stars from :before to actual characters on the page. Beyond that, I don't have a strong opinion about the filtery-star link either way.

[bcmills]

Here's an even simpler suggestion, though: let's sort the release-blocker issues to the start of each section. At least that makes the sections a bit easier to scan.

[kawakami-o3]

Here's the sorting mock, https://kawakami-o3.github.io/sort/Go%20Release%20Dashboard.html .

[agnivade]

Can we also change the color of the star to a light red, so that it stands out as something important ? I had no idea that the star stood for release blockers.

[kawakami-o3]

It is a nice way to chang the color of the star. Or how about changing background color?

[agnivade]

IMO that is too distracting.

[kawakami-o3]

It's certainly true. For comparison, the red star is here.

[agnivade]

Thank you for your efforts @kawakami-o3. Much appreciated.

[bcmills]

Honestly I think the color is too much of a standout for folks with full color vision, and it probably doesn't help at all for people with vision or color impairments.

If you want something that more clearly communicates urgency, perhaps we should change the symbol from ✭ to something exclamation-y like ⚠ or ❗.

There may be a couple more bits of signal we should communicate in the dashboard too: the early-in-cycle label and Milestone both communicate significant information about when the change needs to occur.

Personally, I would lean toward ⚠ for release-blocker on the current milestone, ! for release-blocker on the next milestone, and ⏰ for early-in-cycle issues that are not release-blockers. (But really I'm happy if the shed is painted at all; I don't care what color.)

[kawakami-o3]

I got it. Here is our current shed, https://kawakami-o3.github.io/mock.v4/Go%20Release%20Dashboard.html .

With my Chrome, the clock for early-in-cycle becomes tofu. On the other hand, Firefox shows a bit small triangle for release-blocker on the current milestone.

[bcmills]

With my Chrome, the clock for early-in-cycle becomes tofu.

That is super weird. 😅
FWIW, it looks like a clock on ChromeOS. (What platform are you using?)

[bcmills]

Overall I think it's nice. However, search by those characters still doesn't work for me (presumably since the mockup is still using the :before selector rather than text in a regular content tag).

Minor nits:

• The color still seems excessive to me. (Black-and-white is ideal; bonus points if you can coax browsers into displaying a text variant of the clock using a variation selector.)
• If you can vertically-center the text within the column, that would be even better. (The ⚠ and ! characters have different widths, but ideally the exclamation points within them should align.)

However, search still doesn't work for me.

[agnivade]

Can we do a tooltip showing the meaning of the icons on mouse-hover ? That will be helpful for those trying to understand what these mean.

[kawakami-o3]

https://kawakami-o3.github.io/mock.v5/Go%20Release%20Dashboard.html

Now, the symbols are actual charactoers which you can search, and they also have a title attribute for a tooltip. Additionally, I chose a black character and adjusted it's alignment.

Edit:

• screenshot 1
  

• screenshot 2
  

[bcmills]

Awesome! (CC @andybons, who should probably be the one to do the code review.)

[gopherbot]

Change https://golang.org/cl/182217 mentions this issue: devapp: make it easier to see only release-blocker issues golang/go#32418

[kawakami-o3]

Latest screenshots,

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[andybons]

This was fixed in CL 182217, but the CL didn't reference it as golang/go#32418 in the commit message so it wasn't automatically closed.