[mantisbt-help] View Issues Page

[P R. <pa...@ma...>]

Hi All,

 

I've been experimenting for a while about whether to make use of
http://datatables.net/ for the view issues list  and related filtering
functionality

 

The aim here would be to modernise and try and improve the existing
filtering:

 

*         Make use of Ajax requests for filtering response to avoid a full
page load.

*         Try to simplify the filtering options that are currently above the
view issues page to take up less space on the screen.

*         Allow easy colour theming of the grid for non-technical users -
Data Tables provides colour theming functionality through the use of
jquery's themeroller (http://jqueryui.com/themeroller/ ), and I know in 1.3
we move what used to be the jquery plugin into the core, and include jquery
UI in the core, as well as its own theme creator
(http://datatables.net/manual/styling/theme-creator ). Of course, making use
of Jquery's theme roller would allow someone who has a plugin utilising
jquery ui already to theme both the grid and the plugin in one go.

 

I've done a bunch of preliminary work for a while now into this (and
actually make use of a hacked up implementation of the datatable
functionality on my work Mantis instance), I'd like to sit down and try and
get an implementation done that would be suitable to include in the open
source version of Mantis. 

 

Before I proceed on this, I'm after some feedback on:

*         Whether people feel that making use of datatables for the View
issues functionality specifically would be useful, and improve the current
behaviour.

*         Whether, whilst it works in my work environment (Which is
controlled in terms of browsers/devices/people using it), would be a bad
idea to try and make work as part of the core Mantis

*         Given the suggestion of using datatables, whether there are any
key things to consider when doing an initial implementation i.e. ideas of
things you would like to see

*         How important it would be to support the use of jquery's
themeroller to allow customising the colours of the datatable in an easy to
use manner.

 

I've obviously got some ideas on the above, and some background experience
having added it to my work instance of Mantis, of what I think works, but it
would be good to get some feedback/thoughts from both users and others on
the dev team on this concept before spending time trying to port, generalise
and improve the code from work to the latest master.

 

Whilst I could have submitted a patch with this proposal, I feel that the
filtering and viewing issues functionality within Mantis is key to the
usability of Mantis - and arguably it's success or failure, that I'd rather
see what views and opinions people have first :) - and see if others in the
community have any good suggestions or ideas that could be covered as part
of looking at improving this part of Mantis.

 

Paul