view mercurial/help/phases.txt @ 33390:32331f54930c

hgweb: re-implement followlines UI selection using buttons

This changeset attempts to solve two issues with the "followlines" UI in
hgweb. First the "followlines" action is currently not easily discoverable
(one has to hover on a line for some time, wait for the invite message to
appear and then perform some action). Second, it gets in the way of natural
line selection, especially in filerevision view.

This changeset introduces an additional markup element (a <button
class="btn-followlines">) alongside each content line of the view. This button
now holds events for line selection that were previously plugged onto content
lines directly. Consequently, there's no more action on content lines, hence
restoring the "natural line selection" behavior (solving the second problem).
These buttons are hidden by default and get displayed upon hover of content
lines; then upon hover of a button itself, a text inviting followlines section
shows up. This solves the first problem (discoverability) as we now have a
clear visual element indicating that "some action could be perform" (i.e. a
button) and that is self-documented.

In followlines.js, all event listeners are now attached to these <button>
elements. The custom "floating tooltip" element is dropped as <button>
elements are now self-documented through a "title" attribute that changes
depending on preceding actions (selection started or not, in particular).

The new <button> element is inserted in followlines.js script (thus only
visible if JavaScript is activated); it contains a "+" and "-" with a
"diff-semantics" style; upon hover, it scales up.

To find the parent element under which to insert the <button> we either rely
on the "data-selectabletag" attribute (which defines the HTML tag of children
of class="sourcelines" element e.g. <span> for filerevision view and <tr> for
annotate view) or use a child of the latter elements if we find an element
with class="followlines-btn-parent" (useful for annotate view, for which we
have to find the <td> in which to insert the <button>).

On noticeable change in CSS concerns the "margin-left" of span:before
pseudo-elements in filelog view that has been increased a bit in order to
leave space for the new button to appear between line number column and
line content one.
Also note the "z-index" addition for "annotate-info" box so that the latter
appears on top of new buttons (instead of getting hidden).

In some respect, the UI similar to line commenting feature that is implemented
in popular code hosting site like GitHub, BitBucket or Kallithea.

What are phases?
================

Phases are a system for tracking which changesets have been or should
be shared. This helps prevent common mistakes when modifying history
(for instance, with the mq or rebase extensions).

Each changeset in a repository is in one of the following phases:

 - public : changeset is visible on a public server
 - draft : changeset is not yet published
 - secret : changeset should not be pushed, pulled, or cloned

These phases are ordered (public < draft < secret) and no changeset
can be in a lower phase than its ancestors. For instance, if a
changeset is public, all its ancestors are also public. Lastly,
changeset phases should only be changed towards the public phase.

How are phases managed?
=======================

For the most part, phases should work transparently. By default, a
changeset is created in the draft phase and is moved into the public
phase when it is pushed to another repository.

Once changesets become public, extensions like mq and rebase will
refuse to operate on them to prevent creating duplicate changesets.
Phases can also be manually manipulated with the :hg:`phase` command
if needed. See :hg:`help -v phase` for examples.

To make yours commits secret by default, put this in your
configuration file::

  [phases]
  new-commit = secret

Phases and servers
==================

Normally, all servers are ``publishing`` by default. This means::

 - all draft changesets that are pulled or cloned appear in phase
 public on the client

 - all draft changesets that are pushed appear as public on both
 client and server

 - secret changesets are neither pushed, pulled, or cloned

.. note::

  Pulling a draft changeset from a publishing server does not mark it
  as public on the server side due to the read-only nature of pull.

Sometimes it may be desirable to push and pull changesets in the draft
phase to share unfinished work. This can be done by setting a
repository to disable publishing in its configuration file::

  [phases]
  publish = False

See :hg:`help config` for more information on configuration files.

.. note::

  Servers running older versions of Mercurial are treated as
  publishing.

.. note::

   Changesets in secret phase are not exchanged with the server. This
   applies to their content: file names, file contents, and changeset
   metadata. For technical reasons, the identifier (e.g. d825e4025e39)
   of the secret changeset may be communicated to the server.


Examples
========

 - list changesets in draft or secret phase::

     hg log -r "not public()"

 - change all secret changesets to draft::

     hg phase --draft "secret()"

 - forcibly move the current changeset and descendants from public to draft::

     hg phase --force --draft .

 - show a list of changeset revision and phase::

     hg log --template "{rev} {phase}\n"

 - resynchronize draft changesets relative to a remote repository::

     hg phase -fd "outgoing(URL)"

See :hg:`help phase` for more information on manually manipulating phases.