gerrit/Documentation/intro-change-screen.txt

= Change Screen - Introduction

As of Gerrit 2.8 the change screen was redesigned from the ground up. The old
change screen is deprecated and will be discontinued in one of the next Gerrit
releases.

The design spirit of the new change screen is simplicity: only one patch set is
presented on the screen. The list of related changes is always visible and
optional elements are moved to pop down boxes.

This is not only a facelift. The main highlights are under the hood:

* Old style RPC calls are replaced by the REST API
* The prettify syntax highlighting library was replaced by Codemirror
* Automatic refresh of open changes
* Support to download a patch direct in browser: no local repo is needed
* JS API integration: it was never so easy to add change/revision actions or
HTML fragments to the UI from a plugin

This document is intended to help users to switch to the new change screen.

Further information on the topic can be found in the:
link:https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/repo-discuss/6Ryz9p6AzgE[
CodeScreen2 thread on the repo-discuss mailing list].

[[configuration]]
== Configuration

The new change screen is activated by default. It can be deactivated
system-wide by changing the link:config-gerrit.html[gerrit.changeScreen]
setting to `OLD_UI`.  Users can deactivate it by setting `OLD_UI` on their
user preferences page.

[[switching-between-patch-sets]]
== Switching between patch sets

As already mentioned above, the main difference between the old and the new
change screen is the fact that only one patch set is presented on the screen.

To switch to other patch sets for the given change, the drop down 'Patch Sets'
box is used on the right upper side of the change header. The current selected
patch set and the number of patch sets are shown on the drop down in the form:
"currently active patch set/number of patch sets". To indicate that not the
current patch set is active, change header contains: "Not Current" headline
instead of the change status.

Patch sets are always sorted in descending order. The option to switch between
ascending and reverse patch set sorting order is not supported on the new change
screen.

Key bindings: "n" & "p" to navigate between the patch sets.

[[download-commands]]
== Download commands

The commands to checkout, pull, or cherry-pick a patchset moved to the
'Download' drop down box.  Patch files can be downloaded as base64 encoded or
zipped versions. Download-plugin must be installed to see the download actions.
If download plugin is not installed, only patch files hyperlinks are shown.

Change state is cached in browsers, and the change state includes the download
URLs. If the change is modified (e.g. add a message or change  a label vote)
the cached state in the browser will be invalidated and the download commands
will update. Another option to invalidate the cache is to use "Ctrl+Shift+R".

[[included-in]]
== Included in

To see the branches a specific change was merged into and the list of the tags
a change was tagged with, use the 'Included In' drop down on the change header,
to the left of the 'Revisions' drop down.

Note that this list is only visible on merged changes.

[[quick-approve]]
== Quick approve

The so called 'Quick approve' button is some times confusing. Normal users (i.e.
non-maintainers) see this as 'Verified+1' button to the right of the 'Reply'
button.

The button is not always "Verified+1". The button appears if a user has
permission to vote the max score in exactly one label that the rules have marked
as NEED.

For a maintainer with both 'Verified+1' and 'Code-Review+2' powers the button
does not appear, as both categories are still marked NEED and the maintainer has
permission to use both.  If another maintainer scores 'Code-Review+2', then the
button displays as 'Verified+1'. If a verifier scores 'Verified+1' the button
displays as 'Code-Review+2'.

It is important to note that by design, the user cannot provide a comment when
using this button, hence the name 'Quick approve'. To provide comments, the
'Reply' button should be used.

[[reply-button]]
== Reply button

This button corresponds to the 'Review' button the on patch set panel on the old
change screen. The user can optionally send an email during the vote. Inline
comments are displayed inside of the ReplyBox. Editing them inline in the
ReplyBox is currently not possible.

Hint: if "LGTM" (acronym for 'Looks Good To Me') is typed in the ReplyBox,
then the highest possible score for 'Code-Review' category for logged in user
is selected.

Key bindings: "a" to open the drop down. "ESC" to close it.

[[edit-commit-message]]
== Edit commit message

To edit the commit message use the 'Edit Message' button on the change header,
which will open a drop-down editor box.

Key bindings: "e" to open the drop down. "ESC" to close it.

[[star-change]]
== Star and unstar changes

Star change icon allows to star the change, so that "starredby:self" query can
retrieve the starred changes later. If the change is already starred, then
clicking the icon again unstars the change.

Key bindings: "s" to star/unstar the change.

[[permalink-change]]
== Permalink a change

Hyperlink "Change <change link>" is a control that serves for two purposes:
reload the change and permalink the change. To permalink,
Right mouse click -> Copy Link Address.

Key bindings: "R" to reload the change.

[[edit-change-topic]]
== Edit change topic

To edit the topic use the edit icon to the right of the topic field.

Key bindings: "t" to open the drop down. "ESC" to close it.

[[abandon-restore]]
== Abandon or Restore changes

When a change is abandoned or restored, a panel appears and a comment message
can be provided.

[[working-with-drafts]]
== Working with draft changes and patch sets

When a change or a patch set is a draft, then three additional buttons
appear on the action panel: 'Publish', 'Delete Revision', and 'Delete
Change'. 'Delete Revision' button is only visible when there are at
least two (draft) revisions. In the 'Patch Set' drop down a "(DRAFT)"
suffix is added to the patch set number to indicate that the patch set
is a draft.

[[draft-comments]]
== Highlight draft comments

If a patch set has draft comments that weren't published yet, then that patch
set is marked on the list in the 'Patch Sets' drop down list. In addition a red
"draft" prefix appears on the filenames in the file table.

[[codemirror]]
== Codemirror

On the user preferences page, 'Side By Side' or 'Unified Diff' view can be
configured.  Use the "/" key to start the CodeMirror search, like in 'vim'.

Key bindings are not customizable at the moment. They may be added in the future.

Range comments are supported on Codemirror's 'Side By Side' screen.  Highlight
lines with the mouse and then click the bottom-most line number to create a
range comment for the highlighted lines. It can also be used to select a
region on one line to emphasize what the comment is related to.

Key bindings:

* j / k: next line / previous line
* n / p: next diff chunk / previous diff chunk
* ] / [: next file / previous file
* u: up to change
* c: create a new inline comment (focus has to be in codemirror view)
* / or <Ctrl> + f: search in the current file
* <Shift> + o: expand or collapse all comments on current line
* <Enter> or o: expand or collapse comment
* <Esc> or Cancel: comment edit
* i: toggle intraline differences
* ,: Show diff preferences
* <Ctrl> + s: Save draft comment

[[reviewers]]
== Reviewers

Reviewers who actually voted on the change or were added to the change but didn't
vote yet are shown as "chip" in the 'Reviewers' field.

The votes per category are listed above the File list.

To add a reviewer, use the 'Add...' button to the right of the 'Reviewers'
field. Typing  into the pop-up text field activates auto completion of user or
group names.

To remove reviewers click on the 'x' icon in the reviewer's "chip".

Votable categories are shown as a tooltip for each reviewer.

Key bindings:  "c" to add a reviewer. "ESC" to close the drop down.

[[auto-refresh]]
== Auto refresh of change data

On the new change screen polling for updates to the currently open change is
activated per default.  For example, if another user votes or comments on the
same change, then a popup window appears on the bottom right corner of the
screen to notify the user that the change was updated.

The default delay is 30 seconds.  It can be configured with the
link:config-gerrit.html[change.updateDelay] setting.

[[related-changes]]
== "Related changes"

A tab control on the third column shows the related changes. There are 4
different tabs:

* Related Changes

This tab page shows changes on which the current change depends (ancestors) and
open changes that depend on the current change (descendants). For merge commits
it shows also the closed changes that are going to be merged into the
destination branch by accepting the merge commit. It is kind of a dependency
too, but not in the sense of "these changes have to be submitted in order to
submit this change".

Unlike the old change screen it doesn't explicitly say "needed by" and "depends
on" any more, but the relationship can still be inferred from the position of
the change in the list.  Changes listed above the current change are dependents;
changes below the current change are dependencies.

Indicators are appended on the commit message headlines of related changes to
signify dependencies on outdated changes, or commits that are not associated to
changes under review:

If the selected patch set of a change is older than its latest patch set,
the change is marked with an orange dot.

If a descendant change depends on a patch set that is older than the selected
patch set of a change, the descendent change is marked with a tilde (~).

If an ancestor commit is not associated to a Gerrit change, i.e. has been pushed
directly to the repository bypassing review, it is marked with a black dot.

This tab is only visible if related changes for the current active
change exist.

* Same Topic Changes

Changes that share the same topic are listed on this tab page. Only changes
in status opened are currently shown.

This tab is only visible if same topic changes for the current active
change exist.

* Cherry-Picks Changes

Changes with the same change id for the current project are listed on this
tab page. Note that also abandoned or merged changes can be shown. Currently
the status of the listed changes is not shown.

This tab is only visible if cherry-picked changes for the current active
change exist.

* Conflicts With Changes

Changes that are conflicting with the current change are listed on this
tab. Only the changes that are mergeable are currently shown. Non mergeable
changes are filtered out.

This tab is only visible if there are conflicting changes with the
current change.

Key bindings: "J" & "K" to navigate between the related changes. "O" to
open the currently selected change on one of the related changes tab page.

[[file-table]]
== File table

The user can now manually toggle the 'reviewed' flag per file using the check
box to the left of the filename.

Key bindings: "j" & "k" to navigate in the file table, "r" to toggle the
'reviewed' flag, and "o" or "Enter" to open diff in codemirror or unified diff
view.

[[diff-against]]
== Diff against

In the 'Diff against' dropdown, base reference version can be selected. On
selecting an entry the file table list is reloaded and shows only the files
that were changed compared to this reference version. The selected revision
is passed to the side by side view, so that code mirror windows "remember"
the base reference version choice made on the change screen.

[[history]]
== History

The history table shows change messages and inline file comments. Expand All and
Collapse All buttons show/hide the messages.

Key bindings: "x" expands all messages, "z" collapses them again.

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