2899: Documentation does not mention the requirement to upload a full diff each time

ultra******@gmai***** (Google Code) (Is this you? Claim this profile.)
Oct. 23, 2013 
We run ReviewBoard 1.6.3.

When submitting a diff manually (without using the post-review tool), users don't understand they need to submit complete diffs every time. Instead they may wrongly submit several partial diffs as they make changes, meaning reviewers cannot see a complete end-to-end diff, and ReviewBoard does not work as intended.

This causes confusion and affects the reputation of ReviewBoard itself. People will stop using it if they can't get it to work correctly.

There is a stop-gap solution that could make things easier for users immediately: The ReviewBoard documentation must explain how it's necessary to submit a full diff each time and not a partial diff. This explanation could go on the "Creating Review Requests" page: http://www.reviewboard.org/docs/manual/1.7/users/review-requests/creating/

If the correct documentation is in place, local administrators and advocates of ReviewBoard could direct other users to it, ensuring its correct usage.

See also discussion at https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!starred/reviewboard/RosZjgO7FBo
david
#1 david
  • +Component-Docs
#2 ultra******@gmai***** (Google Code) (Is this you? Claim this profile.) 
Has there been any progress on this?

We've found that developers unfamiliar with ReviewBoard *always* get this wrong and upload partial diffs, which doesn't work.

I'm a little surprised that there's still no official documentation to explain how to use ReviewBoard correctly.
david
#3 david 
I've gone in and added a note to the docs in the master branch (22f108d).

Things like this can take a while because up until August of this year, Review Board has been entirely done in our spare time. We're now full time on the project, but there's a ton of work to be done on all aspects of the product (in addition to trying to build a sustainable business).
  • +Fixed