v0.4 Release Complete

Posted on January 23, 2009 by Sid

As the title suggests my 0.4 release is complete! I’ve managed to fulfill all the goals (and more) that I set out to complete. I’ve posted a new patch for hg_templates containing all my changes. The following are all the related links:

View the project page for more details.

Posted in DPS911, Mercurial Project, Open Source | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

v0.4 Release – Merge Changesets Background Color Problems

Posted on January 22, 2009 by Sid

I was testing bug 459727 again today and looks like there is a major problem that I didn’t notice before. Have a look at the screen shot below. Notice the problem?

No? Let me tell you then. The problem is that the grey rows and the white rows are not alternating properly. Also sometimes the email and date column are appearing at the bottom of the row instead of at the top. Why is that happening? Well, after reaching the point of being able to see the pushlog when I close my eyes I figured it out. I noticed that no merge changesets have grey backgrounds. That is why sometimes the text of the email and date column appears to be at the bottom of the row.

I had a look at how I was setting the background color of merge rows. I was using the following code:

var trScrollMerge = document.createElement("tr");
trScrollMerge.style.backgroundColor = trScroll.style.backgroundColor;

I commented it out and tested the pushlog again and found that there was no difference which means that the above code was doing nothing. To fix this issue I inserted the following code in its place:

var trScrollMerge = document.createElement("tr");
trScrollMerge.className = trScroll.className;

The above code gives me the following result which solves the issue:

This is another another bug fix that I can add to my v0.4 release.

Posted in DPS911, Mercurial Project, Open Source | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

v0.4 Release – Loading More Entries onPageLoad

Posted on January 22, 2009 by Sid

One of my goals for this release was to get the loading more entries onPageLoad functionality working properly concerning bug 459727. Currently I was getting an unresponsive script error. I’ve been struggling with this the last few days. I played around with this problem for a while in the hope of finding a viable solution.

The goal is to get more entries to load onPageLoad in order to fill out the entire page so that the scroll bar shows up. This will allow the user to scroll down and load further entries. However, the problem is that different users can have different screen sizes and/or resolutions and thus it is important that the number of entries loaded is dynamic.

To get rid of the unresponsive script error I tried using the following code:

var start;
function setup()
{
    start = 0;
    getMaxEntries();
 
    var docHeight = document.body.clientHeight;
    var desiredHeight = window.innerHeight;
 
    var i = Math.ceil(window.innerHeight / document.body.clientHeight);
 
    for(var counter = 0; counter < i; counter++) {
        if(start > 0) {
	    loadEntries();
       }
    }
}

The above code doesn’t work. Nothing happens onPageLoad, only the initial set of entries are loaded. I think this is because JavaScript doesn’t wait for getMaxEntries() to finish and moves on to the next line of code thus when the if(start > 0) statement is encountered the value of start is still 0 and loadEntries() is never called.

Somehow, I needed JavaScript to let getMaxEntries() execute completely before moving on to the rest of the code. The value of start is set in getMaxEntries() and loadEntries() will never get called unless the value of start is something greater than 0. I needed some sort of wait() or sleep() functionality. The closest thing I could find to wait() or sleep() in JavaScript was setTimeout(), which delays execution of the function for a set amount of time. The following is the code I came up with:

var start;
function setup()
{
    start = 0;
    getMaxEntries();
 
    var docHeight = document.body.clientHeight;
    var desiredHeight = window.innerHeight;
 
    setTimeout("if(start > 0) {loadEntries(Math.ceil(window.innerHeight / document.body.clientHeight)); }", 1000);
}

Now, the above code sets start to 0 and then executes getMaxEntries(). Then JavaScript moves onto executing the next line but setTimeout() delays the execution of loadEntries(). By the time loadEntires() gets executed the new value of start has been set and loadEntries() works properly.

I tested the above code and it works, more entries are loaded onPageLoad and the scroll bar appears. The only draw back being that Firefox hangs for a bit before the entries load. I don’t know if that is acceptable or not. I’ll put up the new patch tomorrow and lets see what ted and/or jorendorff have to say on this issue.

Posted in DPS911, Mercurial Project, Open Source | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

v0.4 Release – XSS vulnerabilities and Loader.gif Issues

Posted on January 19, 2009 by Sid

I’ve decided to fix two extra features regarding my v0.4 release. During the course of figuring out how to implement other features I was able to fix these two issues as well so I decided to add them to the release. These fixes are concerning bug 459727.

XSS Vulnerability

In renderMorePushLogResults(), the main work horse that does all the work of adding new entries; I was creating an object from the JSON text received from the server:

1

var pushData = new Function("return " + pushCheckins.responseText) ();

Apparently the above makes the feature vulnerable to XSS attacks. I’m not an expert on security issues but this line has been pointed out to me on the bug page. So I decided to use the advice given to me and use JSON.parse() instead.

1

var pushData = JSON.parse(pushCheckins.responseText);

At first I thought that JSON was built into Javascript but I was wrong since I tried using JSON.parse() and got the error: “JSON is undefined”. After getting some help from IRC I found out that I needed a JSON library. Then, I headed over to good old Google and found the lib I was looking for here. Once I had the lib all I needed to do was add the following and everything worked again:

1

<script type="text/javascript" src="{url}static/json2.js"></script>

Loader.gif

I had already implemented the loader.gif last semester. I thought it was working and wasn’t showing up because I was testing on localhost and the load times were so fast that I wasn’t able to see the loader.gif

I was wrong. The loader.gif wasn’t showing up at all. To fix this all I needed to do was move the code that inserts the loader.gif to the very start of renderMorePushLogResults(). See below:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89

function renderMorePushLogResults() {
  var loader = document.getElementById("loader");
  loader.innerHTML = '<img src="{url}static/ajax-loader.gif" align="right" />';
 
  var end = start;
  start = start - 20
  var pushCheckins = new XMLHttpRequest();
  pushCheckins.open('GET', '/json-pushes?startID=' + start + '&endID=' + end, true);
  pushCheckins.onreadystatechange = function() {
    if(pushCheckins.readyState == 4)  {
      if(pushCheckins.status != 404) {
        var pushData = JSON.parse(pushCheckins.responseText);
        var counter = 0;
        for(var i = end; i > start; i--) {
          var trScroll = document.createElement("tr");
          if(counter == 0) {
            trScroll.className = "parity0"; 
            counter = 1;
          } else {
              counter = 0;
              trScroll.className = "parity1";
          }      
          var tdScrollUser = document.createElement("td");
          tdScrollUser.width = "184px";
          tdScrollUser.innerHTML += pushData[i].user + '<br />' + pushData[i].formattedDate;
          //Create changset link
          var tdScrollChangeset = document.createElement("td");
          tdScrollChangeset.innerHTML += 
            '<a href="/rev/' + 
            pushData[i].individualChangeset.substring(0, 12) + 
            '">' + 
            pushData[i].individualChangeset.substring(0, 12) + 
            '</a>'; 
 
		  //Create bug link
		  var bugLink = createBuglink(pushData[i].desc);
 
          var tdScrollAuthorDesc = document.createElement("td");
          tdScrollAuthorDesc.innerHTML += '<strong>' + pushData[i].author + ' &mdash ' + bugLink + '</strong>';
          trScroll.appendChild(tdScrollUser);
          trScroll.appendChild(tdScrollChangeset);
          trScroll.appendChild(tdScrollAuthorDesc);
          loader.innerHTML = "";
          document.getElementById("titlePush").appendChild(trScroll);
 
          //Check whether it is a merge changeset or not
          if(pushData[i].MergeData != []) {
            for(var j = 0; j < pushData[i].mergeData.length; j++) {
              if(pushData[i].mergeData[j] != "") {
                var mergeStr = pushData[i].mergeData[j];
                for(var k = 0; k < pushData[i].mergeData[j].length; k++) {
                  var actualMergeStr = mergeStr[k].split('|-|');
                  var mergeC = actualMergeStr[0];
                  var mergeUser = actualMergeStr[1];
                  var mergeDesc = actualMergeStr[2];
                  if(mergeDesc != pushData[i].desc) {
                    var trScrollMerge = document.createElement("tr");
                    trScrollMerge.style.backgroundColor = trScroll.style.backgroundColor;
                    var tdScroll_MergeUser = document.createElement("td");
                    tdScroll_MergeUser.width = "184px";
 
                    //Create changset link 
                    var tdScroll_MergeC = document.createElement("td");
                    tdScroll_MergeC.innerHTML +=
                      '<a href="/rev/' +
                      mergeC.substring(0, 12) + 
                      '">' + 
                      mergeC.substring(0, 12) +
                      '</a>'; 
 
                    var merge_bugLink = createBuglink(mergeDesc);
 
                    var tdScroll_MergeAuthorDesc = document.createElement("td");
                    tdScroll_MergeAuthorDesc.innerHTML += '<strong>' + mergeUser + ' &mdash ' + merge_bugLink + '</strong>';
                    trScrollMerge.appendChild(tdScroll_MergeUser);
                    trScrollMerge.appendChild(tdScroll_MergeC);
                    trScrollMerge.appendChild(tdScroll_MergeAuthorDesc);
                    document.getElementById("titlePush").appendChild(trScrollMerge);
                  }
                }
              }
            }
          }
        }    
      } 
    }
  }
  pushCheckins.send(null);
}
Posted in DPS911, Mercurial Project, Open Source | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

v0.4 Release – Linkifying all Bug Strings

Posted on January 18, 2009 by Sid

This post is again concerning my fixes for bug 459727. One of my goals for this release is to fix the bug link functionality. I’ve made some progress on that front in terms of creating correct bug links for the differnt types of patterns presented. This time I decided to tackle the other issue with bug links.

The problem is that for any given string that contains bug links only the very first bug string is converted into a link. The subsequent ones fail to get converted. Case in point below:

Both the first bug string “bug 437288″ and the second one, “bug 437288″ should be converted into buglinks but only the first one actually gets converted. This is what I’m looking to fix.

Now, this problem had me stumped for a while. I tried solving it using regexp functions in JavaScript but that was a dead end. I tried to think up other ways but none of them seemed to make sense to me.

Yesterday, while staring at my computer and thinking about this issue it just hit me, a perfect example of the light bulb effect. The answer to my problem was RECURSION!!! A concept I had come to dispise during my data structures and alogrithms class. I had never really used it in any of my programs before. This would be the first time.

Lets jump into the code as I explain this further. I have my main work horse function that creates the bug links:

function createBuglink(str) {
  //Create buglink
  var matchFound = new Boolean(false);
  var bugInDesc = 0;
  var pattern = -1;
  var bugLink = "";
 
  re = new RegExp("[bB][uU][gG]\s\d{6}");
  re2 = new RegExp("b=\d{6}");
  re3 = new RegExp("\d{6}\W");
 
  bugInDesc = str.search(re);
  if(bugInDesc != -1) {
    matchFound = true;
	pattern = 1;
  } else {
      bugInDesc = str.search(re2);
	  if(bugInDesc != -1) {
	    matchFound = true;
	    pattern = 2;
	  } else {
	      bugInDesc = str.search(re3);
	      if(bugInDesc != -1) {
	        matchFound = true;
		    pattern = 3;
		  }
	  }
  }
 
  if(matchFound == true) {
    if(pattern == 1) {
	  bugLink = bugLinkify(bugInDesc, str, 4, 10);
	} else if(pattern == 2) {
	  bugLink = bugLinkify(bugInDesc, str, 2, 8);
    } else if(pattern == 3) {
	  bugLink = bugLinkify(bugInDesc, str, 0, 6);
    }	
  } else { //No bug provided
      bugLink = str;
    }
 
  return bugLink;
}

Then I have a function that does the actual string manipulation to insert the link code into the string which is called within createBugLink():

function bugLinkify(bugInDesc, str, start, end) {
  var bugLinkName = str.substring(bugInDesc, bugInDesc + end);
  var bugNumber = bugLinkName.substring(start, end);
  var bugLink = 
    str.substring(0, bugInDesc) + 
    '<a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=' + 
    bugNumber + 
    '">' + 
    bugLinkName + 
    '</a>' + 
    createBuglink(str.substring(bugInDesc + end, str.length));
 
  return bugLink;
}

Now, in bugLinkify() the genius of recursion gets to take over. I just call the createBuglink() function again on the rest of the string that didn’t get converted into a buglink and keeps gettig called until there are no bug strings left to be converted.

The upside to this method is that a string could contain an unlimited amount of bug strings and they would all get converted into bug links. But the thing I love most about this method is that I didn’t have to add even a SINGLE line of code. That fact makes this implementation awesome. Gaining functionality without having to add more lines of code is always great.

The following are the results:

Posted in DPS911, Mercurial Project, Open Source | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

v0.4 Release – Better regexps for Creating bugLinks

Posted on January 17, 2009 by Sid

This is concerning bug 459727. As one of my goals for this release I wanted to create better regexps in order to match all possible bugLink patterns i.e. bug 123455, b=134566, 345777 or BUG 293455

To do this I came up with 3 different regexps which match the above patterns and nothing else. The following is the code:

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43

function createBuglink(str) {
  //Create buglink
  var matchFound = new Boolean(false);
  var bugInDesc = 0;
  var pattern = -1;
  var bugLink = "";
 
  re = new RegExp("[bB][uU][gG]\s\d{6}");
  re2 = new RegExp("b=\d{6}");
  re3 = new RegExp("\d{6}\W");
 
  bugInDesc = str.search(re);
  if(bugInDesc != -1) {
    matchFound = true;
	pattern = 1;
  } else {
      bugInDesc = str.search(re2);
	  if(bugInDesc != -1) {
	    matchFound = true;
	    pattern = 2;
	  } else {
	      bugInDesc = str.search(re3);
	      if(bugInDesc != -1) {
	        matchFound = true;
		    pattern = 3;
		  }
	  }
  }
 
  if(matchFound == true) {
    if(pattern == 1) {
	  bugLink = bugLinkify(bugInDesc, str, 4, 10);
	} else if(pattern == 2) {
	  bugLink = bugLinkify(bugInDesc, str, 2, 8);
    } else if(pattern == 3) {
	  bugLink = bugLinkify(bugInDesc, str, 0, 6);
    }	
  } else { //No bug provided
      bugLink = str;
    }
 
  return bugLink;
}

As you can see once a match is found (bugInDesc is not -1) the pattern being used in the string is identified and then bugLinkify() is called which is responsible for actually creating the link.

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14

function bugLinkify(bugInDesc, str, start, end) {
  var bugLinkName = str.substring(bugInDesc, bugInDesc + end);
  var bugNumber = bugLinkName.substring(start, end);
  var bugLink = 
    str.substring(0, bugInDesc) + 
    '<a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=' + 
    bugNumber + 
    '">' + 
    bugLinkName + 
    '</a>' + 
    str.substring(bugInDesc + end, str.length);
 
  return bugLink;
}

Using this method the 3 different patterns are converted into bug links properly. See results below

Posted in DPS911, Mercurial Project, Open Source | Tagged , , , , | 3 Comments

v0.4 Release – Optimizing Client Side Code

Posted on January 17, 2009 by Sid

This is concerning bug 459727. As one of my goals for this release I’m trying to maintain/add functionality but reduce the amount of code. I started off by perusing the code in renderMorePushLogResults() found in the hg_templates/pushlog.tmpl file (see below).

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115

function renderMorePushLogResults() {
  var end = start;
  start = start - 20
  var pushCheckins = new XMLHttpRequest();
  pushCheckins.open('GET', '/json-pushes?startID=' + start + '&endID=' + end, true);
  pushCheckins.onreadystatechange = function() {
    if(pushCheckins.readyState == 4)  {
      if(pushCheckins.status != 404) {
        var loader = document.getElementById("loader");
        loader.innerHTML = '<img src="{url}static/ajax-loader.gif" align="right" />';
        var pushData = new Function("return " + pushCheckins.responseText) ();
        var counter = 0;
        for(var i = end; i > start; i--) {
          var trScroll = document.createElement("tr");
          if(counter == 0) {
            trScroll.className = "parity0"; 
            counter = 1;
          } else {
              counter = 0;
              trScroll.className = "parity1";
          }      
          var tdScrollUser = document.createElement("td");
          tdScrollUser.width = "184px";
          tdScrollUser.innerHTML += pushData[i].user + '<br />' + pushData[i].formattedDate;
          //Create changset link
          var tdScrollChangeset = document.createElement("td");
          tdScrollChangeset.innerHTML += 
            '<a href="/rev/' + 
            pushData[i].individualChangeset.substring(0, 12) + 
            '">' + 
            pushData[i].individualChangeset.substring(0, 12) + 
            '</a>'; 
          //Create buglink
          re = new RegExp("[bB][uU][gG]\s\d{6}");
          var bugInDesc = (pushData[i].desc).search(re); 
          if(bugInDesc != -1) {
            var bugLinkName = (pushData[i].desc).substring(bugInDesc, bugInDesc + 10);
            var bugNumber = bugLinkName.substring(4, 10);
            var bugLink = 
              (pushData[i].desc).substring(0, bugInDesc) + 
              '<a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=' + 
              bugNumber + 
              '">' + 
              bugLinkName + 
              '</a>' + 
              (pushData[i].desc).substring(bugInDesc + 10, (pushData[i].desc).length);
          } else { //No bug provided
              var bugLink = pushData[i].desc;
          }
          var tdScrollAuthorDesc = document.createElement("td");
          tdScrollAuthorDesc.innerHTML += '<strong>' + pushData[i].author + ' &mdash ' + bugLink + '</strong>';
          trScroll.appendChild(tdScrollUser);
          trScroll.appendChild(tdScrollChangeset);
          trScroll.appendChild(tdScrollAuthorDesc);
          loader.innerHTML = "";
          document.getElementById("titlePush").appendChild(trScroll);
 
          //Check whether it is a merge changeset or not
          if(pushData[i].MergeData != []) {
            for(var j = 0; j < pushData[i].mergeData.length; j++) {
              if(pushData[i].mergeData[j] != "") {
                var mergeStr = pushData[i].mergeData[j];
                for(var k = 0; k < pushData[i].mergeData[j].length; k++) {
                  var actualMergeStr = mergeStr[k].split('|-|');
                  var mergeC = actualMergeStr[0];
                  var mergeUser = actualMergeStr[1];
                  var mergeDesc = actualMergeStr[2];
                  if(mergeDesc != pushData[i].desc) {
                    var trScrollMerge = document.createElement("tr");
                    trScrollMerge.style.backgroundColor = trScroll.style.backgroundColor;
                    var tdScroll_MergeUser = document.createElement("td");
                    tdScroll_MergeUser.width = "184px";
 
                    //Create changset link 
                    var tdScroll_MergeC = document.createElement("td");
                    tdScroll_MergeC.innerHTML +=
                      '<a href="/rev/' +
                      mergeC.substring(0, 12) + 
                      '">' + 
                      mergeC.substring(0, 12) +
                      '</a>';    
                    //Create buglink
                    reg = new RegExp("[bB][uU][gG]\s\d{6}");
                    var merge_bugInDesc = mergeDesc.search(reg);
                    if(merge_bugInDesc != -1) {
                      var merge_bugLinkName = mergeDesc.substring(merge_bugInDesc, merge_bugInDesc + 10);
                      var merge_bugNumber = merge_bugLinkName.substring(4, 10);
                      var merge_bugLink =
                        mergeDesc.substring(0, merge_bugInDesc) + 
                        '<a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=' + 
                        merge_bugNumber + 
                        '">' + 
                        merge_bugLinkName + 
                        '</a>' + 
                        mergeDesc.substring(merge_bugInDesc + 10, mergeDesc.length);
                    } else { //No bug provided
                        var merge_bugLink = mergeDesc;
                    }
                    var tdScroll_MergeAuthorDesc = document.createElement("td");
                    tdScroll_MergeAuthorDesc.innerHTML += '<strong>' + mergeUser + ' &mdash ' + merge_bugLink + '</strong>';
                    trScrollMerge.appendChild(tdScroll_MergeUser);
                    trScrollMerge.appendChild(tdScroll_MergeC);
                    trScrollMerge.appendChild(tdScroll_MergeAuthorDesc);
                    document.getElementById("titlePush").appendChild(trScrollMerge);
                  }
                }
              }
            }
          }
        }    
      } 
    }
  }
  pushCheckins.send(null);
}

I found that the bugLink code was being repeated. I was using it to create bugLinks for both normal and merge changesets. I decided to move the bugLink code to a function to stop the code repetition. By doing this I was able to reduce the number of lines of code by 27 lines (see below).

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88

function renderMorePushLogResults() {
  var end = start;
  start = start - 20
  var pushCheckins = new XMLHttpRequest();
  pushCheckins.open('GET', '/json-pushes?startID=' + start + '&endID=' + end, true);
  pushCheckins.onreadystatechange = function() {
    if(pushCheckins.readyState == 4)  {
      if(pushCheckins.status != 404) {
        var loader = document.getElementById("loader");
        loader.innerHTML = '<img src="{url}static/ajax-loader.gif" align="right" />';
        var pushData = new Function("return " + pushCheckins.responseText) ();
        var counter = 0;
        for(var i = end; i > start; i--) {
          var trScroll = document.createElement("tr");
          if(counter == 0) {
            trScroll.className = "parity0"; 
            counter = 1;
          } else {
              counter = 0;
              trScroll.className = "parity1";
          }      
          var tdScrollUser = document.createElement("td");
          tdScrollUser.width = "184px";
          tdScrollUser.innerHTML += pushData[i].user + '<br />' + pushData[i].formattedDate;
          //Create changset link
          var tdScrollChangeset = document.createElement("td");
          tdScrollChangeset.innerHTML += 
            '<a href="/rev/' + 
            pushData[i].individualChangeset.substring(0, 12) + 
            '">' + 
            pushData[i].individualChangeset.substring(0, 12) + 
            '</a>'; 
 
          //Create bug link
          var bugLink = createBuglink(pushData[i].desc);
 
          var tdScrollAuthorDesc = document.createElement("td");
          tdScrollAuthorDesc.innerHTML += '<strong>' + pushData[i].author + ' &mdash ' + bugLink + '</strong>';
          trScroll.appendChild(tdScrollUser);
          trScroll.appendChild(tdScrollChangeset);
          trScroll.appendChild(tdScrollAuthorDesc);
          loader.innerHTML = "";
          document.getElementById("titlePush").appendChild(trScroll);
 
          //Check whether it is a merge changeset or not
          if(pushData[i].MergeData != []) {
            for(var j = 0; j < pushData[i].mergeData.length; j++) {
              if(pushData[i].mergeData[j] != "") {
                var mergeStr = pushData[i].mergeData[j];
                for(var k = 0; k < pushData[i].mergeData[j].length; k++) {
                  var actualMergeStr = mergeStr[k].split('|-|');
                  var mergeC = actualMergeStr[0];
                  var mergeUser = actualMergeStr[1];
                  var mergeDesc = actualMergeStr[2];
                  if(mergeDesc != pushData[i].desc) {
                    var trScrollMerge = document.createElement("tr");
                    trScrollMerge.style.backgroundColor = trScroll.style.backgroundColor;
                    var tdScroll_MergeUser = document.createElement("td");
                    tdScroll_MergeUser.width = "184px";
 
                    //Create changset link 
                    var tdScroll_MergeC = document.createElement("td");
                    tdScroll_MergeC.innerHTML +=
                      '<a href="/rev/' +
                      mergeC.substring(0, 12) + 
                      '">' + 
                      mergeC.substring(0, 12) +
                      '</a>'; 
 
                    var merge_bugLink = createBuglink(mergeDesc);
 
                    var tdScroll_MergeAuthorDesc = document.createElement("td");
                    tdScroll_MergeAuthorDesc.innerHTML += '<strong>' + mergeUser + ' &mdash ' + merge_bugLink + '</strong>';
                    trScrollMerge.appendChild(tdScroll_MergeUser);
                    trScrollMerge.appendChild(tdScroll_MergeC);
                    trScrollMerge.appendChild(tdScroll_MergeAuthorDesc);
                    document.getElementById("titlePush").appendChild(trScrollMerge);
                  }
                }
              }
            }
          }
        }    
      } 
    }
  }
  pushCheckins.send(null);
}

Reduced lines of code needed to achieve the same functionality also reduces the chance of bugs occurring, which is always a good thing.

Posted in DPS911, Mercurial Project, Open Source | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

v0.4 Release Goals

Posted on January 16, 2009 by Sid

The 0.4 release deadline is approaching fast (next week) and I thought it would be beneficial to come up with a list of goals that I will be attempting to complete. I will be applying further fixes to bug 445560. So, to get to the point straight away the following are my goals:

Optimize the client side code

The goal is to maintain/add functionality but decrease the lines of code. Understanding the current code I have come up with can be confusing. I want to make it more efficient and slim it down a bit. I think I can do this by moving some functionality to functions as some lines of code are being repeated.

Fix the buglink feature

The buglink feature works but there are some bugs strings that it doesn’t pick up. It won’t pick up strings with the patterns “123456″ or “b=123456″. Also if there is more than 1 potential bug link in the string only the very first one is converted into an actual bug link. Case in point below:

Fix the onPageLoad feature

The pushlog should load enough changeset entries onPageLoad so that the vertical scroll bar appears. Now, the problem is that different people use different screen sizes so just loading a static number of items onPageLoad is not enough. The users screen size must be taken into account. Currently, the number of entries are loaded according to the users screen size but I’m getting an unresponsive script error (see below). It does work if the user clicks continue. I want to get rid of this error so that the functionality works smoothly. One foreseeable problem is that I will have a hard time testing this feature since I only have a 15 inch screen.

You can follow my progress on the project’s wiki page.

Posted in DPS911, Mercurial Project, Open Source | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

A New Beginning

Posted on January 15, 2009 by Sid

I’m finally back from my month long vacation and a new semester at Seneca College has begun. I spent most of the holidays trying to take it easy and get some rest. It was a welcome change from the frenzied quick pace of last semester.

This semester (my last at Seneca) I will be continuing my work with hgweb but in a new course setting, DPS911 the successor of my previous open source course. David Humphery will be mentoring us once again but the onus is on the students to get the work done.

For this course the goal is to make 7 releases so that the project goes from a version 0.3 to a version 1.0 in a matter of 3 months. We will be making a release at a rate of 1 every 2 weeks so the students will have to be constantly working on their projects to keep up.

I’ve created a project description and plan for this course which will help me visualize and keep track of what needs to be done. Lets hope things go well

Ready, set, GO!

Posted in DPS911, Mercurial Project, Open Source | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Some Reflections on The Open Source Course

Posted on December 7, 2008 by Sid

Regular classes for this semester have finally come to an end which means that the open source course for this semester has also reached the finish line. This is the first time I’ve taken such a course. I think it is very unique. Seneca, or for that matter other Colleges or Universities don’t offer a course such as this one. I’ve definitely enjoyed myself while working on this, which is not to say that I didn’t go through frustrating times. Throughout this course I have been guided by jorendorff, ted, djc and bsmedberg. Thank you to all of them, without their help I wouldn’t have been able to get very far. I really appreciate the help.

I think that this course has pushed me to the limits of my ability and beyond. Before this semester I didn’t know anything about Python, jquery, Mercurial or for that matter JavaScript (at least not in the manner that Mozilla uses it). I’ve had to learn all these technologies in one semester and apply them into something that worked and would be accepted by Mozilla. It has been amazingly difficult and challenging. Out of all my subjects I have definitely committed the most amount of hours to this course, by far. Almost every other day I was working on the something related to this course. Reflecting back, over the semester I have written 40+ blog posts and release 10+ patches, not to mention the labs and contributions that I did.

I think the whole blogging idea is ingenious. This blog has become a way for me to let the community know what I am doing. This is the true essence of open source as nothing is hidden from the community. Also, I think this blog has become a great asset for me. I will be referencing this blog in my resume so that I can show prospective employers what I have done with Mozilla and what kind of skills and experiences I have garnered. This process definitely makes everything transparent.

Overall, I think this course is extremely helpful and I would recommend it to every student in the CPA and BSD programs. It really separates the men from the boys. However, I think there are ways in which the course can be improved. I believe the biggest problem is that there is not boundary line available. Throughout the course I had to ask myself, is this enough? Do I have enough contributions? Did I blog enough? Did I provide enough information? There is no right answer for these questions as Dave doesn’t want to answer them. I can understand why as these questions made me push myself to do everything possible in order to make sure that I had reached that invincible safety area. Not having the knowledge that you have done enough to get a good mark makes you do even more until there is no time left, at least that is true in my case. Even though this is a good thing it really affects the other courses that one maybe taking. This course will take up as much as time as you are willing to give to it. There is no boundary. I think there should be some sort of boundary to give you that sense of reassurance that you are in the safe zone so that you don’t dedicate all your time to this course while potentially neglecting your other courses. I don’t know if others feel the same way but I got this feeling throughout the course.

I’m relatively certain that I will be taking the next open source course. I had a conversation with jorendorff and ted and it seems that there is plenty more things that I could work on next semester related to hgweb. Although, I’m not 100% certain yet if I’m I’m going to take the next iteration of the course. I need to check my schedule and look at the other courses I will be taking and then I will make a final decision. For now all my attention will turn towards my exams, which are ominously lingering over the horizon.

Overall a wonderful and challenging course that taught many new things. I want to thank Dave Humphrey for providing the building blocks and continously pushing us to limit throughout the semester. It was fun!

Have a happy holidays everyone!

Posted in Mercurial Project, Open Source | Tagged , , | Leave a comment