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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN""http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/loose.dtd"><HTML><HEAD><TITLE>Reviewing Topics</TITLE><METANAME="GENERATOR"CONTENT="Modular DocBook HTML Stylesheet Version 1.79"><LINKREL="HOME"TITLE="The Codestriker Guide"HREF="book1.html"><LINKREL="UP"TITLE="User's Guide"HREF="c333.html"><LINKREL="PREVIOUS"TITLE="Creating a new Topic"HREF="x394.html"><LINKREL="NEXT"TITLE="Viewing Comments"HREF="x602.html"></HEAD><BODYCLASS="SECT1"BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"TEXT="#000000"LINK="#0000FF"VLINK="#840084"ALINK="#0000FF"><DIVCLASS="NAVHEADER"><TABLESUMMARY="Header navigation table"WIDTH="100%"BORDER="0"CELLPADDING="0"CELLSPACING="0"><TR><THCOLSPAN="3"ALIGN="center">The Codestriker Guide: Version 1.9.3</TH></TR><TR><TDWIDTH="10%"ALIGN="left"VALIGN="bottom"><AHREF="x394.html"ACCESSKEY="P">Prev</A></TD><TDWIDTH="80%"ALIGN="center"VALIGN="bottom">Chapter 3. User's Guide</TD><TDWIDTH="10%"ALIGN="right"VALIGN="bottom"><AHREF="x602.html"ACCESSKEY="N">Next</A></TD></TR></TABLE><HRALIGN="LEFT"WIDTH="100%"></DIV><DIVCLASS="SECT1"><H1CLASS="SECT1"><ANAME="AEN504">3.5. Reviewing Topics</A></H1><P> Reviewing a topic is achieved by going to the "View Topic"screen for a specific review topic. This can be accessed fromeither the "Topic List" screen (<AHREF="x339.html">Section 3.2</A>),or from a URL in a new topic notification email, which is sentto the author and reviewers.</P><DIVCLASS="SECT2"><H2CLASS="SECT2"><ANAME="VIEW-TOPIC">3.5.1. Viewing a Topic</A></H2><P> The "View Topic" screen is one of four tabs available forviewing aspects of a topic. An example "Topic Text" tabdisplay can be seen in <AHREF="x504.html#FIGURE-VIEWTOPIC">Figure 3-5</A>.<DIVCLASS="FIGURE"><ANAME="FIGURE-VIEWTOPIC"></A><P><B>Figure 3-5. View Topic Screenshot</B></P><DIVCLASS="MEDIAOBJECT"><P><IMGSRC="viewtopic.png"></P></DIV></DIV></P><P> The top bar contains the following links to otherCodestriker pages:<P></P><DIVCLASS="VARIABLELIST"><DL><DT>List open topics</DT><DD><P> Following this link will take you to the "TopicList" page (see <AHREF="x339.html">Section 3.2</A>), andwill display all open topics in the system.</P></DD><DT>Create new topic</DT><DD><P> Following this link will take you to the "CreateTopic" page (see <AHREF="x394.html">Section 3.4</A>).</P></DD><DT>Search</DT><DD><P> Following this link will take you to the "TopicSearch" page (see <AHREF="x656.html">Section 3.9</A>).</P></DD><DT>Help</DT><DD><P> Following this link will show this help text.</P></DD></DL></DIV></P><P> The next part of the screen shows the four available tabsfor viewing different aspects of a topic. The "TopicComments" tab is for viewing the comments that have beensubmitted against the topic. Clicking on this tab will takeyou to the "Topic Comments" page (see <AHREF="x602.html">Section 3.6</A>). The "Topic Properties" tab takesyou to a page where you can view and edit the topic'sattributes, such as the title, author,reviewer, the repository the code in the review has beenmade against, the project the review is associated with, andthe topic description. Clicking on this tab will take youto the "Topic Properties" page (see <AHREF="x624.html">Section 3.7</A>). Finally the "TopicInformation" tab contains topic metric data, bothuser-defined and entered, and those that can beautomatically derived by Codestriker. Clicking on this tabwill take you to the "Topic Information" page (see <AHREF="x637.html">Section 3.8</A>).</P><P> Following the "Download topic text" linkwill return in the browser the raw topic textwhich was entered when the review was created. This can beuseful if the raw diff needs to be retrieved, so it can beused as a patch file. There are some links which affect thedisplay, such as whether a mono-space font should be used torender the code changes (requires more screen real-estate),whether to preserve the code's line-breaking or not, andwhat tab-width to use.</P><P> This is followed by the table of contents of the review,which consists of the list of files which comprise thetopic, whether they are added, removed or modifiedfiles, appropriately colour-coded.If a file has been modified, the revision of the file that has beenmodified is displayed. If filename is clicked, the browser will move tothe anchor which corresponds to changes made to that file.</P><P> The rest of the "View Topic" page can be seen in <AHREF="x504.html#FIGURE-VIEWTOPICDETAIL">Figure 3-6</A>.<DIVCLASS="FIGURE"><ANAME="FIGURE-VIEWTOPICDETAIL"></A><P><B>Figure 3-6. View Topic Detail Screenshot</B></P><DIVCLASS="MEDIAOBJECT"><P><IMGSRC="viewtopicdetail.png"></P></DIV></DIV></P><P> This shows the start of the code changes for the file<TTCLASS="FILENAME">codestriker/codestriker.pl</TT>. Clickingon the filename will show revision history of this file, ifCodestriker has been configured to link with a system, likeViewCVS. The "Go To Contents" link will move the browserback to the table of contents.</P><P> From this point, the screen in split into two sections,where the left side represents the old version of the file,and right side represents the new version. In the figure,the code in the block of red represents code which has beenremoved in the proposed change. Adjacent yellow blocksrepresent code changes, as can be seen with the versionnumber change. The green block represents new code whichhas been added, in this instance, the new constants forviewing modes.</P><P> Each file is broken up into a series of "deltas". At thehead of each delta block, for both the old and new versionsof the file, there is an indication of what line number thedelta started at. In this situation, clicking on the "Line24" link on the left hand side, will open a new browserwindow, which will contain the complete original contents of<TTCLASS="FILENAME">codestriker/codestriker.pl</TT>, anchored atline 24. Clicking on the "Line 22" link on the right handside will contain the complete contents of<TTCLASS="FILENAME">codestriker/codestriker.pl</TT> will<SPANCLASS="emphasis"><ICLASS="EMPHASIS">all</I></SPAN> of the proposed changes applied.Clicking on "Parallel" will do a similar job, but will showboth the original and new version of the complete fileside-by-side. See <AHREF="x504.html#VIEW-FILE">Section 3.5.3</A> for moredetails on what can be done with these complete file-basedviews, which can assist enormously in the review process.</P></DIV><DIVCLASS="SECT2"><H2CLASS="SECT2"><ANAME="ADD-COMMENT">3.5.2. Adding a Comment</A></H2><P> Every line of code in the display, is prefixed with ahyperlinked number. This number represents the line numberof the file. If a comment needs to be made against aspecific linenumber, click on the linenumber, and floatingwindow will come up with the "Add Comment" page (see<AHREF="x504.html#ADD-COMMENT">Section 3.5.2</A>). If a comment has alreadybeen made against a line, it will be red. Hovering overthe line will bring up a tooltip window, containing thedetails of the comment made.</P><P> A comment against a line is made by clicking on the linenumber of interest. This will display a floating window,an example can be seen in <AHREF="x504.html#FIGURE-ADD-COMMENT">Figure 3-7</A>.<DIVCLASS="FIGURE"><ANAME="FIGURE-ADD-COMMENT"></A><P><B>Figure 3-7. Add Comment Screenshot</B></P><DIVCLASS="MEDIAOBJECT"><P><IMGSRC="edittopic.png"></P></DIV></DIV>As can be seen in the figure, the window contains atext box where the comment canbe entered. Any formatting will be preserved, so that youcan enter new code fragments, if required. Any commentmetrics defined in the Codestriker configuration will appearhere as a series of dropdown boxes. In this example, thereis only the comment metric "Status" defined. As before,your email address is remembered in the browser's cookie, toprevent you from having to enter it each time you make acomment. When the "Submit" button is pressed, an email willbe generated and sent to the author of the review, to theemail address in the "Your email address" field as areference, to the email address in the "Cc" field, just incase there is a requirement to send the email elsewhere, andto any other email addresses that have made a comment onthis line, so that it is possible to get a form ofdiscussion happening.</P><P> Once the comment has been accepted by the server, it will beautomatically dismissed. If there was an error processingthe comment, an error message will be displayed at the topof the window.</P></DIV><DIVCLASS="SECT2"><H2CLASS="SECT2"><ANAME="VIEW-FILE">3.5.3. Viewing Complete old/new Files</A></H2><P> As mention in <AHREF="x504.html#VIEW-TOPIC">Section 3.5.1</A>, it is possible toview the entire contents of a file in a review in itsoriginal form, or in its proposed form, or side-by-sidedepending on whether the "Line" or "Parallel" link wasselected. The review has to be linked to a SCM repository,so that it can fetch parts of the file which aren't a partof the review text.</P><P> When a "Line" link is clicked, a new browser window willcome up with the contents of the file. This will be slowthe first time, but insubsequent times will be fast since the browser window isnot closed. An example of this window can be seen in <AHREF="x504.html#FIGURE-VIEWFILE">Figure 3-8</A>.<DIVCLASS="FIGURE"><ANAME="FIGURE-VIEWFILE"></A><P><B>Figure 3-8. View File Screenshot</B></P><DIVCLASS="MEDIAOBJECT"><P><IMGSRC="fileview.png"></P></DIV></DIV></P><P> This view matches the new contents of<TTCLASS="FILENAME">codestriker/codestriker.pl</TT>, from the"View Topic" screen seen in <AHREF="x504.html#VIEW-TOPIC">Section 3.5.1</A>.Each corresponding delta will have consecutive hyperlinkedline numbers. Those lines which do not have a hyperlinkedline number are outside the deltas in the review, but are apart of the file. Clicking on a hyperlinked line will bringthe "Add Comment" window into display, in the same way itwould as if the line number was clicked from the "ViewTopic" screen.</P><P> Seeing the entire contents of a file, either pre or postchange is often essential to complete a review properly.Sometimes, it is necessary to see both versions of the fileside-by-side. An example can be seen in <AHREF="x504.html#FIGURE-PARALLELFILEVIEW">Figure 3-9</A>.<DIVCLASS="FIGURE"><ANAME="FIGURE-PARALLELFILEVIEW"></A><P><B>Figure 3-9. Parallel View File Screenshot</B></P><DIVCLASS="MEDIAOBJECT"><P><IMGSRC="parallelfileview.png"></P></DIV></DIV>The same rules apply for adding comments - any hyperlinkedline number can be clicked in order to add a comment.</P></DIV></DIV><DIVCLASS="NAVFOOTER"><HRALIGN="LEFT"WIDTH="100%"><TABLESUMMARY="Footer navigation table"WIDTH="100%"BORDER="0"CELLPADDING="0"CELLSPACING="0"><TR><TDWIDTH="33%"ALIGN="left"VALIGN="top"><AHREF="x394.html"ACCESSKEY="P">Prev</A></TD><TDWIDTH="34%"ALIGN="center"VALIGN="top"><AHREF="book1.html"ACCESSKEY="H">Home</A></TD><TDWIDTH="33%"ALIGN="right"VALIGN="top"><AHREF="x602.html"ACCESSKEY="N">Next</A></TD></TR><TR><TDWIDTH="33%"ALIGN="left"VALIGN="top">Creating a new Topic</TD><TDWIDTH="34%"ALIGN="center"VALIGN="top"><AHREF="c333.html"ACCESSKEY="U">Up</A></TD><TDWIDTH="33%"ALIGN="right"VALIGN="top">Viewing Comments</TD></TR></TABLE></DIV></BODY></HTML>