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The job error dialog is very confusing. It shows two lists in a sort of master/detail paradigm. When you first see the error, you have to click on the first error listing in the top of the dialog to see the actual error message in the bottom of the dialog. This is not obvious. Furthermore, there is no text on the dialog to give users any help. Suggest that, if there is only one error reported, that you use the regular single error dialog (that dialog does appear if you click the 'job-errored' icon in the status line of the workbench). If multiple errors occur then use a multi-error dialog. And redesign a new multi-error dialog that is a little easier for the user to understand. Perhaps a listing of the errors in a FormText where the error title and error text could be displayed without the user clicking on each error individually (just an idea).
Michael Valenta (one of the Team committers) is working on this now.
Note that I've never seen more than one error reported in the dialog, hence in the 99.9% case the regular error dialog is better. We are also adding support for the 'goto' action for jobs so that a job returning an error could allow the user to run some action to help them understand the error better. In the CVS case, we are going to show the console. Michael will provide a patch to Tod.
Created attachment 15406 [details] Patch to JFace which adds API to ErrorDialog
Created attachment 15407 [details] Patch to Workbench which improves concurreny error dialog usability
Created attachment 15408 [details] Patch to Workbench TextEditor which changes QuickDiff error reporting to delay prompting
I've attached the patches that address the usability of error reporting for jobs. Here is a summary of the changes: 1) The dialog is optimized for the single error case in the sense that it will look like a normal error dialog. Multiple errors will be shown in a list that is ordered by the time of the error. Doing this properly involved adding API to ErrorDialog to support the showing of the details area programmatically and changing the status that is displayed by the details area. I have also modified the status details display of ErrorDialog to look for CoreExceptions inside of status so that as much as possible information is presented in the details. 2) When multiple errors occur, the dialog will auto-expand the details area and ensure that one of the jobs is selected so the details are shown. The list will automatically update with new job errors as they come in. 3) For jobs that define a GOTO action, the dialog will display a button that will allow the user to perform that action. This alows CVS operation errors to link to the CVS Console which displays more details about the operation that failed. 4) A progress property for delaying the error prompt has been added. When set, an error returned by a job will not result in a prompt until the user requests information about the error from the progress view or progress indicator or until another error occurs for which the property is not set. I would appreciate it if this could be dealt with fairly promptly (i.e. for M3 if possible). The current dialog is the cause of much confusion for users.
Patch released with some modifications after some consulation with Michael for build >20041027
*** Bug 76582 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Verified in 20041102
*** Bug 81304 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
