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Summary: Help for Rietveld, the code review web app at https://codereview.appspot.com.
- For background information on this project, see Code-Review-Background.
- For known bugs, see Known-Bugs.
- For Google Apps questions, look here
- To contribute code, see Contributing.
- For help about keyboard shortcuts, hit '?'.
A patch set is a set of diffs relative to a specific revision of
the files in a particular VCS repository. The format used
is a unified diff as output by the diff command of the underlying
version control system.
There are three ways to start a code review:
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Recommended way is to use a small command line utility upload.py (requires Python 2.5+ - no Python 3 yet). In
*nix you may want to install it in your personal bin directory with mode 755. This is by far the most convenient and versatile approach, because the utility is able to extract all required information automatically, and all you have to do is enter a brief message to be used as the subject line. The utility prints the URL for your newly created issue. -
Upload a patch set to the web app using the Create Issue form. Not recommended, because most contributors use
upload.py, and its interface is supported better. -
Let the web part of Rietveld fetch the patch set from another web server, for example the Python issue tracker. This is also done via the Create Issue form, using the "Url" field.
It is possible to add a new patch set to an existing issue. When you used the "Create Issue" form initially, you can use the "Add Another Patch Set" section that appears below the last patch set added. When you used the upload.py utility, you can pass the "-i NNNN" flag to the utility, where NNNN is the numeric Issue ID.
Once you have two or more patch sets in an issue, you can view the delta between any two patch sets by using the "Delta from patch set" links in the last column of the file list for any patch set.
All but the most recent patch set listings are normally collapsed; you must click on the patch set heading to reveal the list of files in older patch sets.
To invite a reviewer for a particular issue, go to the page with details about the issue, and follow the "Publish+Mail Comments" link. This brings you to a simple form where you can add the reviewer's email address or nickname to the "Reviewers" field and enter a brief message explaining to them the purpose of the review. Clicking on "Publish All My Drafts" (the odd label will become clear later) will then send them an email. You can invite multiple reviewers by entering their email addresses or nicknames separated by commas. Only the "user@domain.suffix" part of the email must be entered: do not enter the real name.
Anybody can change the list of reviewers this way. The issue owner can also edit the list of reviewers using the "Edit Issue" form.
When you use the upload.py utility, you can pass the "-r REVIEWER" flag to the utility, where REVIEWER is the reviewers email address or nickname.
If you're invited to a review, you'll follow the link in the email, which takes you to the issue detail page. On that page you'll see a list of files. Selecting the filename will take you to a copy of the unified diff, which is not too interesting. However, following the link labeled "View" takes you to a double source listing, a so-called side-by-side diff where the old version of the file is on the left and the new version is on the right. Deletions on the left are shown with a red background, additions on the right with a green background.
In order to jump straight to the first diff chunk, hit the 'n' key once or twice. Each time you hit 'n' you are taken to the next chunk, until you have reached the end of the file. You can also use 'p' to move back up. Later, once there are in-line comments, these commands also stop at comments; use 'N' and 'P' to jump between comments only.
Long stretches of matching lines are suppressed; you'll see the text (...skipping N matching lines...) on a light blue background. this is done to avoid exceeding the strict limits enforced by App Engine on response size (1 MB) and request processing time (10 seconds).
If the patch set consists of multiple files, you can navigate between files using 'j' (next file) and 'k' (previous file). (Vi, Vim or Gmail users can think of these commands moving up ('k) or down ('j') in the list of files that you saw earlier.)
When you see something in the code you want to comment on, simply double-click the line on which you want to comment. Through the magic of JavaScript, a small text editing dialog will open up below that line, where you can enter as much text as you want. (There's a small '+' icon to the right that makes the text area larger each time you click it.) When you're done with a comment, don't forget to click the "Save" button (hitting Control-s works too). If you clicked "Save" too soon or change your mind, you can always hit the "Edit" link that appears under the completed comment, and edit or discard it.
You're not done yet! Once you have splattered comments all over the files in the patch set, there's one more thing to do: you must publish your comments! So far, all your comments have been stored in the database as drafts, which means that only you can see and edit them. To remind you of this "limbo" state, the issue page lists the number of draft comments in red, and displays a pretty alarming warning at the top when you have any draft comments. To get rid of this, follow one of the "Publish+Main Comments" links (there are several on the diff page as well as on the issue page), enter a brief message, and click "Publish All My Drafts". This will send an email to the issue owner and to all reviewers, and publish your drafts on the web app so that others can see them. (If you'd rather not send email, you can uncheck the "Send mail" check box.)
An issue's owner can close the issue by using the "Edit Issue" form and checking the "Closed" box. Closed issues are hidden from most overview listings but can otherwise continue to be used. An issue's owner can reopen the issue by unchecking the "Closed" box.
An issue's owner can also delete the issue. This is irrevocable and all traces of the issue are removed from the data store. There is no undo and no backup. Regrets are not accepted.
There are few good reasons to delete an issue: cleaning up test issues is one, removing sensitive information accidentally posted is another.
Apart from draft comments, which are only visible to their author, all comments are visible to anyone who visits the site, even if they are not logged in. Anybody can view all issues, too. Only the owner of an issue can edit its subject, description, and list of reviewers, but anybody (even people not listed as reviewers) can add new comments to an issue. Comments however cannot be entered anonymously; you must be logged in.