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Re: [Monotone-devel] monotone-viz changes...


From: Daniel Carosone
Subject: Re: [Monotone-devel] monotone-viz changes...
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 2006 11:10:14 +1000
User-agent: Mutt/1.5.13 (2006-08-11)

Firstly, it's great to see more development on -viz, it's a *really*
useful tool. 

On Thu, Oct 12, 2006 at 02:21:19AM +0200, Olivier Andrieu wrote:
>  Richard Levitte - VMS Whacker [Wednesday 11 October 2006] :
>  >
>  > I'm noticing that the latest monotone-viz doesn't show all
>  > propagates from the branch you're looking at.  Is that on purpose?
> 
> Ah, yes it is. I find that too many propagates nodes "disrupt" the
> graph produced by graphviz, making the result not so legible. 

I understand the sentiment and the issue, but it *is* often nice to
see these nodes.

Graphviz is a funny thing; sometimes the best way to get clearer
display of "too much information" is actually to include *more*
information.  For example, if there was an edge (dotted, invisible
even, and with a low weight) between propagate nodes to the same
"other branch", this might help graphviz organise the layout better.

I suppose unless you know something about the ancestry relationships
of those nodes, those links better be invisible.  If you *can* show a
real ancestry relationship (without showing intervening paths), all
the better.

And sometimes you really just do want to remove the clutter of these
extra nodes.

> Current monotone-viz only displays nodes that start a new branch or
> that "finish" a branch (e.g. the final propagate from a side branch
> to the main branch).

I haven't had a chance to look; I presume it still shows propagates
*into* the currently displayed branch(es), so that these merge nodes
still have both ancestors visible?  That can be an important clue to
explore the side branch that just landed on the one you're looking at.

> Tell me what you think. If you prefer the former behavior, I could add
> an option somewhere to get it back.
 
I think that would be good. A more ambitious suggestion would be to
apply this option per-branch, because some side-branches may be more
interesting to you than others, even if you don't want their full
internal history.

A context menu on such nodes (or on branch certs) to "add branch X to
this display".  That would fill out the intervening nodes implied by
any such dotted line as above.  A corresponding option to
collapse/remove one of the branches currently displayed in full form
would allow a fairly nice, interactive exploration of the tree.

This basically means that each branch can now be displayed in one of
three ways: full (as normal when selected), summarised (former
behaviour plus links), or minimal (new behaviour).  A tri-state
selector where the checkboxes are now when building a new view means
you can start with the branches you want shown the way you want.

--
Dan.

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