Review Board 2.5 Beta 1 Release Notes¶

Release date: March 17, 2015

This release contains all bug fixes and features found in Review Board version 2.0.15.

Installation¶

To install this release, run the following:

$ sudo easy_install \
    -f http://downloads.reviewboard.org/releases/ReviewBoard/2.5/ \
    -U ReviewBoard

We do not recommend upgrading a production server with this version of Review Board. It’s best to install on a test server, with a copy of your production database, in case there are any major problems.

Upgrade Notes¶

This release contains database schema changes to the following tables:

attachments_fileattachment
diffviewer_filediffdata
diffviewer_filediff
reviews_group
reviews_reviewrequest

This will take some time to migrate the database, particularly on large installs. Please test the upgrade on a copy of your database first, to ensure the upgrade is smooth and to time how long the upgrade takes.

Do not cancel the upgrade on a production system for any reason.

Compatibility Changes¶

Upgraded to jQuery 1.11.

This release of jQuery offers performance and feature improvements we’ll be relying upon in the UI. If you’re an extension author, you may need to check that your extension continues to work properly.

New User Features¶

Expandable Diff Fragments in Reviews¶

Fragments of diffs shown in reviews can now be expanded and collapsed, just like in the diff viewer. When hovering over the fragment, controls will be shown for expanding by 20 lines, expanding all lines, or expanding to the nearest function/class header.

Bug #2041

Double Click Lines to Create Comments¶

Double-clicking a line in the diff viewer will now create a comment on that line. You can still click-and-drag the line numbers to select multiple lines, but for a quick one-line comment, a double-click may be faster. It’s also more familiar to those coming from services like GitHub or Bugzilla Splinter.

Patch by Mike Conley.

Revisioned File Attachments¶

File attachments on a review request can now be replaced without having to delete an old attachment and upload a new one. Simply hover over the down arrow on an attachment thumbnail and click Update to replace the attachment. The new attachment will take the place of the old one.

Reviewers can view every revision of an attachment, and can diff between these attachments.

Deleting a file attachment removes all revisions from that review request.

Based on patches by Ryan Done and Vlodymyr Lyubinets.

Bug #800

Image Diffs for File Attachments¶

As mentioned, you can now diff between file attachments. This includes images! You can compare any two revisions of an image and leave comments on the comparison.

There are four comparison modes available:

Difference: Color differences between the two images will be shown. Every pixel that’s the same between the images will be shown in black. Added pixels are shown in their original color. Differences in pixel values are also shown.
Onion skinning: By using a transparency slider, you can see subtle changes made between the images. The slider will change the transparency of the modified image. This helps to see if any pixels move, disappear, or otherwise change.
Split: The images will overlap, and a horizontal slider will control how much of each image you’re seeing, allowing you to compare the images incrementally.
Two-Up: The images will be displayed side-by-side, unaltered. You will only be able to select regions to comment on the modified file, but that same area for both will be shown in the review.

Movable/Resizable Image Comment Regions¶

You can already leave a comment on a region of an image, or a PDF file (if using Power Pack). Now, you can move or resize that comment region before you publish it. Very handy if you realize you want to encompass a larger or smaller size.

Patch by Stanley Yeo.

Improved Review Dialog¶

Fields are now instant-apply.

The review dialog’s fields are now instant-apply, meaning that you no longer need to save the draft after making changes. Instead, every field will save individually, just like fields on a review request.

This helps to prevent data loss if the browser were to crash or the page were to close after making edits to the review, so long as any modified fields were saved after editing.

The dialog no longer has individual Save and Cancel buttons. They have been replaced with a Close button.
Added Markdown previews for text.

The text fields behave much like those for review replies. They now show the rendered Markdown content, rather than the source text, by default. Clicking the field or its pencil icon will allow the field to be edited.

This gives a much more accurate idea of how the review will look when published.

Deeper Bug Tracker Support¶

This release adds the foundation for deeper bug tracker support. Currently, this supports JIRA, GitHub, or modern versions of Bugzilla.

When a repository is configured to use a supported bug tracker, hovering over a bug number will show an info box containing the bug’s summary, status, and description.

Based on work by Tomi Äijö.

Bug #193

API Tokens¶

Users can now configure multiple API tokens, which are a more secure way of authenticating with the web API. API tokens don’t require the user’s password, and can be easily revoked at any time.

Tokens can restrict the client’s access to the API. Through a simple drop-down menu, an API token can be set to allow full read/write access to the API, read-only access, or a custom policy.

Custom API token policies allow for very fine-grained access to the API, limiting what methods can be performed on exactly which resources, even down to the resource ID level.

To add API tokens, simply open the My Account page, click API Tokens, and then Generate a new API token. That token can then be configured and used immediately.

RBTools 0.6.3 and higher support authenticating with API tokens.

Display of All Reviews by a User¶

The user page now has a tab for showing all reviews of a change that were posted by the user.

Patch by Tami Forrester.

Easier Diff Updating¶

The dialog for uploading a new diff on an existing review request now works much like diff uploading on the New Review Request page. Diffs can be drag-and-dropped onto the page, or browsed as before. The diff will be validated prior to upload, prompting for a parent diff or other information only if needed.

Smart Pagination for Lists of Users¶

The Users page, which displays a list of all users on the server, now has a smarter alphabetical paginator. This makes it much easier to jump to users whose usernames start with a specific letter, number, or symbol.

Patch by Ryan Done.

Bug #829

Improved Support for Trophies¶

There’s now a permanent record of all trophies received by your user. We’re planning to add support for viewing all of your trophies in a future release.

It’s also possible for extensions to create new types of trophies.

New Administration Features¶

Webhooks¶

Review Board now has support for configuring webhooks.

Review Board can now be set to post review request information to specified URLs when publishing review requests, closing them, or reopening them.

It also supports sending review API payloads for publishing a review or a reply to a review. The payload will also include all comments filed on the review.

The payloads can be sent in JSON, XML, or HTTP form data formats. They can also be completely replaced by a custom template, powered by a subset of Django’s templating language. This can make use of the original payload’s contents as variables, allowing any custom payload format to be sent.

The HTTP requests will contain a X-ReviewBoard-Event header that lists the event name, and a standard X-Hub-Signature header which contains a HMAC signaure of the payload. If the Webhook is configured with a “secret,” that secret will be used as the key for the HMAC digest.

Webhooks can be configured to be global across all repositories, tied to specific repositories, or to review requests/reviews not associated with a repsoitory. They can also be tied to any number of events.

Manage Admin Widgets¶

Widgets on the administrator dashboard can now be added or removed.

This allows the dashboard to contain only the information useful to the administrator. To remove a widget, simply click the X on a widget. To add, click the Add Small Widgets or Add Large Widgets link in the desired column.

Patch by Stephanie Su.

E-Mail Improvements¶

E-mail updates from review requests can now be sent both to the configured mailing list of a review group and to all members of that review group, instead of just one or the other. This can be configured separately for each review group.

OpenStack Swift Support¶

Added support for OpenStack Swift for file storage.

Swift is an alternative to Amazon S3 for private clouds.

Patch by Omar Ali.

Support for Review Board Gateway¶

Review Board Gateway is our upcoming standalone service that wraps your Git repositories with a fully-featured API, making it easier to integrate them with Review Board. Git repositories backed by Review Board Gateway include full support for browsing and posting commits in the New Review Request page. Future releases will provide even deeper integration, making it easy to manage all your repositories.

Review Board Gateway is not yet released. We’ll make an announcement as soon as it’s ready.

Patch by Jessica Yuen.

Performance Improvements¶

Reduced the amount of work needed to compute settings on each request, speeding up responses.
Reduced storage and processing requirements for stored diffs.

We’ve changed the storage mode used for diffs, reducing their storage requirements by an average of 80%, and reducing both diff generation and uploading times.

Existing diffs will be converted on-the-fly when accessed. Running rb-site manage /path/to/site condensediffs will convert all stored diffs.

Usability Improvements¶

The username in the navigation bar at the top of the page now links to the user’s profile page instead of the preferences page.

Patch by Jessica Qian.

Extensions¶

AdminWidgetHook¶

AdminWidgetHook allows extensions to register widgets to be shown in the administration UI. These hooks will be available for administrators to add to the dashboard. Widgets are automatically removed when the extension is disabled.

Patch by Justin Maillet.

WebAPICapabilitiesHook¶

WebAPICapabilitiesHook allows extensions to register custom capability flags to show in the API’s Root List Resource. This helps clients of the API that support the extension to query its capabilities without loading a custom resource.

Patch by Justin Maillet.

Web API¶

The API now supports authentication with API tokens.

See the API authentication documentation for instructions on logging in using API tokens.
Added support for returning only certain fields or links in the API.

API resources now support a couple new query arguments for limiting the results in a payload, in order to reduce database queries and payload sizes.

The ?only-fields= query argument limits the returned fields in the payload to the comma-separated list of field names. If the value is blank, then no fields will be returned, leaving only links.

Likewise, the ?only-links= query argument limits the returned links in the payload. It behaves exactly like ?only-fields=.
Added Hosting Service List Resource for accessing information on registered hosting services.

This resource exposes information on each hosting service that can be used with Review Board. Right now, the information is pretty basic, but it will be used down the road to provide access to information and functionality on the hosting services.

It also links to all associated hosting service accounts and local configured repositories.

Note that this resource’s payload data is not yet considered stable, and is subject to change in future releases.
Added Remote Repository List Resource for listing all available remote repositories on a hosting service.

Repositories can be filtered by the owner, type of owner (organization or user), and service-specific filters.

Note that this resource isn’t available for all hosting services, and the API is not yet considered stable.
Hosting Service Account List Resource now allows for filtering by username or hosting service ID.

The list resource now takes ?username= and ?service= arguments for filtering the resulting list by the username and/or service ID.
Added API Token List Resource for working with your user’s list of API tokens.

This resource makes it easy to fetch your user’s list of API tokens, to create new tokens, update existing tokens, and delete tokens.

This resource is only accessible if using a username and password for authentication, and cannot be accessed if using an API token. This is to prevent a client with a valid read-only token to fetch the list of tokens and swap out the one used for authentication.

Bug Fixes¶

Review Requests¶

Fixed some syntax highlighting issues with entering Markdown in text fields.
The issue summaries on a review request no longer show raw Markdown source.

Patch by Teresa Fan.
Fixed downloading raw diffs with commas in their filenames on Chrome. (Bug #3704)

Patch by Chester Li.

Repositories¶

Fixed an error when invoking a repository hook for closing review requests when the referenced review request was not yet published.

Contributors¶

Beth Rennie
Chester Li
Christian Hammond
David Trowbridge
Jessica Qian
Jessica Yuen
Justin Maillet
Mark Russell
Mike Conley
Olessia Karpova
Omar Ali
Ryan Done
Stanley Yeo
Stephanie Su
Tami Forrester
Teresa Fan
Tomi Äijö
Volodymyr Lyubinets
Wu Di