Updating Review Requests¶
Updating review requests is very much like creating review requests. Once you have a review request out there, you can upload a new diff, add new screenshots, or modify the fields. Any changes you make will be seen by you only until you publish the changes.
Changing Fields¶
Most fields on a review request can be changed, with the exception of Submitter, Change Number and Repository.
To change a field, either click on the field (in the case of Description and Testing Done) or click on the pencil icon. A text box will appear allowing you to modify the value. Make sure to click “OK” after making a change in order to save the field before navigating away from the page.
Summary¶
The Summary field is a short, one-line description of the change. It’s what people will see in their dashboard and in e-mail subject headers. You should aim to keep this short and as descriptive as possible.
Branch¶
The Branch field describes which branch your change applies to. This is a very free-form field and can contain any text.
Some examples may be:
- trunk
- master
- my-feature
- release-2.0
- hotfix-branch -> release-2.0 -> main
In the latter case, this could be used to show the series of branches that the change would be merged down to, starting at the branch where the change originated.
Bugs¶
This Bugs field is a comma-separated list of bug IDs that the change addresses. If the repository is configured with a bug tracker, the bug IDs will link to the reports on the bug tracker.
Groups¶
The Groups field is a comma-separated list of all review groups that should review the change.
When entering a group, Review Board will attempt to auto-complete the group. It will match against either the group’s ID, or the group’s name. While auto-completing, a drop-down of possible groups will be displayed, showing both the ID and name.
Review Board doesn’t enforce that the groups must review the change before it can be submitted. This is a policy that is left up to each organization.
People¶
The People field is a comma-separated list of all the people that should review the change.
When entering a person, Review Board will attempt to auto-complete the person’s information. It will match against either the person’s username, or the person’s first or last name. While auto-completing, a drop-down of possible people will be displayed, showing both the username and full name.
Review Board doesn’t enforce that the people listed must review the change before it can be submitted. This is a policy that is left up to each organization.
Description¶
The Description field describes the change that will be reviewed. It can support paragraphs of text with word-wrapping.
This is intended to provide enough information for reviewers to know what the change is about before they go to review it.
Testing Done¶
The Testing Done field describes how this change has been tested. It can support paragraphs of text with word-wrapping.
This should cover any and all testing scenarios that have been done, in order to help reviewers feel more confident about the stability and design of the change.
Uploading Diffs¶
A review request’s diff can be updated by clicking Upload Diff or Update Diff on the action bar. It will present a dialog much like the New Review Request page.
See Review Requests for Diffs for more information on the fields.
Note
It’s usually best to use post-review or another tool to update a diff, instead of uploading using this dialog. This will help guarantee a valid diff, and works around problems in some diff formats.
Uploading Screenshots¶
Screenshots or other images can be added to a review request. These can be helpful in seeing how the change affects the presentation of a program, or they can be used for reviewing mockups.
There are two ways to upload a review request:
Click Add Screenshot on the action bar, browse for the file to upload, and optionally enter a caption for the image.
Drag the image from your file manager into the review request. While dragging, a Screenshots section will appear (if there isn’t one already) with a Drop screenshots here to upload box. If you drop the file there, it will upload. You can upload multiple screenshots at once this way.
Note that this requires a modern HTML5-capable browser, such as Google Chrome or Firefox 3.6.
Publishing Changes¶
As soon as you make any change to a review request, a draft banner will appear above the review request asking you to optionally describe your changes. This is handy when you’ve actually uploaded a new diff and want to say what changed in that diff.
When you’re finished, click Publish Changes. If you decided you didn’t want to make those changes, you can click Discard Draft instead.
Depending on your particular setup, publishing a draft may send an e-mail out to the reviewers, letting them know your change is ready to reviewed again.