launchpadblog

Launchpad is big. Really big. Almost two and a half million people have Launchpad user accounts and close to seven and a half thousand projects are registered in the directory.

Then there are the couple of hundred thousand bug reports, thousands of code branches, millions of translated strings, blueprints, user support questions, personal package archives, mailing lists and more.

One of the goals of Launchpad 2.0 is to make it easier to access that data and, with this release, we’re introducing the beta test of our new restful web API and Python library!

During the test, the API and library will provide access to the bug tracker, as well as people and teams. Within time, our aim is to make the API as comprehensive as the web interface. In the Launchpad team, we’re really excited by the idea that this gives you the tools to do things with Launchpad we haven’t even dreamt of.

We’ll be making the full announcement of the API beta test on this blog later this week. In the mean time, sign up to the Launchpad Beta Testers team!

Hey – quick update from Matthew Revell: Launchpad’s looking a bit different today! That’s because we’ve begun the roll-out of our next major version of Launchpad.

In fact, you may already have seen mention of Launchpad 2.0 in the press already, such as at The Register and Ars Technica.

There’ll be more from us next week, with a full run-down of what 2.0’s all about. Until then, I’ll hand back to Joey:

When designing the updated interface, many existing user interface bugs were taken into consideration as well as taking inspiration from some of the websites that we love to use. The interface updates are part of a larger effort to make Launchpad easier to use. The first noticeable changes deployed with our previous release, 1.2.6.

Matthew Paul Thomas, who looks after Launchpad’s UI, explained the changes:

“We realize that if you’ve been using Launchpad for a while, these changes may take a bit of getting used to. But we’re confident that the new designs will be more efficient once you’re familiar with them. We also expect they’ll be easier for people using Launchpad for the first time.

“They also pave the way for even simpler interfaces in future Launchpad releases, where you’ll be able to click on something and edit it in place.”

As Matthew said, we are working toward the ability to allow in-place editing where possible. These changes you see in Launchpad today are a step in that direction.

We will be making a few additional adjustments to the interface over the next few weeks as part of our polishing efforts.

Launchpad’s new code review system gives you a public place to discuss and vote on proposed code mergers. What’s more, you can easily access the discussion directly from both branches involved.

This month, we’ve added an email interface to make it easier to fit Launchpad-based code review into your workflow.

Aaron Bentley, who’s been working on the feature, explains:

Code review by email makes each merge proposal into a mini-mailing list. People can participate fully in code review whether they prefer to do it using web or email.

Taking part in a code review by email is very much like using the Launchpad bug tracker’s email interface.

Reply to an email from the code review and your comment is added to the discussion in Launchpad. If you want to vote by email, leave a space at the start of the line and then one of the following commands:

• vote approve
• vote disapprove
• vote abstain

So, now code review in Launchpad is as easy as any code review by email but with the added benefit of a public record of the code review in Launchpad.

You have noticed that things have changed in Launchpad’s web interface.

Now, on bugs pages, the translations pages and distribution overview pages you’ll see that many of the option you use most often are now in the body of the page, right next to the data they affect.

Let’s take a look at a bug in the OpenOffice.org package in Ubuntu as an example.

Here you can see that options such as “Mark as duplicate” and “Link a related branch” are now right in the body of the page. Matthew Paul Thomas, who looks after Launchpad’s UI, explained the changes:

“We realize that if you’ve been using Launchpad for a while, these changes may take a bit of getting used to. But we’re confident that the new designs will be more efficient once you’re familiar with them. We also expect they’ll be easier for people using Launchpad for the first time.

“They also pave the way for even simpler interfaces in future Launchpad releases, where you’ll be able to click on something and edit it in place.”

Let us know how you get on with these page designs.

Launchpad’s code imports give you all the benefits of Bazaar’s distributed version control for code that’s stored in CVS and Subversion repositories.

Now you can get far more detail on the progress of individual code imports, direct on that import’s overview page. You can also see when the next import is due and, if that’s not soon enough, request one take place straight away.

For an example, take a look at the Cairo Dock import.

Michael Hudson is the Launchpad developer who’s been working on this. He had this to say:

“The main change is that all the information about the state of the system is now stored in one place. While this in itself isn’t very visible to our users, it means that we can now give them a lot more information about the status of a new or existing import.

“The new system is also better automated, which frees up our sysadmins to get on with other important work!”

For some time now, you’ve been able to use Launchpad to propose that a branch of code should be merged with another. This is great if you’ve uploaded a branch that includes a new feature or bug fix and you want to bring it to the attention of the trunk branch’s maintainer.

However, actually discussing the merits of the merger had to take place elsewhere, such as by email or even using a bug tracker to record the conversation.

We’ve now brought that discussion right into Launchpad. Anyone logged into Launchpad can comment and vote on proposed mergers. Take a look at one of the first comments.

There’s more about this new feature in our latest podcast.

If you translate using Launchpad, you’ll almost certainly be delighted to read that you can now search for translations!

Take a look at the English (UK) translations for WordPress. There are two search boxes. One at the very top-right of the page: that’s Launchpad’s new site-wide search. Below that, still on the right, is the translation search box.

Using the translations search box, you can search for a word or phrase as it appears in either the original English template or the language you’re currently viewing.

I had a chat with Jeroen Vermuelen, leader of the Launchpad Translations team, to ask about the work that has gone into the feature. He told me:

“This is something that people have wanted for a long time and the new translations search is the result of work we’ve been doing for the past year. We could have done it sooner but we wanted to do it right.

“When you’re searching as much data as we have in Launchpad Translations – around 16 million strings – you have to take the right approach to ensure results are accurate and timely.

“So, this is just what the doctor ordered for translators who are managing a particular translation and want to be able to tweak a specific message quickly.”

You can now view diffs for source packages in boths PPAs and Ubuntu’s primary archive.

Celso Providelo, the Launchpad developer who’s been working on this, told me a bit more about it:

“This is a really easy way for anyone to see what changes have been made in a package. Rather than having to download a source package and then manually run a diff, diffs are available directly from Launchpad.

“So, if you want to double-check a source package’s changelog, this is a great way to do it. Whether it’s in a PPA or the primary Ubuntu archive, it allows anyone to check for mistakes. Another really cool thing is that if somebody uploads a package to their PPA and it is derived from something already in Ubuntu, Launchpad provides a diff between the published Ubuntu package and the version in the PPA.

“Ppackage diffs are available for packages uploaded since 01.30 UTC on 29th May.”

No matter how good a website’s interface, when you’re dealing with as much data as there is in Launchpad, search can be the simplest way to get what you need.

Thanks to work by my colleagues Francis Lacoste, Curtis Hovey and Maris Fogels, you can now search through all of Launchpad from a single search box.

This new site-wide search goes into people profiles, code branch information, bug reports, questions, blueprints, project information and more.

Try it: you’ll find the search box at the top right of most Launchpad pages and on its own dedicated page too.

It works just as you’d expect: wrap words in quotes to search for an exact phrase, discount a word by placing a minus sign in front of it, and so on.

Let us know how you get on.

Update: Search links now fixed.

Up until this release (1.2.3), Launchpad Translations has supported only four plural forms. This works for many languages but has been a problem for Arabic, in particular, as it has six different plural forms.

I’m pleased to say that Launchpad now supports up to six plural forms in those languages that need them!