Bac on Launchpad Blog

Another bug email improvement: no notification for quickly corrected mistakes

Brad Crittenden — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 20:24:30 +0000

A few weeks ago the Yellow Squad made another change to increase the relevance of the email you get from Launchpad by eliminating some noisy ones. A while back, Matthew Paul Thomas noticed that a change to a bug that was subsequently reverted could be deemed a mistake and was an action no one really needed to know about. As is his habit, mpt opened a bug (164196) with the suggestion that corrected actions not generate email.

So if Alice is assigned to a bug by mistake and then unassigned within five minutes no email is generated. Likewise, if a tag is added but then quickly removed the action does not cause any email to be sent.

Note that avoiding email requires that the action be undone, not just fixed. By that I mean the bug must be returned to the original state to be recognized as an undoing. So if you assign Alice to a bug by mistake and then change that assignment to Bob then the action will not be seen as a mistake. Email will be sent notifying about both assignee changes to Alice and then to Bob.

Thanks to Gary and Danilo for the fix.

Silencing bug notifications for stuff you did

Brad Crittenden — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 21:49:38 +0000

Launchpad’s bug mail can be a bit chatty sometimes as I’m sure you’ve noticed. This cycle the Yellow Squad is working to give you more control about the bug mail Launchpad sends to you.

One problem that we’ve known about for a really long time was reported as bug 548 and has recently been closed thanks to the effort of Данило Шеган and Gary Poster. Their fix allows you to globally specify whether you want to receive email about actions you did.

Most people probably do not need to be reminded of something they did a few minutes ago and will want to turn off those emails. But, since this is new functionality we’ve preserved the old behavior unless a user changes the setting. If you do nothing you’ll continue to get email about actions you instigate on bugs.

Opting out of those messages is easy. Simply go to https://launchpad.net/people/+me/+edit and uncheck the box as shown below by the big red arrow.

As mentioned, this is just the first of many features and refinements that we’re working on to help you customize the stream of bug mail coming from Launchpad to suit your needs.

Removing team polls

Brad Crittenden — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 21:12:40 +0000

Polls were introduced to Launchpad as a way for teams to conduct internal surveys. Unfortunately the user interface and feature set were always problematic. The feature never really caught on and wasn’t used much (a little over 500 polls since 2006).

A discussion[1] on the Launchpad Users mailing list saw a consensus agree that polls in their current state were not a viable feature and they should be removed rather than being fixed. As part of the December Launchpad Bug Jam I’ve taken on the task of removing them from the site.

Currently there are only four polls that are underway and the owners of the teams responsible for those polls will be notified that the feature is being removed. The data from all existing polls will be saved and made available to the teams at PollFeatureRemoved.

[1] https://lists.launchpad.net/launchpad-users/msg06098.html

Recipe for uploading files via the API

Brad Crittenden — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 13:14:33 +0000

As part of the API beta, we’ve recently exposed a number of new features that work with the Launchpad registry. One outcome is the ability to simplify part of the release management that has been cumbersome.

You can now have your build system generate all of the files you wish to distribute, such as installers, change logs, README files, and upload them automatically using the API. Below is a recipe to perform the task. You can take this idea and customize it as you need.

import launchpadlib

FILE_TYPES = dict(tarball='Code Release Tarball',
                  readme='README File',
                  release_notes='Release Notes',
                  changelog='ChangeLog File',
                  installer='Installer file')

def upload_file(lp, project_name, release_version,
                filename, description,
                content_type, file_type,
                signature_filename=None):
    """Upload a file, and optionally its signature, to Launchpad.

    :param lp: Launchpad instance
    :param project_name: the project that owns the uploaded file
    :param release_version: the release the file will be associated, e.g. 1.0
    :param filename: the name of the file to be uploaded.  For this demo it is
                     the name that will be associated with the upload and the
                     file where the contents reside, in the current directory
    :param description: a short sentence describing the file like 'minimal
                        installer'
    :param content_type: the content MIME type, e.g. 'text/plain'
    :param file_type: one of the acceptable file types for upload as shown in
                      the FILE_TYPES dictionary.
    :param signature_filename: the optional name of the GPG signature file.
    """
    try:
        # Look up the project using the Launchpad instance.
        proj = lp.projects[project_name]
        # Find the release in the project's releases collection.
        release = None
        for rel in proj.releases:
            if rel.version == release_version:
                release = rel
                break
        assert release is not None, (
            "Release %s could not be found for project %s." % (release_version,
                                                               project_name))

        # Get the file contents.
        file_content = open(filename, 'r').read()
        # Get the signature, if available.
        if signature_filename is not None:
            signature_content = open(signature_filename, 'r').read()
        else:
            signature_content=None
        # Create a new product release file.
        product_release_file = release.add_file(filename=filename,
                                                description=description,
                                                file_content=file_content,
                                                content_type=content_type,
                                                file_type=file_type,
                                                signature_filename=signature_filename,
                                                signature_content=signature_content)
    except launchpadlib.errors.HTTPError, e:
        # Handle error here.
        print "An error happened in the upload."
        print e.content
        product_release_file = None

    return product_release_file is not None

Now that we’ve defined the routine upload_file you can call it as shown here. The handle lp is an instance returned from passing your credentials to launchpadlib.launchpad.Launchpad. This snippet of code shows how you would use the previous routine to upload your files and signatures.

    # We assume 'lp' is a valid Launchpad instance.
    # Information about the project and release.
    proj_name = 'acme-widgets'
    release='1.0'
    # Information about the file and signature.
    filename = 'README.txt'
    description = 'python installer script'
    content_type = 'text/plain'
    file_type = FILE_TYPES['readme']
    # The signature file is created by executing:
    # gpg --armor --sign --detach-sig <file>
    signature_filename = 'README.txt.asc'

    upload_file(lp, proj_name, release, filename, description, content_type,
                file_type, signature_filename)

Let me know if this recipe works out for you by commenting on this post. Also, we’d love to see snippets of code that you’ve found useful in working with the API. Post them here or email to feedback@launchpad.net