Unclear merge widget message when MR is blocked by another MR
Summary
In a situation where a merge request is ready to get merged, but blocked by another MR that it is depending on, the message in the Merge Request widget is You can only merge once the items above are resolved
.
This message causes two major problems:
- In situations where there are multiple merge request widgets with information above the widget with the merge button (as in the screenshot above), it is not clear which object
the items above
is referring to. There is no visual distinction between these merge request widgets that are blocking the merge request, and other ones that are purely informational, so the user has no way to figure out what exactly is blocking him unless he clearly knows how each of these widgets work, and which ones are actually blocking him. - Even though only one thing is blocking the MR, the message says the items. This is now adding even more confusion, as the user expects that he has to solve at least two problems.
Example Project
If you are a maintainer for the GitLab project, you can have a look at !36562 (merged).
Proposal
As MVC, we should add a clearer message what is the actual problem that is blocking the user. Long term, we should have a look at how we can make it visually clearer which merge request widgets are actually blocking merge requests, and which ones are just informational.