(MVC) Option to display absolute dates in Merge Request List view

Release notes

Problem to solve

Dates in GitLab are displayed as relative dates (i.e. updated one month ago). In some cases, this obscures date differences of individual days or even hours. An MR that is just a bit older but over the threshold of the relative date calculation will suddenly get displayed as "updated two months ago". This makes it hard to accurately compare the date of MRs and forces users to hover over the relative dates to find out the absolute one.

Intended users

• Delaney (Development Team Lead)
• Sasha (Software Developer)

User experience goal

In order to more accurately judge and compare the date / age of individual Merge Requests in the list view, users should have the option to display absolute dates in the MR list.

Proposal

Offer a user setting to show absolute dates instead of relative ones.

Offer an instance setting configurable in the gitlab.rb to show absolute dates instead of relative ones for all users.

If setting is configured, display the raw timestamp instead of converting it to a relative one for each MR in the MR list.

Further details

GitHub uses absolute dates so this feature may ease migration from GitHub to GitLab.

Permissions and Security

Configurable by all users.

What is the type of buyer?

This is valuable for individual contributors and thus should be in core.