Star/pin/bookmark a particular object by abusing reactions/emojis
I just realized that this is probably a follow up of https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/1938. I am glad I searched a bit before I submit this.
Background
One thing which I really miss is a way to get reminder of something. Not in an automatic way, but a manual way. This mostly happens on issues with low priority, or merge requests which I want to take a look at some point, but I won't be the maintainer nor developer for it.
For issues with low priority, I might not work on it soon, so I shouldn't assign myself to it. In my mind, when an issue was assigned, the assignees should be actively working on it. If none was assigned, it should mean anyone could take the issue and work on it.
This is probably somehow similar to gitlab-ce11710974 but I am not sure, at least that's what I understand before we're adding gitlab-ce11710974. Perhaps it means more when a feature requires gitlab-ce2024184, which is not necessarily gitlab-ce11710974, but for bug fixes and features which don't need UX, this label would be a bit redundant.
Anyway, if I can't assign myself, then it's very easy to forget it in the end. I could add it to TODO, but TODO is not very easy to manage, and it could mark itself done, or getting buried with other TODO.
For merge requests which I am not maintainer nor developer, of course I am not going to assign myself. We can't have multiple assignees for merge requests, yet, either.
What I am doing right now
The point is that I want something which I could bookmark easily. This could also apply to a particular comment, or failed job, which I want to reply or investigate later.
For now, I am keeping my browser tabs or emails unread to achieve this.
And @rymai suggested that I could use reactions, and I could search my own reactions to use it as a way to pin issues or merge requests. I picked
Current status
Currently, we have the following ways to look for things we want to look back:
- Look for assignments
- Look for authors
- Look for labels
- Title/description search
- TODOs
- Emails
- My reactions
- My browser tabs/bookmarks
I think only emails, my reactions, and my browser tabs/bookmarks work for what I am looking for.
Proposals
What I am currently doing is working well, but it's not too straightforward. Could we take a step further, make this feel more native and easier to use?
Pin this
What if we change "Add todo" to "pin this"?
Using reactions has a side-effect that everyone could see my pins. I am fine with that, but I am not sure if that's ok. (for public pin, this was brought up in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/1938#note_25623642)
Todo to pin
What if we have a button to convert a todo into a pin?
I have to say that I am not really utilizing todo much, so this might not work well for me.
Manage frequently used emoji
I have no idea why, but I have a ton of frequently used emojis, which I don't think I've used most of them:
Maybe I accidentally used them once, but this list is simply not useful. I think I could wipe local stored data to start over but I am worried that this issue would pop up again. This list could use some sorting or a way to allow me to re-order.
My pins
Could we have my pins button?
@victorwu @smcgivern @dimitrieh @tauriedavis What do you think? Now I see that we have a lot of similar discussions in the past. So maybe feel free to just close this if we already reached a conclusion. Thanks!