Diffs are collapsed too aggressively and collapsed diffs are difficult to spot
Problem to solve
In Merge Requests, GitLab collapses diffs aggressively. It regularly collapses normal manually written code, and we're not talking about thousand-line-long changes per file here. That's one problem, partially related to the second one.
The other issue is that when diffs are already collapsed, they are super easy to miss when you're not paying extra attention. They just fade between colourful, attention-grabbing expanded diffs. They are important, even if they are indeed autogenerated. A lot of code can hide in this tiny box! Missing it in the merge request review can have catastrophic consequences.
Intended users
Proposal
- The diff collapsing algorithm could be improved, so less manually written code is collapsed
- Collapsed diffs should be more visible: possibly take a bit more space, or have different color that distinguishes it from exapnded diffs. Some danger-indicating color (orange, red) wouldn't be inappropriate.
What does success look like, and how can we measure that?
Collapsed diffs aren't easily missed during merge request review. Not sure how to measure.