# gitweb - feature request

19 messages from 2005-08-09 to 2005-08-13. Participants: Sam Ravnborg, Kay Sievers, Johannes Schindelin, John Benes, Linus Torvalds, Mitchell Blank Jr, Ian Campbell, Matthias Urlichs.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/1463

## Sam Ravnborg, 2005-08-09 19:31

Subject: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <20050809193104.GA10858@mars.ravnborg.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050809193104.GA10858%40mars.ravnborg.org

```
Hi Kay.

When browsing http://www.kernel.org/git I often find myself looking for
the most recently changed tree.
For this it is very good that you have the "last change" in italic and
bolded if newer than a few hours (I think).

A nice additional feature would be the possibility to sort the output
according to last change, owner and description.
Using a click-able table heading would be the most intuitive way.

I have not looked into the source for gitweb, so I really do not know
how difficult this would be.


	Sam

```

## Kay Sievers, 2005-08-09 19:58

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <20050809195818.GA19284@vrfy.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050809195818.GA19284%40vrfy.org
In-Reply-To: <20050809193104.GA10858@mars.ravnborg.org>

```
On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 09:31:04PM +0200, Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> Hi Kay.
> 
> When browsing http://www.kernel.org/git I often find myself looking for
> the most recently changed tree.
> For this it is very good that you have the "last change" in italic and
> bolded if newer than a few hours (I think).

Hmm, if last change is "minutes" it's bold, if it's "hours" old it's green.
What do you miss?

> A nice additional feature would be the possibility to sort the output
> according to last change, owner and description.
> Using a click-able table heading would be the most intuitive way.
> 
> I have not looked into the source for gitweb, so I really do not know
> how difficult this would be.

I was hoping people that want stuff like this would use a RSS reader. :)

Kay

```

## Sam Ravnborg, 2005-08-09 20:18

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <20050809201836.GA11051@mars.ravnborg.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050809201836.GA11051%40mars.ravnborg.org
In-Reply-To: <20050809195818.GA19284@vrfy.org>

```
On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 09:58:18PM +0200, Kay Sievers wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 09:31:04PM +0200, Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> > Hi Kay.
> > 
> > When browsing http://www.kernel.org/git I often find myself looking for
> > the most recently changed tree.
> > For this it is very good that you have the "last change" in italic and
> > bolded if newer than a few hours (I think).
> 
> Hmm, if last change is "minutes" it's bold, if it's "hours" old it's green.
> What do you miss?
For this part I do not miss anything - the opposite actually. I like
this highlighting you do.

> 
> > A nice additional feature would be the possibility to sort the output
> > according to last change, owner and description.
> > Using a click-able table heading would be the most intuitive way.
> > 
> > I have not looked into the source for gitweb, so I really do not know
> > how difficult this would be.
> 
> I was hoping people that want stuff like this would use a RSS reader. :)
Some day I will try to use such a beast...

	Sam

```

## Johannes Schindelin, 2005-08-09 20:27

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0508092224580.9849@wgmdd8.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/Pine.LNX.4.63.0508092224580.9849%40wgmdd8.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de
In-Reply-To: <20050809201836.GA11051@mars.ravnborg.org>

```
Hi,

On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Sam Ravnborg wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 09:58:18PM +0200, Kay Sievers wrote:
> > 
> > I was hoping people that want stuff like this would use a RSS reader. :)
> Some day I will try to use such a beast...

You have Firefox, don't you? Next time you surf to gitweb, right click on 
the funny yellow symbol in the lower right corner of your Firefox. It 
should say something like "Subscribe to...". Do it.

Then, in you bookmark menu, you should see the entry, with a small arrow 
to the right. Click on the entry...

Ciao,
Dscho

```

## Sam Ravnborg, 2005-08-09 20:43

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <20050809204347.GB11132@mars.ravnborg.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050809204347.GB11132%40mars.ravnborg.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0508092224580.9849@wgmdd8.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>

```
> You have Firefox, don't you? Next time you surf to gitweb, right click on 
> the funny yellow symbol in the lower right corner of your Firefox. It 
> should say something like "Subscribe to...". Do it.

Unfortunately not on my firefox. 1.0.6 on gentoo.
Puzzled...

	Sam

```

## John Benes, 2005-08-09 20:51

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <42F91759.8010008@gmail.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/42F91759.8010008%40gmail.com
In-Reply-To: <20050809204347.GB11132@mars.ravnborg.org>

```
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

Sam Ravnborg wrote:
>> You have Firefox, don't you? Next time you surf to gitweb, right click on 
>> the funny yellow symbol in the lower right corner of your Firefox. It 
>> should say something like "Subscribe to...". Do it.
> 
> Unfortunately not on my firefox. 1.0.6 on gentoo.
> Puzzled...

I don't see it either with Firefox/1.0+ ID:2005080905.

For it to work, this code needs to be added to the HEAD (slightly modified)

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="GIT Trees"
href="http://www.kernel.org/git/?a=opml" />

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s8U1L/LUiCc=
=ai+1
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```

## Kay Sievers, 2005-08-09 21:09

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <20050809210948.GA21162@vrfy.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050809210948.GA21162%40vrfy.org
In-Reply-To: <42F91759.8010008@gmail.com>

```
On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 03:51:37PM -0500, John Benes wrote:
> Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> >> You have Firefox, don't you? Next time you surf to gitweb, right click on 
> >> the funny yellow symbol in the lower right corner of your Firefox. It 
> >> should say something like "Subscribe to...". Do it.
> > 
> > Unfortunately not on my firefox. 1.0.6 on gentoo.
> > Puzzled...
> 
> I don't see it either with Firefox/1.0+ ID:2005080905.
> 
> For it to work, this code needs to be added to the HEAD (slightly modified)
> 
> <link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="GIT Trees"
> href="http://www.kernel.org/git/?a=opml" />

Are you sure that firefox handles opml without a plugin?

Kay

```

## Kay Sievers, 2005-08-09 21:14

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <20050809211402.GA21194@vrfy.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050809211402.GA21194%40vrfy.org
In-Reply-To: <20050809201836.GA11051@mars.ravnborg.org>

```
On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 10:18:36PM +0200, Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 09:58:18PM +0200, Kay Sievers wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 09:31:04PM +0200, Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> > > Hi Kay.
> > > 
> > > When browsing http://www.kernel.org/git I often find myself looking for
> > > the most recently changed tree.
> > > For this it is very good that you have the "last change" in italic and
> > > bolded if newer than a few hours (I think).
> > 
> > Hmm, if last change is "minutes" it's bold, if it's "hours" old it's green.
> > What do you miss?
> For this part I do not miss anything - the opposite actually. I like
> this highlighting you do.
> 
> > 
> > > A nice additional feature would be the possibility to sort the output
> > > according to last change, owner and description.
> > > Using a click-able table heading would be the most intuitive way.
> > > 
> > > I have not looked into the source for gitweb, so I really do not know
> > > how difficult this would be.
> > 
> > I was hoping people that want stuff like this would use a RSS reader. :)
> Some day I will try to use such a beast...

Well, I don't use these beasts myself. :) I will try the sorting with the
next round - sounds like a nice feature.

Kay

```

## Linus Torvalds, 2005-08-09 21:53

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0508091447080.3258@g5.osdl.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/Pine.LNX.4.58.0508091447080.3258%40g5.osdl.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.63.0508092224580.9849@wgmdd8.biozentrum.uni-wuerzburg.de>

```


On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> 
> You have Firefox, don't you? Next time you surf to gitweb, right click on 
> the funny yellow symbol in the lower right corner of your Firefox. It 
> should say something like "Subscribe to...". Do it.

Left-click. And you need to be inside the project you want to rss (it 
would be nice if you could be at the "projects" page and it would give you 
a list of things to subscribe to, but that may not be possible).

		Linus

```

## Kay Sievers, 2005-08-10 00:11

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <20050810001116.GA22489@vrfy.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050810001116.GA22489%40vrfy.org
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0508091447080.3258@g5.osdl.org>

```
On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 02:53:58PM -0700, Linus Torvalds wrote:
> 
> 
> On Tue, 9 Aug 2005, Johannes Schindelin wrote:
> > 
> > You have Firefox, don't you? Next time you surf to gitweb, right click on 
> > the funny yellow symbol in the lower right corner of your Firefox. It 
> > should say something like "Subscribe to...". Do it.
> 
> Left-click. And you need to be inside the project you want to rss (it 
> would be nice if you could be at the "projects" page and it would give you 
> a list of things to subscribe to, but that may not be possible).

Sure, it is that way. It is called OPML and I once tested it with a RSS
reader and it was able to read the list of offered feeds in with a single
request.
Just click on the RSS pict in the footer and it will return the overview
of the index page. Firefox may need a plugin to be able to read it, I don't
really know...

Kay

```

## Linus Torvalds, 2005-08-10 00:19

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.58.0508091719030.3258@g5.osdl.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/Pine.LNX.4.58.0508091719030.3258%40g5.osdl.org
In-Reply-To: <20050810001116.GA22489@vrfy.org>

```


On Wed, 10 Aug 2005, Kay Sievers wrote:
>
> Firefox may need a plugin to be able to read it, I don't really know...

Firefox definitely needs a separate plugin, at least for me.

		Linus

```

## Kay Sievers, 2005-08-10 02:00

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <20050810020013.GA27506@vrfy.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050810020013.GA27506%40vrfy.org
In-Reply-To: <20050809211402.GA21194@vrfy.org>

```
On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 11:14:02PM +0200, Kay Sievers wrote:
> On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 10:18:36PM +0200, Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> > On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 09:58:18PM +0200, Kay Sievers wrote:
> > > On Tue, Aug 09, 2005 at 09:31:04PM +0200, Sam Ravnborg wrote:
> > > > Hi Kay.
> > > > 
> > > > When browsing http://www.kernel.org/git I often find myself looking for
> > > > the most recently changed tree.
> > > > For this it is very good that you have the "last change" in italic and
> > > > bolded if newer than a few hours (I think).
> > > 
> > > Hmm, if last change is "minutes" it's bold, if it's "hours" old it's green.
> > > What do you miss?
> > For this part I do not miss anything - the opposite actually. I like
> > this highlighting you do.
> > 
> > > 
> > > > A nice additional feature would be the possibility to sort the output
> > > > according to last change, owner and description.
> > > > Using a click-able table heading would be the most intuitive way.
> > > > 
> > > > I have not looked into the source for gitweb, so I really do not know
> > > > how difficult this would be.
> > > 
> > > I was hoping people that want stuff like this would use a RSS reader. :)
> > Some day I will try to use such a beast...
> 
> Well, I don't use these beasts myself. :) I will try the sorting with the
> next round - sounds like a nice feature.

Sam,
try it! :)

Kay

```

## Sam Ravnborg, 2005-08-10 05:18

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <20050810051846.GA17531@mars.ravnborg.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050810051846.GA17531%40mars.ravnborg.org
In-Reply-To: <20050810020013.GA27506@vrfy.org>

```
> Sam,
> try it! :)

Works excellent - and less than 12 hours after I posted my feautre
reqest. That was quick!

Thanks,
	Sam

```

## Ian Campbell, 2005-08-10 05:53

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <1123653220.1183.26.camel@azathoth.hellion.org.uk>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/1123653220.1183.26.camel%40azathoth.hellion.org.uk
In-Reply-To: <20050809195818.GA19284@vrfy.org>

```
On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 21:58 +0200, Kay Sievers wrote:

> I was hoping people that want stuff like this would use a RSS reader. :)

I used to subscribe to the kernel RSS feed (using blam) but I found I
was only getting the most recent 20 commits, which wasn't much good when
a big batch went in because I would miss some. Has this been fixed or
was it something I was doing wrong?

Ian.

-- 
Ian Campbell

hipatitis:
	Terminal coolness.

```

## Mitchell Blank Jr, 2005-08-10 08:31

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <20050810083113.GN49964@gaz.sfgoth.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050810083113.GN49964%40gaz.sfgoth.com
In-Reply-To: <1123653220.1183.26.camel@azathoth.hellion.org.uk>

```
Ian Campbell wrote:
> I used to subscribe to the kernel RSS feed (using blam) but I found I
> was only getting the most recent 20 commits, which wasn't much good when
> a big batch went in because I would miss some.

Yes, I have that problem too.  It appears to be just the way that gitweb
works - look at the "git_rss" function in the source:
  ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/gitweb/gitweb.cgi

Kay -- is there any chance of fixing this?  I love reading the kernel
commits via RSS but this makes it a lot less usable than it could be.
Really it should return all commits within, say, the last 36 hours so as
long as your aggregator polls reasonably often you won't miss anyhing.

The other thing on my wishlish is diffstat -- sometimes the commit messages
can be a little ambiguous and just adding what files were changed would
help alot.  For commits that touch a large number of files maybe it could
just show the files that changed the most like:

   net/bar.c              |  412 ++++++++++++-----
   drivers/char/foo.c     |  354 +-------------
   arch/baz/boot.S        |   99 ++++----
   [16 other files changed]

Other than that though I really love gitweb and the RSS support is a
great touch.  It really makes tracking kernel commits painless.

-Mitch

```

## Kay Sievers, 2005-08-12 20:27

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <20050812202748.GA9696@vrfy.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050812202748.GA9696%40vrfy.org
In-Reply-To: <1123653220.1183.26.camel@azathoth.hellion.org.uk>

```
On Wed, Aug 10, 2005 at 06:53:40AM +0100, Ian Campbell wrote:
> On Tue, 2005-08-09 at 21:58 +0200, Kay Sievers wrote:
> 
> > I was hoping people that want stuff like this would use a RSS reader. :)
> 
> I used to subscribe to the kernel RSS feed (using blam) but I found I
> was only getting the most recent 20 commits, which wasn't much good when
> a big batch went in because I would miss some. Has this been fixed or
> was it something I was doing wrong?

It's 30 now and up to 150 if they are not older than 48 hours. We can
tweak the numbers if you like to have it different...

Kay

```

## Kay Sievers, 2005-08-12 20:33

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <20050812203322.GB9696@vrfy.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050812203322.GB9696%40vrfy.org
In-Reply-To: <20050810083113.GN49964@gaz.sfgoth.com>

```
On Wed, Aug 10, 2005 at 01:31:13AM -0700, Mitchell Blank Jr wrote:
> Ian Campbell wrote:
> > I used to subscribe to the kernel RSS feed (using blam) but I found I
> > was only getting the most recent 20 commits, which wasn't much good when
> > a big batch went in because I would miss some.
> 
> Yes, I have that problem too.  It appears to be just the way that gitweb
> works - look at the "git_rss" function in the source:
>   ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/software/scm/gitweb/gitweb.cgi
> 
> Kay -- is there any chance of fixing this?  I love reading the kernel
> commits via RSS but this makes it a lot less usable than it could be.
> Really it should return all commits within, say, the last 36 hours so as
> long as your aggregator polls reasonably often you won't miss anyhing.

It's 30 now and up to 150 if they are not older than 48 hours.
We can change the numbers, if you hava a better idea...

> The other thing on my wishlish is diffstat -- sometimes the commit messages
> can be a little ambiguous and just adding what files were changed would
> help alot.  For commits that touch a large number of files maybe it could
> just show the files that changed the most like:

For now it just lists all changed files to the log message, similar to the
"commit" view. Is that ok, or do we really need the diffstat, It may be
a bit expensive to generate it for all the commits with every RSS request...

Thanks,
Kay

```

## Mitchell Blank Jr, 2005-08-12 21:16

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <20050812211600.GA61428@gaz.sfgoth.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20050812211600.GA61428%40gaz.sfgoth.com
In-Reply-To: <20050812203322.GB9696@vrfy.org>

```
Kay Sievers wrote:
> It's 30 now and up to 150 if they are not older than 48 hours.
> We can change the numbers, if you hava a better idea...

Is it really hard to just make it purely time-based (git-rev-list --max-age)?
Think of if Linus is merging with a lot of people and then pushes the results
to the master repository -- suddenly there's, say, 400 new commits since the
last time my aggregator checked 2 hours ago.

> For now it just lists all changed files to the log message, similar to the
> "commit" view. Is that ok, or do we really need the diffstat,

It looks great, thanks!  diffstat would be slightly nicer but not a big
deal.

> It may be
> a bit expensive to generate it for all the commits with every RSS request...

Well if the RSS feed's popularity takes off you'll probably want to *not*
generate it every time and instead serve it from a static file.  This can
be as simple as a Makefile like:

	commits.rss: $(GITDIR)/refs/heads/master
		/path/to/myperlscript.pl $(GITDIR) > commits.rss.NEW && chmod 444 commits.rss.NEW && mv commits.rss.NEW commits.rss

and then call "make -C /my/rss/dir -s -f /path/to/mymakefile.mk" from cron
every minute.

Serving the rss from a static file has the big advantage that a well-behaved
aggregator will only request it if the modification date changed which saves
everyone bandwidth.

-Mitch

```

## Matthias Urlichs, 2005-08-13 04:13

Subject: Re: gitweb - feature request
Message-ID: <pan.2005.08.13.04.13.18.159941@smurf.noris.de>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/pan.2005.08.13.04.13.18.159941%40smurf.noris.de
In-Reply-To: <20050812211600.GA61428@gaz.sfgoth.com>

```
Hi, Mitchell Blank Jr wrote:

> Is it really hard to just make it purely time-based (git-rev-list
> --max-age)? Think of if Linus is merging with a lot of people and then
> pushes the results to the master repository -- suddenly there's, say,
> 400 new commits since the last time my aggregator checked 2 hours ago.

Think of Linus merging a bunch of trees with 1-month old commits, all of
which you'd miss that way.

IMHO, you definitely need a static file for RSS -- do a git-rev-list
between HEAD and HEAD-as-of-the-last-time-you-generated-the-RSS,
concatenate with the old RSS, then trim appropriately.

-- 
Matthias Urlichs   |   {M:U} IT Design @ m-u-it.de   |  smurf@smurf.noris.de
Disclaimer: The quote was selected randomly. Really. | http://smurf.noris.de
 - -
You judge the acts of others only by their intentions.

```
