Read Only Searchable Projects

Zendesk: https://gitlab.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/13359

Client requests that a project can be made Read Only much like the Archive feature, which he has tried, but it should be searchable at least within a group.

/cc @JobV

Not only searchable, but listed with the other projects. A nice touch would be a visual attribute on read-only projects.

@kforner why not just restrict access instead?

even the master should not commit by mistake. And it's simpler to have one button "archive" or "read-only" + a visual attribute.

@kforner I can't help but feel that this is creating a feature for a problem that doesn't really exist, i.e. I don't see how someone would commit by mistake.

Alternatively, you can simply create a group with projects that you want to be read-only and use the 'share with group' feature to give people access to it, where you set the max access level to reporter.

That's also a bit clunky, so what about making archived projects searchable? I'll investigate if this is viable and love to hear your thoughts.

That's also a bit clunky, so what about making archived projects searchable?

I'd reformulate: what about not hiding archived projects ? Or list them with a visual attribute. I did not want to break other users' workflow, that's why I proposed a "read-only" feature.

My use case: When we close a project, we transfer it into the "archived" group, it is then backed-up using a different process, and we did want to accidentally commit new changes, but we still want to list the project, and view files and history.

@kforner It makes sense to me.

Want to stop using a project?

• Archive if you still want to be able to access it
• Delete if you don't want to access it even anymore

@dzaporozhets what do you think about @kforner's proposal?

I think that being able to search for archived project is useful but having them show up with all other projects might pollute the search results. Is it possible to make them searchable only within a group? How about adding a filter to search for archived projects only? The visual differentiation is also a good idea, what do you think @creamzy?

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Added feature proposal and removed ~128370 labels

@JobV @balameb we need t come up with visual differentiation anyway, if we want to show archived projects as results. For me the question is where should we make this query possible?

Dashboard

Inside a group

Inside a group NEW

@JobV @dzaporozhets what do you think about most appropriate placement for this filter/switcher - dashboard level or group level, or both?

@creamzy I suppose anywhere where you see a project.

mentioned in issue #4122 (closed)

ok few thoughts:

• we don't introduce new "Read Only" state for projects. Use archive button instead
• archived projects should not appear on dashboard or other places in UI
• archived projects should appear in search results. Otherwise its extremely painful to find it

cc @creamzy @JobV

we need to be able to list archived projects, otherwise they are just lost if you forget the name.

Maybe we should have a filter for archived projects. Although that'll see very low usage, so not sure how to solve that in the UI well.

@JobV right now I do agree with @dzaporozhets, search results are vital discoverability point, I will check how we deliver it, but I assume badly.

@dzaporozhets do we have a list of archived projects shown anywhere in the system?

@creamzy no we dont have a page where archived projects are shown. But I think its different story(issue). I think we should:

1. Implement steps from my comment above
2. Prototype a place for archived projects

I will add 8.4 milestone as we have similar issues for this milestone.

Milestone changed to 8.4

Reassigned to @creamzy

Issue related to #2537 (closed)

@balameb @JobV @dzaporozhets

1. I would suggest this approach for refining search results for a list of projects, it covers archive issues and gives extra handy author sorting - mainly all you need to narrow your search results

2. Also I assume we need some distinguishing between archived/nonarchived projects - I've added icon on the right side of a project line prior to the star counter. Please share your concerns.

3. What's your feedback on naming nonarchived projects as active

Assignee removed

@creamzy that looks awesome, thank you. Active projects sound about right. The icon also looks great.

@balameb passing to Frontend

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@creamzy The screenshot looks great!

What's your feedback on naming nonarchived projects as active

I'm not completly against it, but it could become confusing for the user.
For example a project that hasn't seen any activity in the last 5 years would still be labeled as active like this.
I can see a use case where i'm searching for a specific topic, but want to filter out all inactive projects that are not really maintained. (We currently don't offer this, but it would be confusing to rename this later)

Milestone changed to 8.6

We have an option to show archived projects on the project lists now:

@balameb Please report back and close this issue!

@DouweM Excellent news, I will.

Status changed to closed