Provide faster access to "publish & open new pull request" functionality

[jasonrudolph]

Description

I ❤️ being able to initiate a pull request from within Atom:

Presently, using this functionality requires navigating to the GitHub tab, even though all my other interactions with the GitHub package occur in the Git tab or the status bar. That's an extra step that it would be nice to avoid. 😅

I'd love it if I could more easily access the "publish & open new pull request" functionality without having to navigate to a separate tab. As someone that makes heavy use of the command palette, I'd personally enjoy having access to a "publish & open new pull request" command, or perhaps a "publish" command and an "open pull request" command.

Versions

macOS 10.13.4

$ atom --version
Atom    : 1.29.0-dev-3e4b386
Electron: 2.0.0
Chrome  : 61.0.3163.100
Node    : 8.9.3

$ apm --version
apm  1.19.0
npm  3.10.10
node 6.9.5 x64
atom 1.29.0-dev-3e4b386
python 2.7.10
git 2.17.0

$ apm show github
github
├── 0.15.0
...

[smashwilson]

The text and functionality of that button actually change based on the relationship between HEAD and its remote tracking branch:

• If you have no remote tracking branch at all, you see "publish + open new pull request"
• If you have a remote tracking branch and you're ahead of it, you see "push + open new pull request"
• If you have a remote tracking branch and you're up to date, you see "open new pull request"

The easiest thing to do would be to port all of this wholesale to a command palette entry that basically calls the same function that the button's onclick handler 😉 I'm not sure what the command should be called, then, though.

[jasonrudolph]

I'm not sure what the command should be called, then, though.

All of these basically equate to "push and open pull request," right? If you're already up to date, the push is a no-op.

[simurai]

In addition to a command, how about adding an "Open PR" to the status bar?

Option 1

Combined with the pull/push tile. It would work like this:

1. Click on Publish
2. Changes get pushed
3. Open PR is shown
4. Clicking Open PR opens .com's compare page
5. If Open PR doesn't get clicked for the next 1-2 minutes after publishing, Fetch is shown again. Also if you make a new commit, or choose something from the context menu, then Open PR wouldn't reappear. It's only temporary right after you publish a branch.

Option 2

Have a separate PR tile in the status-bar. It would work like this:

1. Click on Publish
2. Changes get pushed
3. A new Open PR tile is shown next to 0 files.
4. Clicking Open PR opens .com's compare page
5. Once a PR is detected, the tile changes to the PR nr. E.g. PR #123
6. Clicking PR #123 opens the GitHub panel with the PR details.

Having option 2 might also be handy for showing other things. Like showing CI status, e.g. PR #123 ✔︎ or that there is a new comment etc. I think the GitHub panel would be much more useful if we tell people that something is new and they don't have to randomly look themselves.

[smashwilson]

I'm 👎 on Option 1, primarily because of this:

If Open PR doesn't get clicked for the next 1-2 minutes after publishing, Fetch is shown again.

Making UI changes time-sensitive is one of those things that makes my "uncomfortable UX" sense tingle 😆1-2 minutes is likely long enough that you won't feel like you have to race to click it... but:

• What if you want to fetch in that interval? You'd have to sit around and wait for the button to revert. (Okay, or use the command palette or the context menu.)
• What if you click it to do a fetch out of muscle memory, without noticing the changed tile?
• What if you only think about creating a pull request at the 2 minutes 1 second mark?
• Reverting back to "fetch" is a noticeable UI change that would draw attention to the tile without having a clear cause.

Option 2 sounds much better to me. It gives us a tile that behaves similarly to the fetch/push/pull tile for the GitHub side of things: a contextual control that acts as a nudge to "do the common next thing" for GitHub operations.

The downsides I can think of there are:

• It's yet another status bar tile, which can make things feel crowded, especially if you have a bunch of packages that add status bar tiles.
• There's an inconsistency in behavior between open PR, which takes you to your browser, and PR #123, which opens the GitHub panel which may feel odd.

[simurai]

Option 3

Have the same "Open new pull request" button underneath the recent commits:

Overkill? 😄 The button would open the GitHub tab/dock item, for easier discovery.