coala has come a long way from its early days in terms of its usability, athough all the changes that have been made are improvisations. A proper and planned overhaul of the user interface would help coala become much more user friendly and intuitive. At its core any software is as good as its interface with the user and this project aims to improve that.

In this project we are going to focus on the command line interface (CLI) of coala. The specific areas and points to focus on are:

Remove most of the text from the action selection screen.
Use letters instead of numbers for selecting actions.
Allow chaining actions in a single input.
Add a 'select action for all results' operator.
Make the implementation of ApplyPatchAction log the applied patch.
Reprompt after running actions only if the action says so.

The end goal of the project is to:

[ ] Make coala easier to use
[ ] Adds new functionality so the user could have multiple options when he uses coala
[X] Mockups and feedback from the community
[X] The applicant comes up with their own ideas to improve the CLI

NOTE: Those written in italic are Work in Progress.

cEP-0010 contains further details about the project.

Make coala easier to use, hence the project is going to rely heavily upon mockups and feedback from the community. Adds new functionality so user could have multiple options when uses coala. The user interface would help coala become much more user friendly and intuitive.

MILESTONES

[BONDING] https://gitlab.com/coala/GSoC/GSoC-2017/milestones/16 [PHASE 1] https://gitlab.com/coala/GSoC/GSoC-2017/milestones/17 [PHASE 2] https://gitlab.com/coala/GSoC/GSoC-2017/milestones/18 [PHASE 3] https://gitlab.com/coala/GSoC/GSoC-2017/milestones/19

PREPARATION/BONDING

[X] The cEP has been updated, finished and merged with the help of mockups and community feedback.
[X] A survey is done on the importance of each proposed change to the CLI.
[X] Concept for implementation exists in the cEP.

CODING PHASE 1

[ ] Implemented at least 3 improvements from the above list including what has been proposed by the participant.
[ ] Thorough testing of the implemented improvements is done and they are merged.
[ ] Documentation using illustrations of the improvements is merged.

Related issues:

[CLI] https://gitlab.com/coala/GSoC/GSoC-2017/issues/55 [Letters instead of numbers] https://gitlab.com/coala/GSoC/GSoC-2017/issues/127 [Do nothing] https://gitlab.com/coala/GSoC/GSoC-2017/issues/130 [Chaining actions] https://gitlab.com/coala/GSoC/GSoC-2017/issues/129 [Testing and writing documentation] https://gitlab.com/coala/GSoC/GSoC-2017/issues/133