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1

I accidentally tried to make a case its own parent. FogBugz didn't let me do this and that's a good thing. So far everything is working fine.

Here's the problem:

When I tried to make the case its own parent, it just added an entry to the case that said I edited the case but with NO description of what changed (because nothing did).

I think one of two things should happen instead:

Put something in the edit history that says I tried to make the case a parent of itself but that I'm not allowed to do that (because it's stupid).
- This isn't a great solution because it kind of goes against the way the edit history works. If the case information didn't change, then the only action that really occurred was the "edit" action.
- This is probably the easiest to implement, though.
Since FB knows that I tried to make a case a parent of itself, it shouldn't let the edit go through. Instead, provide an error message letting me know of the problem and require the number to change or be removed before allowing the edit to be accepted.
- I think this is the best option with regard to user experience but it will probably take more work.

Case FC1865281

edited Jul 15 2010 at 16:29

adambox♦♦
19.2k●12●41

asked Mar 12 2010 at 19:39

Marc Moroz
1,323●3●12

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I would not so much call this a feature request, but more of a bug. The history should only get updated if something actually changed, and an error message should be generated if someone tries to do a nonsensical action, so making a case a parent of itself would fall into that category. – cdeszaq Mar 12 2010 at 19:59

Incidentally, how is it that you tried to make the case a parent of itself? What were you really trying to do? – cdeszaq Mar 12 2010 at 20:00

I was torn between bug and feature. I can see it either way but either way, I'd like some functionality to fix it. I was really trying to make it a child of a different case but entered the wrong number because I was distracted. I saw the case receive the "edit" action but it didn't have a parent. I repeated the exact steps and it came back a second time with an "edit" but no parent and that's when I realized I was using the wrong number. – Marc Moroz Mar 13 2010 at 0:36

adambox · Accepted Answer · 2010-03-16 19:35:46Z UTC

2

I have opened a case to consider changing the behavior for entering an invalid case number (either itself or a nonexistent case) to tell the user about the problem and not save

answered Mar 16 2010 at 19:35

adambox♦♦
19.2k●12●41

Ted · Answer 2 · 2010-04-05 16:56:48Z UTC

Making a case a parent of itself is a specialization of the general problem of creating a cycle, which isn't allowed. Instead of refusing to make the edit, FogBugz will break the cycle for you. I believe the auto-fix strategy was taken instead of erroring out because it would be very tedious to unlink a bunch of cases then relink them if you wanted to rearrange the hierarchy. Some of the more common mistakes could be identified though.

Making case parent of itself doesn’t alert the user that nothing will happen

2 Answers