Started: January 30th, 2020
A lot of people get confused with rbt setup-repo. This command is intended to create the .reviewboardrc file, and is meant to be run after the repository exists on the server. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to think that it will create the repository on the server too, which leads to confusion.
We'd like to go through and make the instructions and error output more clear (both in the documentation as well as the output from the command).
For instance, if it cannot find a repository, it shouldn't just say it wasn't found. It should say that if the repository does not exist, it must be created on Review Board. It should then point the user to the repository configuration page for creating a new repository, and also to the documentation for creating a new repository, and to try again once it's created.
It would also be nice for the very first bit of output to walk the user through the purpose of this command. Rather than just asking for the server URL, provide some informational text. "This command will help you to generate a .reviewboardrc file pointing this repository to a configured repository on Review Board, blah blah.".
Get a feel for how the command works, and figure out what you as a new user would want to see to not feel so confused. Talk to us about options and come up with a design and text for the experience.
Official Review Board Docs: https://www.reviewboard.org/docs/
Brainstorming ideas, new discoveries, and current course of actions will be documented down here.
Developing with .reviewboardrc
The file will change as you're testing rbt setup-repo. You can simply run git checkout .reviewboardrc to revert changes to this file.
Example .reviewboardrc config file
REVIEWBOARD_URL = "<https://reviews.reviewboard.org>"
REPOSITORY = "RBTools"
BRANCH = "release-2.0.x"
TRACKING_BRANCH = "origin/release-2.0.x"
LAND_DEST_BRANCH = "release-2.0.x"