in-toto / layout-web-tool

A flask app that helps to create, modify and visualize in-toto layouts.

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Clarify the notion of steps

lukpueh opened this issue · comments

We have to clarify what the supply chain graph should look like and which steps are actually layout-worthy. Here are some question that arose during user testing:

  • is cd <dir> a supply chain step?
  • if cd <dir> is a step, then it should be a “non-modifying step”?
  • if cd <dir> is a "non-modifying step" then it appears as a parallel activity in the D3 graph, which is really confusing
  • can I concatenate commands (steps) with ; or &&
  • if steps are all commands, can I add comments?
  • how do I represent the step “look at Travis icon on GitHub” ?

We should probably re-think the extent of customizability on the first couple of pages (vcs, building, qa, packaging).

Currently a user:

  1. chooses from a set of popular tools in the option grid (custom command is one of the choices), then
  2. customizes the tool command inside the option grid (the form expands on click), then
  3. either clicks "add and continue on next page" or "add and continue on this page", (which btw. was very confusing for our beta testers), then
  4. in case the user stays, the steps can be further customized and re-ordered in the workflow section below the option grid, and
  5. eventually the user can refine or completely change all the previously entered information on the software supply chain page

Maybe we should limit the user-interaction on those first pages to choosing from popular tools, or specifying that a custom command is used and only provide a customization UI on the software supply chain page?

Do you mean instead of the web wizard? Or as part of it?

It was noted by to different users that the Custom Command button was not clearly recognizable as an alternative choice to the suggested tools (e.g. #14 (comment)). We should fix this.