As mentioned in commits like a586ba806, a7664ad81, 006128da5, b41fbfa52
and c480cdd91, accessing the database after starting the browser with
the `visit` method sometimes results in database corruption and failing
tests on our CI due to the process running the test accessing the
database after the process running the browser has started.
In these cases, there's no need to check the database; we're already
checking the application behavior that shows that the voters have been
correctly created.
We were always passing `officer.user` to this method, so we might as
well pass the officer (since the "officer" is in the name of the method)
and call `officer.user` inside the method.
We're also calling `login_through_form_as` in order to remove the
duplication between these two methods.
We removed the link to this page in commit 83e8d6035 because poll
questions don't really make sense without a poll.
However, this page also contained information about successful
proposals, which might be interesting so administrators don't have to
navigate to the public area in order to find and create questions based
on successful proposals.
So we're keeping the part about successful proposals and linking it from
the proposals part of the admin area.
Note we're using translation keys like `successful_proposals_tab`, which
don't make sense anymore, for the successful proposals. We're doing so
because we've already got translations for these keys and, if we renamed
them, we'd lose the existing translations and our translators would have
to add them again.
Also note we're changing one poll question test a little bit so we
create the question from a successful proposal using the new page. There
are other tests checking how to create a question from the
admin/proposals#show action and other tests checking what happens when
accessing a successful proposal in the admin section, so we don't lose
any test coverage by changing an existing test instead of adding a new
one.
Finally, note that we've removing the `search` method in poll question
because we no longer use it. This currently makes the
`author_visible_name` database column useless; we aren't removing it
right now because we don't want to risk a possible data loss in a patch
release (we're about to release version 2.3.1), but we might remove it
in the future.
This way it's more obvious what's going on.
Note that, in this case, the expectations were **not** true before
visiting the page, so we aren't fixing a flaky test.
We were doing it most of the time, but in some cases we were clicking
the "Sign out" link instead. These actions aren't the same, just like
using `login_as` is not the same as visiting the sign in page and
submitting the form.
Some of these tests failed sometimes because the user wasn't signed in
after using `login_as`. One possible cause could be that we weren't
adding an expectation after clicking the "Sign out" link.
So using `logout` adds consistency, simplifies the code, and might
reduce the chance of these tests failing in the future (although they
might still fail in the future because some of these tests check the
database after a `visit` call).
We were already saving it as a time, but we didn't offer an interface to
select the time due to lack of decent browser support for this field
back when this feature was added.
However, nowadays all major browsers support this field type and, at the
time of writing, at least 86.5% of the browsers support it [1]. This
percentage could be much higher, since support in 11.25% of the browsers
is unknown.
Note we still need to support the case where this field isn't supported,
and so we offer a fallback and on the server side we don't assume we're
always getting a time. We're doing a strange hack so we set the field
type to text before changing its value; otherwise old Firefox browsers
crashed.
Also note that, until now, we were storing end dates in the database as
a date with 00:00 as its time, but we were considering the poll to be
open until 23:59 that day. So, in order to keep backwards compatibility,
we're adding a task to update the dates of existing polls so we get the
same behavior we had until now.
This also means budget polls are now created so they end at the
beginning of the day when the balloting phase ends. This is consistent
with the dates we display in the budget phases table.
Finally, there's one test where we're using `beginning_of_minute` when
creating a poll. That's because Chrome provides an interface to enter a
time in a `%H:%M` format when the "seconds" value of the provided time
is zero. However, when the "seconds" value isn't zero, Chrome provides
an interface to enter a time in a `%H:%M:%S` format. Since Capybara
doesn't enter the seconds when using `fill_in` with a time, the test
failed when Capybara tried to enter a time in the `%H:%M` format when
Chrome expected a time in the `%H:%M:%S` format.
To solve this last point, an alternative would be to manually provide
the format when using `fill_in` so it includes the seconds.
[1] https://caniuse.com/mdn-html_elements_input_type_datetime-local
This is consistent with the way we show the duration of a budget and its
phases. Since budgets are the section with the most recent changes in
the admin area, we're using it as a reference.
Note that, unlike budgets (which are shown to finish at the beginning of
their ending day), a poll has always been considered to finish at the
end of their ending day, so we're showing it this way.
We're also solving a minor usability issue. While it's pretty intuitive
that a poll starting on a certain date will start at the beginning of
the day, a poll ending on a certain date isn't clear about when it
finishes exactly: is it at the beginning of the day, or at the end of
the day?
So now we're making this point clear.
Defining a behavior on hover means making it different for people using
a keyboard or a touchscreen (most of the population, nowadays).
In this case, we had an accessibility issue where the message wouldn't
disappear once it appeared. That meant that, after tabbing through all
the links and buttons in, for instance, the debates index, the page
would be filled with "participation not allowed" messages, and in order
to see the information about how many people have voted, reloading the
page was required.
For touchscreen users the behavior was similar to what we get on hover,
although we've found some inconsistencies when trying to support several
elements on the same page.
We think in proposals it makes sense to hide the "support" button when
users click on it, and the same applies to the buttonsto support and
vote investment projects. However, we aren't hiding the buttons to
agree/disagree with a debate in order to keep the information about the
current number of people agreeing and disagreeing visible.
Note we're removing some support spec methods because after these
changes the duplication isn't as obvious as it was in the past.
As mentioned in commits 5311daadf and bb958daf0, using links combined
with JavaScript to generate POST requests to the server has a few
issues.
We're also improving the keyboard access. Previously, the links were
focusable and clickable with the keyboard. Now we're disabling the
buttons when voting isn't allowed.
Since these elements can no longer be focused, we're adding an element
with `tabindex="0"` so the "participation not allowed" message is shown,
like we do in most places.
Note we're slightly changing one test because now when hovering over the
button on Chrome, the "participation not allowed" text isn't shown; it's
only shown when hovering on the parts of the `div.ballot` element
outside the button. Since we're already rewriting the behavior of the
"participation not allowed" text in a different pull request, we aren't
going to fix this behavior.
The buttons to create polls associated with a budget were too prominent,
appearing on the table as if they were as used as the link to manage
investments. Most CONSUL installations don't use physical booths, and
would probably wonder what that button is about.
We're moving it to a more discrete place, at the bottom of the budget
page. This way we can also split the action in two: on budgets not
having a poll, we display the button in a not-so-accessible position (at
the bottom of the page), since this button will only be used once per
budget at most. Once the poll has been created, it means this feature is
going to be used, so we display a link to manage ballots more
prominently at the top of the page. If the budget has finished the final
voting stage without creating a poll, we don't show either the link or
the button because this feature can no longer be used.
We're also adding some texts indicating what this feature is about,
since it's probably one of the least understood features in CONSUL
(probably because the interface is very confusing... but that's a
different story).
Since now from the budget page we can access every feature related to
the budget, we can remove the "preview" action from the budgets index
table, since this feature isn't that useful for budgets once they're
published.
Now the budgets table doesn't take as much space as it used to, although
it's still too wide to be handled properly on devices with a small
screen.
Links acting like buttons have a few disadvantages.
First, screen readers will announce them as "links". Screen reader users
usually associate links with "things that get you somewhere" and buttons
with "things that perform an action". So when something like "Delete,
link" is announced, they'll probably think this is a link which will
take them to another page where they can delete a record.
Furthermore, the URL of the link for the "destroy" action might be the
same as the URL for the "show" action (only one is accessed with a
DELETE request and the other one with a GET request). That means screen
readers could announce the link like "Delete, visited link", which is
very confusing.
They also won't work when opening links in a new tab, since opening
links in a new tab always results in a GET request to the URL the link
points to.
Finally, submit buttons work without JavaScript enabled, so they'll work
even if the JavaScript in the page hasn't loaded (for whatever reason).
For all these reasons (and probably many more), using a button to send
forms is IMHO superior to using links.
There's one disadvantage, though. Using `button_to` we create a <form>
tag, which means we'll generate invalid HTML if the table is inside
another form. If we run into this issue, we need to use `button_tag`
with a `form` attribute and then generate a form somewhere else inside
the HTML (with `content_for`).
Note we're using `button_to` with a block so it generates a <button>
tag. Using it in a different way the text would result in an <input />
tag, and input elements can't have pseudocontent added via CSS.
The following code could be a starting point to use the `button_tag`
with a `form` attribute. One advantage of this approach is screen
readers wouldn't announce "leaving form" while navigating through these
buttons. However, it doesn't work in Internet Explorer.
```
ERB:
<% content_for(:hidden_content, form_tag(path, form_options) {}) %>
<%= button_tag text, button_options %>
Ruby:
def form_id
path.gsub("/", "_")
end
def form_options
{ id: form_id, method: options[:method] }
end
def button_options
html_options.except(:method).merge(form: form_id)
end
Layout:
<%= content_for :hidden_content %> # Right before the `</body>`
```
The word "budget" in the "Preview budget" link is redundant.
On the other hand, the words "Manage", Edit" and "Admin" are not
really necessary in my humble opinion. Just like in the admin
navigation menu we use "Participatory budgets" instead of "Manage
Participatory budgets", the fact that we're going to manage or
admin or edit something can be deduced from the fact that we're in
the admin section.
Besides, it isn't clear to me why we use "Manage" for projects,
"Edit" for heading groups and "Admin" for ballots. The differences
between these three concepts might be too subtle for me.
The previous paragraphs haven't been corroborated with real users,
though, so I might be mistaken and we might need to revisit these
links in the future.
These actions still take quite a lot of space. Maybe in the future we
could remove the "delete" icon, at least on budgets which cannot be
deleted.
Checking the database with methods like Activity.last does not test that
the record is present where it should be (first record of the table in
this case). In these tests there's only one record, though, so the order
doesn't matter that match.
However, calling methods like Activity.last generates a database query
after the process running the browser has been started, and this might
lead to inconsistent data.
These tests check what happens from the user's point of view. For
instance, we check that after disabling recommendations, they are not
shown. What happens in the database is not related to the user
experience.
Furthermore, checking the database after the browser has started is
proving to be a major source for inconsistent data in specs.
JavaScript is used by about 98% of web users, so by testing without it
enabled, we're only testing that the application works for a very
reduced number of users.
We proceeded this way in the past because CONSUL started using Rails 4.2
and truncating the database between JavaScript tests with database
cleaner, which made these tests terribly slow.
When we upgraded to Rails 5.1 and introduced system tests, we started
using database transactions in JavaScript tests, making these tests much
faster. So now we can use JavaScript tests everywhere without critically
slowing down our test suite.
We've had a failure in one of our test suite runs [1]. A possible cause
could be an HTTP request taking place at the same time as an AJAX
request, with both trying to access the database at the same time.
We've had several similar issues in the past which have been fixed by
checking the AJAX request has finished before requesting another page,
so we're applying the same principle here.
[1] https://github.com/consul/consul/runs/1855207922
We were repeating the same code over and over (with a few variants) to
setup tests which require an administrator. We can use a tag and
simplify the code.
These tests were supposed to check the link to vote is hidden when users
don't have permission to vote. However, they aren't testing that, since
the `visible: false` option also matches visible elements. The links are
actually considered visible since they're displayed by the browser;
there's just another element on top of them.
Using `obscured: true` instead of `visible: false` solves the issue.
However, while the `obscured` option is true when the element is hidden
by another element, it's also true when the element is not currently
visible in the browser window, so in some cases we need to scroll so the
condition is effective.
