# Proposal: replacing UserVoice with GitLab issues for feature requests
**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844
**Category:** Development
**Created:** [April 1, 2021, 6:24pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844 "2021-04-01T18:24:32Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cory.quammen)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 6:24pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/1 "2021-04-01T18:24:32Z")
Dear ParaView community,
For years, we have had the [ParaView User Voice](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general) for tracking popular feature requests for ParaView. The site is difficult to administer, it is not often checked, and there has recently been a surge of spam where feature requests should go. We would like to improve on this.
As a replacement, one idea is to use GitLab for feature requests. GitLab has several strengths that can mimic and even improve upon the UserVoice site:
- GitLab issues offer thumbs up/thumbs down icons to indicate popularity for an issue.
- When looking at a list of issues, you can sort them by popularity. With existing issues, that looks like the below image:
- GitLab supports searching by tags. If we tag feature request issues with a particular tag, then listing them alone and sorting them by popularity mimics the UserVoice site capabilities. We already have `triage:feature` label, but might want a non-triage version of that.
- New issues can be created from a link and pre-filled with a feature request template specified in the URL. The “Request a Feature” link at [paraview.org](http://paraview.org) could thus be changed to a URL that initializes a feature request issue template that labels the new issue a feature and whatever other boilerplate is useful.
- When a new feature is added, linking back to the original request and closing it is easy.
- ParaView developers use GitLab all the time - as such, we will be more aware of highly requested features
We should be able to import the existing UserVoice issues into GitLab without much trouble, but I’m not sure about importing the vote tallies for each issue.
Thoughts? Concerns?
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### Author:  [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 7:09pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/2 "2021-04-01T19:09:12Z")
First, let me say I’m good with whatever direction we go.
However, I keep leaning towards discourse. I lean for three reasons that I can succinctly think of, none of which are overwhelming.
- Discourse is for users. It’s where they naturally tend to go. Discourse is designed to be a clean interface for users. For instance, if a user wants to see what has been recommended before, said user can just go to, or search, a sub group. I think we should go where users are, rather than follow any specific tool feature.
- GitLab has a lot of motion on it, thus recommendations will quickly disappear from the first (and second) page. Thus, as a general rule, users won’t see what other users have recommended. (Yes, they can use labels, but these are not intuitive the first time you go on site.). Does ANYONE remember what is on page 13 of GitLab? I don’t…
- Last, frequently what users recommend gets rewritten anyway. This generally happens moving from UserVoice to GitLab, or from Discourse to GitLab. If we start in GitLab, some features will need to be rewritten anyway. Thus, I am not sure the benefit.
Anyway, my $0.02.
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### Author:  [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 7:10pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/3 "2021-04-01T19:10:54Z")
Oh, I forgot. GitLab has a weird bug (unless it has been fixed) that makes searches very effective within the BODY of issues, but misses searching through the TITLES. Again, it is a developer tool, not a user tool.
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### Author:  [@cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cory.quammen)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 7:31pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/4 "2021-04-01T19:31:35Z")
Alan, you make some good points. I think most of the useful features in GitLab have counterparts in Discourse, and I’m glad we’re having the discussion of the merits of both. It hasn’t escaped my notice we are doing so on Discourse 🙂
My main things are a way to category requests and indicate popularity. Discourse does have categories, which are nice and easy to use, and you can “Like” posts to indicate popularity. The likes figure into the ordering of “top” topics, so popular features should be listed first
The biggest problem with Discourse posts is that once a feature is implemented, there isn’t a way to “close” them and remove them from the list of top requests. Maybe archiving the topic or making it unlisted would achieve that.
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### Author:  [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 8:05pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/5 "2021-04-01T20:05:18Z")
I’m confused. When I click on the wrench at the top of this topic, it gives me options to “Close Topic” and “Delete Topic”. Delete sounds pretty severe, Archiving or unlisting would keep it around, I assume, but not visible?
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### Author:  [@Andy\_Bauer](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/Andy_Bauer)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 8:30pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/6 "2021-04-01T20:30:47Z")
I’d vote for something on Discourse but haven’t thought much of how easy it is to actually implement it here rather than on Gitlab.
But yes for just replacing UserVoice. I went there recently but was pointed there by a topic on Discourse. Other than that I don’t think I’ve been there in the 3 years.
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### Author:  [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [April 1, 2021, 8:50pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/7 "2021-04-01T20:50:52Z")
I tend to go there about once a year, and cherry pick ideas. But, it would be much nicer to have the ideas in a more robust, healthy discussion space than out in the back desert…
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### Author:  [@cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cory.quammen)
#### Post date: [April 2, 2021, 11:19pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/8 "2021-04-02T23:19:53Z")
Any other input on GitLab vs. Discourse?
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### Author:  [@GregVernon](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/GregVernon)
#### Post date: [April 3, 2021, 8:53pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/9 "2021-04-03T20:53:47Z")
It honestly doesn’t matter to me, though I do think Discourse is more user-friendly for non-developers.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [April 6, 2021, 8:52am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/10 "2021-04-06T08:52:34Z")
I’d go for it this way:
1. Add a section for user ideas within this discourse
2. User add new ideas but require admin validations (like tips and tricks)
3. Other users can “vote” on ideas by liking them.
4. Once an idea reaches a treshold (10?), initial poster open an issue (or tag a dev to open an issue) on gitlab, adding bidirectional links.
5. Gitlab issue is picked for devlopment by a funding project or a dedicated dev
6. MR created and merged, gitlab issue closed, discourse topic “resolved” with a link to the MR
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### Author:  [@cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cory.quammen)
#### Post date: [April 9, 2021, 2:03pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/11 "2021-04-09T14:03:33Z")
One last step - Discourse posts can be made “unlisted” which means they will not appear in the list of topics in a category. Discourse admins can apparently still see them, but they are marked with a crossed-out eyeball, so that should make it easy to skip over implemented features in the list.
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### Author:  [@cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cory.quammen)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2021, 3:51pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/12 "2021-04-13T15:51:30Z")
To follow up, I created a “Feature Requests” category currently only visible to moderators. @wascott, when you are ready, do you want to populate it from the existing [user voice](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general) entries? Maybe cut off requests below 10 votes or so?
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### Author:  [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2021, 8:55pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/13 "2021-04-13T20:55:43Z")
Will do, next week. This week I’m in Colorado without good internet.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2021, 4:49am UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/14 "2021-04-20T04:49:40Z")
I took a quick look, many of these ideas are either outdated or already implented in ParaView.
Let me know if you want me to do a pass on them and add comments to them in order to flag these.
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### Author:  [@wascott](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/wascott)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2021, 3:34pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/15 "2021-04-20T15:34:15Z")
Thanks Mathieu. If you want to move the uservoice suggestions, that would be great. I’m still trying ti dig out resolving your closed bugs from the hackathon.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2021, 4:50pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/16 "2021-04-22T16:50:31Z")
All the user voice request with more than 22 votes have been created in the new category except:
- [Extract selection + Preserve only connected topology – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/15954736-extract-selection-preserve-only-connected-topolo) : already available in another way
- [Keyboard shortcuts – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/969001-keyboard-shortcuts:) already available
- [. frd plugin for calculix – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/16667812--frd-plugin-for-calculix) //: we are not going to integrate another viz soft in ParaView
- [Develop a translator to convert CALCULIX generater .frd files in to paraview readable files – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/5050859-develop-a-translator-to-convert-calculix-generater) : we are not going to integrate another viz soft in ParaView
- [Enable caching of (static) meshes for transient data – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/319562-enable-caching-of-static-meshes-for-transient-da:) Available in StaticMeshPlugin
- [Add StarCCM+ loader – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/2307440-add-starccm-loader:) not a feature request but a (not enough info to reproduce) bug report
- [expand the name patterns for temporal file series to include time represented as floats – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/12591231-expand-the-name-patterns-for-temporal-file-series) : supported by another mean
- [Limit precision in GUI text edits – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/230682-limit-precision-in-gui-text-edits) : done
- [Export to COLLADA or similar 3d format, for high quality rendering – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/2386536-export-to-collada-or-similar-3d-format-for-high-q:) glTF is now supported
- [Add a shortcut for loading state – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/11618661-add-a-shortcut-for-loading-state) : now possible
- [SpacePilot (3DConnexion) support without manual build – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/7175771-spacepilot-3dconnexion-support-without-manual-bu:) now supported
I will tackle the rest later.
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2021, 7:08pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/17 "2021-04-22T19:08:32Z")
All the user voice request with more than 10 votes have been created in the new category except:
- [Hello, I tried to see results from an Abaqus output file (.odb) , but I found It impossible – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/2180131-hello-i-tried-to-see-results-from-an-abaqus-outpu) : duplicate
- [Add a time range selection on filters input, in particular, for the temporal statistics filter – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/2092787-add-a-time-range-selection-on-filters-input-in-pa) : already possible
- [Add real vector graphics – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/17702473-add-real-vector-graphics) : not possible
- [Add a tutorial which describes how to load data using python script without using a compiled data loader. – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/2510048-add-a-tutorial-which-describes-how-to-load-data-us) : support request
- [Integrate Julia – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/6580456-integrate-julia) : not worth adding imo, too much work, little benefit
- [support for gzipped nrrd files – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/33270265-support-for-gzipped-nrrd-files) : available now
- [Setting zoom sensitivity – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/6474978-setting-zoom-sensitivity:) Already available
- [bug – Have an idea? Share it!](https://paraview.uservoice.com/forums/11350-general/suggestions/2789846-bug:) bug report
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### Author:  [@mwestphal](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/mwestphal)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2021, 7:10pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/18 "2021-04-22T19:10:08Z")
IMHO the next steps are:
- Close uservoice for contribution and vote but keep as read only
- Open the feature request category to the general public
- Make a announcement in announcement category (and in blog?)
Let me know if I can help.
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### Author:  [@cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cory.quammen)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2021, 7:38pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/19 "2021-04-22T19:38:00Z")
Looks good, Mathieu. I’ll ask the publications team to change the link on [https://www.paraview.org/](https://www.paraview.org/) from User Voice to this category - once they do, I’ll flip on visibility.
I think an announcement on Discourse is warranted. Blog post - maybe?
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### Author:  [@cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cory.quammen)
#### Post date: [April 22, 2021, 7:49pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844/20 "2021-04-22T19:49:47Z")
The category is now open and linked from [paraview.org](http://paraview.org).
Anyone can create a feature request, but new topics require moderator approval.
[Next page](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/proposal-replacing-uservoice-with-gitlab-issues-for-feature-requests/6844.md?page=2)