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Bug 472097

Summary:	Confusing tern error messages
Product:	[ECD] Orion	Reporter:	John Arthorne <john.arthorne>
Component:	JS Tools	Assignee:	Michael Rennie <Michael_Rennie>
Status:	RESOLVED WORKSFORME	QA Contact:
Severity:	normal
Priority:	P3	CC:	Carolyn_MacLeod, libingw
Version:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Hardware:	PC
OS:	Windows 7
Whiteboard:

Description John Arthorne

2015-07-07 15:46:01 EDT

Some of the tern-related error messages are not comprehensible for an end user:

	'failedGetEnvs': 'Failed to get contributed environments',
	'failedGetEnvsNoServer': 'Failed to get contributed environments, server not started',
	'failedRename': 'Failed to compute rename changes',
	'failedRenameNoServer': 'Failed to compute rename changes, server not started'

What is a "contributed environment"? What does "server not started" mean? I think these messages need to become much more generic so they are not confusing for the end user. E.g., "server not started" could imply the Orion server is broken, but I suspect it means the Tern server. I suggest making the user messages simpler/more generic, and if you need something more verbose dump it on the web console (unexternalized).

Comment 1 Carolyn MacLeod

2015-07-07 16:03:25 EDT

I kind of disagree with making error messages more generic, because that often comes back to bite us later when users don't have enough information.
Perhaps the error messages can be improved so that they are clearer, for example, if "server not started" does in fact mean the Tern server, then the error message needs to make that clear.

Comment 2 Michael Rennie

2015-07-09 10:30:54 EDT

Pretty much all of the 'failed*' messages are not shown to the user in the IDE, they get logged to the console (with just enough info so that if someone filed a bug I could immediately know where the tools failed).

I NLS'd them so we were not dumping english-only traces to the console. If the Orion scheme is to always log to the console in English, I can easily un-NLS them.

Comment 3 Carolyn MacLeod

2015-07-09 12:58:41 EDT

Libing, do we NLS messages that are dumped to the console if we can? Or do we try to keep console messages in English?

Comment 4 Michael Rennie

2016-06-09 14:50:03 EDT

Closing worksforme, as I noted, the only place that you could ever potentially see one of the messages is in the console.