Filtering issues with multiple labels
Created by: roboogle
Since the labels moved from the sidebar to a dropdown menu, after the UI restructuring, it is no longer possible to select multiple labels in conjunction (i.e. with AND semantics).
This in my opinion is a dramatic downgrade, as we use group of labels to mark issues with different meaning, e.g.
type:bug, type:feature, type:idea, type:requirement prio:urgent comp:c1, comp:c2, ...
So we wanted to find urgent bugs about component c2, we could filter with all the corresponding labels "type:bug, prio:urgent, comp:c2".
From the usability point of view, the labels should be brought back to the sidebar in my opinion, as selecting them is a common operation when filtering.
Furthermore, notice that github supports multiple selection of labels with AND semantics, and also support the specification of labels' names in the textual search field. In particular it allows to search for labels specified in the form "label:label-name" which I think would be extremely useful in gitlab as well.
I propose to restore the feature, according to this picture exemplifying the idea:
On the left sidebar, a list of all labels is show (2), to allow the users to select one or more labels to be considered in conjunction, to show only the issues that are tagged with all the selected labels. If no labels are selected, all issues are shown as the filter is not active.
In (1) there is a filter to allow searching among labels' names. For example, writing "type:" in text entry (1) will show only labels whose name contains the string "type:", which helps when there are many defined labels.
The list can be scrolled by using scrolling bars, both horizontal and vertical (3).
The current filter which allow to select a single label (5) shall be removed, as its functionality is already contained in the new filter pane in the sidebar.
Interesting would be to able to integrate label filtering in the issues search entry, which at the moment allows for searching/filtering only on issue titles and descriptions:
A better integration is done e.g. by github, which allows for filtering on many topics, including labels (4):
Here one can search/filter by using a special syntax like <label:"label name"> as depicted in the example.