Today, Maniphest has support for a bulk editor. The workflow goes like this:
- Run a query.
- Select all the results, or some subset of the results.
- Click Batch Edit Selected.
- Select a set of changes to apply to all of the tasks you've selected (like closing them, adding tags, etc).
In the future, we plan to generalize this functionality and drive it through ApplicationEditor/EditEngine. This will have two primary effects:
- A wider range of edit actions will be available.
- Bulk editing will be available for all applications.
We may not actually turn on bulk editing in every application, but there are at least a few where it makes a great deal of sense (like the user approval queue).
This work is almost certainly worthwhile even if we never enable it in other applications, since even driving Maniphest through shared infrastructure would be cleaner. I think there is little harm in supporting the action everywhere, but some possible concerns are:
- UI clutter.
- Bulk "approve" of revisions or commits -- sight unseen -- is a little questionable?
- Currently, difficult to undo a bulk edit.
- Probably very limited utility in many applications.
- Opens up more surface area for abuse/"testing": barrier to entry is much higher for using Conduit than Bulk Editor to make a mess.
- Permissions clutter, if some of these other problems are resolved through permissions.
See also these related tasks: