Chapter 2. User interfaces

## Chapter 2. User interfaces

This chapter explains some typical user interfaces in QuickBuild application.

## Dashboard

Dashboard is the first page of QuickBuild user interface. It gives an overview of all configurations and its build status. From this page, you can do most of your daily jobs, such as start/stop builds, monitor build status, access build logs, etc. Here is the screenshot for dashboard page followed by expanation of each number indicated function areas.

1. Main navigation area

   From this area, user can navigate to different function areas of QuickBuild:

   DASHBOARD

     Navigate to this page.

   CONFIGURATIONS

     Navigate to configuration details.

   BUILD QUEUES

     Navigate to build queue details.

   FIND BUILDS

     Navigate to builds search page.

   ADMINISTRATION

     Navigate to administrative pages.

2. Configuration name

   Displays configuration name. Detail information of the configuration will be displayed when click on this link.

3. Open/Close button

   Click on this to open or close a particular configuration node.

4. Queued builds

   Number of queued builds for this configuration. When click on this link, detail information about the queue bound to current configuration will be displayed.

5. History builds

   Number of history builds for this configuration. When click on this link, detail information about the history builds will be displayed.

6. Build status indicator

   Build status indicator for latest build of current configuration. GREEN means a successful build, RED means a failed build, while a running gear means a running build. Build log about this build will be displayed when click on this status indicator icon.

7. Latest build

   Latest build about current configuration. Build detail will be displayed when click on the build version.

8. Configuration status indicator

   Configuration status indicator. GREEN means recent triggering of current configuration is successful. RED means recent triggering of current configuration is failed, while a running gear means the configuration is currently running. Configuration log about this build will be displayed when click on this status indicator icon.

   | Note
   Configuration status is different from build status. Configuration status means triggering status of a configuration, while build status means status of the build process. When a configuration has been triggered, it may fail to generate new build (for instance, error occurs when determine next build version). This will result in a failed configuration triggering. On the other hand, a new build can be generated and run, but the build process fails for some reason( for instance, a compiling error). This will result in a failed build, but triggering of the configuration is still successful, because this configuration has been successfully triggered in regardless of actual build status. Information about the build process will be logged into build log, and information about triggering of the configuration (such as checking build necessary condition, calculating next build version, etc.) will be logged into configuration log.

9. Start/Stop icon

   You can manually trigger the configuration by clicking on this button. When a configuration is running, a stop icon will be displayed which can be used to forcely stop current running cycle of current configuration.

   | Note
   When you click on the start/stop button, and does not see any changes in the page, just try to refresh the page after some time.

   | Note
   For particular configuration, if there are more than one triggering instance waiting in the build queue, stoping the configuration will only stop and remove current triggering instance, which will cause other waiting triggering instance being executed consequently. If you want to stop and remove all triggering instance, just go to detail page about the build queue, and remove all waiting and running triggering instances.

   | Warning
   The stop action interrupts all threads involved in a running configuration. Normally it also kills all external OS processes created by your builder (for example, Ant builder will spawn a Java process to run build script). However on Windows platform, if your builder is executed through a Windows batch file, processes created in that batch file will not get killed. In this case, you should kill these processes manually, otherwise when you stop a configuration and run it again, you may encounter errors stating that `checkouts` directory can not be deleted, which normally means the spawned OS process is still running and accessing that directory. This is true for QuickBuild's Ant and Maven builder (executed by `ant.bat` and `maven.bat`) on windows platform.

10. Auto refresh switch

    You can turn on auto-refresh by clicking on ON/OFF link here. By making page auto-refreshing, the page will be automatically refreshed, which helps build status monitoring.

11. Quick search

    You can search builds by input partial of a build version, and click on RETURN key.

12. From this area, you can change your profile, password, access system log, and access system help.

    | Note
    System log is only available to administrator.

13. Schedule setting

    View or edit schedule setting for current configuration.

Basic concepts |  | Configurations