Re: b4 review available in master

["Michael S. Tsirkin" <mst@redhat.com>]

On Fri, Feb 27, 2026 at 02:53:07PM -0500, Konstantin Ryabitsev wrote:
> Hi, all:
> 
> TLDR: "b4 review" is a terminal UI that hopes to streamline a lot of
> maintainer duties. A getting-started guide with screencasts is here:
> https://b4.docs.kernel.org/en/latest/reviewer/getting-started.html
> 
> It's available from b4 master pending initial testing and will be generally
> available in b4-0.15.


OK I just tried the "update" flow, and maybe it worked, thanks!
Though I was confused for a while.
I had this:


Date        Status       Submitter                      Subject                                                                          
2026-02-28  reviewing    Vishwanath Seshagiri           virtio_net: add page_pool support for buffer allocation                          
2025-10-13  new          Michael S. Tsirkin             b4: sparse-checkout related fixes                                                
                                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                                         
    (... lots of empty lines ...)
                                                                                                                                         
                                                                                                                                         
─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
 Subject:    [v8,0/1] virtio_net: add page_pool support for buffer allocation                                                            
 From:       Vishwanath Seshagiri <vishs@meta.com>                                                                                       
 Sent:       Sat, 28 Feb 2026 08:41:22 -0500                                                                                             
 Change-ID:  20260228-virtio_net-add-page_pool-support-for-buffer-allocation-6273c5614ede                                                
 Link:       https://patch.msgid.link/20260228134122.631580-1-vishs@meta.com                                                             
 Revisions:  v2, v3, v4, v5, v6, v7, v8, v9 (upgrade from v8 with [a]ction)                                                              
 A/R/T:      - / - / -                                                                                                                   
 Branch:     b4/review/20260228-virtio_net-add-page_pool-support-for-buffer-allocation-6273c5614ede                                      
 r review  d range-diff  a action ▏ u update  l limit  s shell  q quit  ? help                                               ▏^p palette 




So I was confused: I can see there is a v9 but why is it still showing me v8?
It took me a while until I noticed Revisions below and a while more
until I understood: this is intentional,
it means that yes it is v8 but v9 is available and if I press action
I can upgrade. Maybe putting a * near the current revision will help.
Maybe adding (upgrade to v9 with [a]ction) near v8 in the subject will
help.
Maybe showing "press a for [a]ction now to apply the upgrade" will help.

Maybe automatically triggering the correct action is the right thing?
I wonder why not.

"action" is also very generic. Maybe saying More [a]ctions in the menu will
better hint to the user it's like a ... and worth exploring.

Then I did "a" and I got a list of options none of which is "update"
or mentions v8 or v9. I guessed "rebase review branch" does it
and it seems to, but I have no idea why and what rebase
does it refer to:
                                              ┌───────────────────────────────────────────┐                                              
                                              │                                           │                                              
                                              │  Select action:                           │                                              
                                              │  Take (apply to branch)                   │                                              
                                              │  Rebase review branch                     │                                              
                                              │  Mark as waiting on new revision          │                                              
                                              │  Abandon series                           │                                              
                                              │  Archive series                           │                                              
                                              │                                           │                                              
                                              └───────────────────────────────────────────┘                                              
                 
does it always update to latest revision? rename accordingly?
also actually saying what is rebased to what in the menu would have
helped.
                                                                                                                        

Overall I was able to figure out things, and it worked!
The notes are here to maybe polish the UI even more.
Thanks!

-- 
MST