All paragraphs should have class="govuk-body", or be otherwise
custom-styled. This commit adds some extra checks to our test fixture
that looks for paragraphs that don’t have any styling. Our test coverage
is pretty good, so this should check almost all pages, and prevent
regressions.
I’ve done this in such a way that it can be extended for other elements
(e.g. links) in the future.
By default our AJAX calls were 2 seconds. Then they were 5 seconds
because someone reckoned 2 seconds was putting too much load on the
system. Then we made them 10 seconds while we were having an incident.
Then we made them 20 seconds for the heaviest pages, but back to 5
seconds or 2 seconds for the rest of the pages.
This is not a good situation because:
- it slows all services down equally, no matter how much traffic they
have, or which features they have switched on
- it slows everything down by the same amount, no matter how much load
the platform is under
- the values are set based on our worst performance, until we manually
remember to switch them back
- we spend time during incidents deploying changes to slow down the
dashboard refresh time because it’s a nothing-to-lose change that
might relieve some symptoms, when we could be spending time digging
into the underlying cause
This pull request makes the Javascript smarter about how long it waits
until it makes another AJAX call. It bases the delay on how long the
server takes to respond (as a proxy for how much load the server is
under).
It’s based on the square root of the response time, so is more sensitive
to slow downs early on, and less sensitive to slow downs later on. This
helps us give a more pronounced difference in delay between an AJAX call
that is fast (for example the page for a single notification) and one
that is slow (for example a dashboard for a service with lots of
traffic).
*Some examples of what this would mean for various pages*
Page | Response time | Wait until next AJAX call
---|---|---
Check a reply to address | 130ms | 1,850ms
Brand new service dashboard | 229ms | 2,783ms
HM Passport Office dashboard | 634ms | 5,294ms
NHS Coronavirus Service dashboard | 779ms | 5,977ms
_Example of the kind of slowness we’ve seen during an incident_ | 6,000ms | 18,364ms
GOV.UK email dashboard | `HTTP 504` | 😬
Dashboard is the most intensive page we AJAX, and also the highest
traffic one. We’ve already slowed it from 2 to 5 seconds, this slows it
further to 20 seconds to reduce the load.
This leaves other pages (for example looking at a single job) at the
platform-level default of 5 seconds, because we think they cause less
load and the real-timelyness isn’t critical to people’s business
processes.
For looking at a single notification we know from research that someone
sending these one-at-a-time often waits to see if they’re delivered,
so let’s bring this back down to the previous value of 2 seconds.
Converts links in the following:
- the page-footer component
- the table component
- the browse-list component
- the notification status, when reporting failures
- validation messaging in the whitelist page
Includes:
- turning off :visited styles to match existing
design
- swapping heading classes used to make links bold
for the GOVUK Frontend bold override class
- adding visually hidden text to some links to
make them work when isolated from their context
We may need to revisit whether some links, such as
those for documentation and features, may benefit
from having some indication that their target has
been visited.
Converts links in the following:
- the page-footer component
- the table component
- the browse-list component
- the notification status, when reporting failures
- validation messaging in the whitelist page
Includes:
- turning off :visited styles to match existing
design
- swapping heading classes used to make links bold
for the GOVUK Frontend bold override class
- adding visually hidden text to some links to
make them work when isolated from their context
We may need to revisit whether some links, such as
those for documentation and features, may benefit
from having some indication that their target has
been visited.
This is a friendlier and better way of showing dates anywhere except in
a report which might be archived and referred back to later.
Bit trickier to implement here because a dat requires ‘on’ beforehand,
but we don’t say ‘on today’ in English.
This helps people understand how delivery dates fit into the week,
because if sending a letter spans the weekend it will take a bit longer.
We can remove `|string` now because `utc_string_to_aware_gmt_datetime`
now accepts datetimes.
This replaces the buttons that aren't part of a macro and that we don't
need to write additional styles for with their govuk-frontend equivalent.
There were some links that were styled to look like buttons, so these
have also been replaced with the new govuk-frontend macro.
There was one button on the `choose-account.html` template that was in a
section of code that was never reached - this has been deleted.
We show letter validation errors in two places:
1. In response to a user uploading a PDF
Here we use the error banner pattern because the problem is as a
direct consequence of a user’s action, and is blocking them from
continuing.
2. Once a PDF provided through the API has been validated
We use a less prominent pattern of red text with no border because
the message is reporting on something that’s already happened, and
which wasn’t a direct consequence of the user clicking something
Because the context and patterns used are different we need slightly
different content in each of these situations. Previously we tried to
reuse the same content to make the code cleaner and less repetitive. But
ultimately a clear interface trumps clear code.
Before deploying a change to template-preview to return a validation error for letters that are missing the address block, we need to add the new erorr message to admin.
Some content changes have been made to other messages.
The format of the message has changed.
Show valdiation failed messages on letter notifications in red text,
not in the banner like we do on Uploads and Validation checker pages.
This is because it is a different step in the journey: the user
has already sent the notification and styling needs to be in line
with other places where user is checking the notification she already
has sent.
When looking at a notification you can either be coming from the page
of all notifications, or from a job. Currently the back link always
takes you to the page of all notifications.
This commit makes it a bit more sophisticated so if you’ve come from
looking at a job, you go back to the job.
The Design System has standardised on back links being at the top of the
page, decorated with a small text-coloured arrow.
I think this makes more sense than having them at the bottom, because it
suggests, in some way, being able to go back before commiting to any of
the forms on the page. Whereas the things at the bottom of the page
should be performing actions on what’s in the page.
The reason for making this change now is that it de-clutters the area
around the green buttons. This was presenting a design challenge where
multiple levels of interaction were happening in the same form. Moving
these back links to the top of the page should mean that, in these
complicated forms, there’s one fewer thing to compete for the user’s
attention.
I’ve componentised this into a `page_header` macro so that the change is
easier to roll out and maintain.
Sometimes people print stuff under where we’re folding the letter. It’s
annoying to not be able to see it.
This commit adds a little detail where, once you’ve sent the letter
you can unfolds the corner to see what’s underneath.
It’s better that we do this for all letters for discoverability.
It’s inaccurate to have an estimated delivery date for letters sent
using a test key. We shouldn’t reassure people that:
- the letter won’t be printed
- (in the case of precompiled letters) that the letter has passed
validation
If PDF files have a validation error which means that they can't be
opened by PyPDF2 we would previously show the 500 status error page. We
now catch PyPDF2.utils.PdfReadErrors so that we can display a custom
error message on the notification page instead.
Added a link to cancel letters from the letter notification pages if the
letter is still able to be cancelled. Clicking on this link will show a
confirmation box, and will then cancel the letter if the user confirms.
In the long term, we don't want to show cancelled letters. But for now,
this changes cancelled letters to display in the same way that letters
with a status of permanent-failure, since we are currently giving
letters that we want to cancel the status of permanent failure.
This commit adds content pages for the notifications pages, particularly
the letter pages, which will make things clearer now that we will soon be allowing
letters to be cancelled.
The main changes are:
* The confirmation banner for letters sent from a CSV file now states when
printing will start.
* We state the CSV file that notifications were sent from on the
notifications page
* The notification page for letters shows when printing starts (today,
tomorrow, or that date that the letter was printed)
Don’t think it’s necessary. Makes things consistent with the sent letter
page, which only says ‘Download as a PDF’.
This inconsistency would be more glaring now these pieces of text appear
in the same place, in adjacent steps of a journey.
This makes its positioning consistent with the previous page in the
one-off sending journey.
It gives us more space to put information about the status of the letter
above the preview of the letter.
We’ve moved away from using the expand/collapse pattern on the page
where you click ‘send’. Instead we’re putting the send button in the
sticky footer.
So it’s a bit jarring to still have the expand/collapse on the page you
see after you’ve sent an email. This commit replaces it with the sticky
footer as well.
This is only relevant for emails because:
1. Text messages are generally short enough to fit on the screen
2. We don’t show the status of letters because they don’t really change
In trial mode you can’t send letters. But it’s still useful to be able
to build up a letter to see how it work.
Best place to put this error is before someone tries to send a letter
for real.
At the moment we show precompiled letters that have failed the
validation as having been sent. This is confusing.
We should communicate it as having been cancelled (rather than failed),
with the implication being that Notify has come along and cancelled the
letter before printing it. I think this is conceptually what makes the
most sense.
From the user’s point of view any letters that show up as cancelled
probably need to be fixed and resent, so it makes sense to group them
with the same name.
At the moment we are manually cancelling letters for people when they
ask us to. Once’s we’ve done this there is no indication that it’s
happened except for the date going red on the list of letters.
This commit adds some error messaging and styling to show when a letter
is cancelled.
Letting people cancel their own letters will be a future enhancement.
