Chapter 11. Checklists

Most projects have their own coding standards which define naming conventions, restrict language usage and define rules and recommendations for the use of the language. These rules have to be checked during the review and to make life easier QuickRev supports the direct usage of checklists.

Loading Of Checklists

To select checklists they have to be loaded which can be done via the menu Extras → Checklists → Load ..., the command line or as 'built-in' checklists.

To load checklists via the menu select menuExtras → Checklists → Load ... and load a checklist.

To load checklists via command line start QuickRev with the following options:
-checklist <checklist-files>. You can specify as many checklists as you like.
To load checklists as 'built-in' checklists they have to be copied into the resources directory of the QuickRev.jar file. To detect these checklists they have to follow the following file name rule: checklist.<index>.xml, where index has to start with null. Examples: checklist.0.xml, checklist.1.xml, ... checklist.n.xml.

Usage Of Checklists

This chapter describes the usage of checklists with the delivered checklist_example.xml file.
After loading the checklist like described above it will be listed in the Extras → Checklists menu and can be opened there.

The opened checklist dialog allows the selection of the rules. If an optional description is given for a rule this will be shown in the text field at the bottom of the dialog. (The description will not be saved in the project file.)

Figure 11.1. Checklist Dialog

Figure 11.2. Comments Dialog with assigned Rule

To assign a rule to a comment, a comment has to be selected in the comment dialog. The assignment can be done via the context menu item Add To Selected Comment, via double click at the rule to be assigned or via the enter-key. If a rule is assigned to a comment the comment field is not mandatory anymore, so no additional description has to be made.
To remove a rule from a comment use the x button behind the rule in the comment dialog.
To find rules faster they can be marked as favourites. Afterwards Show Favourites hides all rules not marked as favourites, another click on the button respectively menu item shows all rules again. The favourite rules will be saved in the users .quickRev/config/main file, so after a restart of QuickRev they are available again.
Use Expand All or Collapse All to expand respectively collapse all rules.
If you have selected some favourite rules already, you can selected these rules easily via the FavRule button in the comment dialog, which brings up the following dialog where the rule can be selected easily.
Figure 11.3. Favourite Rule Selection Dialog

Creation Of Checklists

Checklist are xml files and have to follow the rules defined in the delivered schema file checklist.xsd. A checklist example file checklist_example.xml is delivered with QuickRev which can be used to check out the checklist feature or as a base for own checklists. To view the checklists in a browser independently of QuickRev you can specify a stylesheet (e.g. the delivered checklist.xsl) within your checklist file (like done in the checklist example file).

For every chapter or rule and optional description can be given, which will be shown in the description field of the checklist dialog and as tool tip of the assigned rule in the comment dialog. The description will not be saved in the project file. The project file will contain the id of the checklist and rule and the title of the rule.

For every rule a default severity can be assigned. This severity will be used when assigning a rule to a comment and no severity is selected for the comment yet. The default severity can be assigned to every element at every level and will be inherited from the inner elements.