[CLOSED] Brackets rendered unusable if current project folder is deleted between launches, and Getting Started folder has been deleted in the past

[core-ai-bot]

Issue by CMHouse
Monday Jan 13, 2014 at 19:08 GMT
Originally opened as adobe/brackets#6505

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Method:

1. Install Brackets
2. Delete Getting Started Folder
3. Create New Project
4. Exit Brackets
5. Rename or Delete New Project Folder
6. Relaunch Brackets

Result:
When Brackets fails to load the New Project, it falls back to the Getting Started folder, and gets stuck in a prompt loop that makes UI unusable, requires an End Task, and re-install of Brackets or re-creation of an empty "Getting Started" or the previously deleted "New Project" Folder.

Suggested workarounds:

1. Remove fallback to Getting Started folder
2. Only prompt a single time and not get stuck in a loop when Getting Started folder is no longer there.

Reference this commit for possible bug:
adobe/brackets@d6b86f9

[core-ai-bot]

Comment by njx
Monday Jan 13, 2014 at 20:12 GMT

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This is an unfortunate known issue - Brackets currently can't deal with having no open project, and it would be nontrivial work to fix that (see https://trello.com/c/RFi7TFyj). However,@dangoor pointed out that we could have a relatively simple stopgap fix, which is that if we detect that there's no Getting Started folder, pop up the Open Folder dialog.

Opening to me, low priority.

[core-ai-bot]

Comment by njx
Thursday Apr 24, 2014 at 20:52 GMT

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Nominating for 1.0 since some other folks have run into this and the potential temp fix should be easy.

[core-ai-bot]

Comment by njx
Thursday Apr 24, 2014 at 20:52 GMT

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Also marking "needs review" since we went past this bug in the 1.0 review.

[core-ai-bot]

Comment by redmunds
Thursday Apr 24, 2014 at 21:36 GMT

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Proposed flow:

1. Try to load any other project from the Recent Project List (in MRU order)
2. If Recent Project List is empty, try to load Getting Started project
3. If Getting Started project doesn't exist, pop up File Open dialog
4. If user Cancels out of File Open dialog, then use Brackets Installation folder

[core-ai-bot]

Comment by peterflynn
Thursday Apr 24, 2014 at 22:09 GMT

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@redmunds Good thoughts! I bet step 1 will actually cover 99% of the cases.

For the final step, I'd been picturing just cycling the user back into the Open Folder dialog again -- but that's actually bad since it prevents quitting. Throwing them into the install folder seems like a better approach, even if it's still kinda ugly.

[core-ai-bot]

Comment by MarcelGerber
Thursday Apr 24, 2014 at 23:01 GMT

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Can't we just show the empty screen (with the Brackets logo in the background, just like no file is opened) as 4. step?

[core-ai-bot]

Comment by njx
Thursday Apr 24, 2014 at 23:12 GMT

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Yeah, it's not a UI problem - it's the fact that other code in Brackets or extensions might blow up if there's no current project. Just an issue we need to fix that we haven't gotten around to.

[core-ai-bot]

Comment by njx
Monday May 05, 2014 at 18:09 GMT

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Reviewed, leaving in 1.0.

[core-ai-bot]

Comment by JeffryBooher
Wednesday Oct 08, 2014 at 18:28 GMT

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I tested these cases with pr #9372

1. Falling back to Sample Project
2. Falling back to brackets source (deleted sample project)
3. Falling back to previous in the MRU list

[core-ai-bot]

Comment by peterflynn
Wednesday Oct 08, 2014 at 20:54 GMT

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@JeffryBooher Can this be closed now that the fix is merged? It has a "pick me up" label but no Waffle column label... but it looks like the fix has landed already.

[core-ai-bot]

Comment by JeffryBooher
Wednesday Oct 08, 2014 at 20:56 GMT

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Apologies. I wanted to confirm if we needed to keep it open or not with@redmunds before closing.

[core-ai-bot]

Comment by redmunds
Wednesday Oct 08, 2014 at 21:33 GMT

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@JeffryBooher I think it's been tested enough, so I'm good with closing it.