Bugfix — Issue #1829: reqTreeReorder.html — the edge-row Up/Down tooltips leaked the raw i18n KEY instead of a string

Number: #1829 Status: Fixed (verified — reproduced pre-fix in the DOM, root-caused to TLi18n.t()'s own missing-key behaviour defeating the call site's || guard, fixed with the two keys added to all 10 bundles plus an has()-based helper, pinned with a 12-case regression suite) Component: gui/templates/requirements/reqTreeReorder.html, gui/templates/i18n/*.json Area: Requirements / Specification Tree Reordering — i18n Branch: fix/issue-1829 Related: #1824 (the same screen; the neighbouring i18n gap was spotted during its mandatory code review and deliberately filed out of it), #1821 (same class of i18n-affordance defect), #1804 (added pointer-events: none to the disabled .rm buttons — see Known limitation), #1681 (the screen itself)

Symptom

The per-row Up / To top and Down / To bottom buttons of gui/templates/requirements/reqTreeReorder.html carry a tooltip that explains why the direction is unavailable. Those tooltips contained the raw i18n key:

reqTreeReorder.html?tproject_id=1&req_spec_id=2   (locale en)
  row 1  up   title="reqtr.alreadyFirst"
  row 1  top  title="reqtr.alreadyFirst"
  row 3  down title="reqtr.alreadyLast"
  row 3  bottom title="reqtr.alreadyLast"

The issue as filed expected the English fallback sentence "Already the first/last requirement" to be what the user saw. That expectation was corrected during investigation: the fallback was unreachable dead code, so the user saw neither English nor a translated string — only reqtr.alreadyFirst / reqtr.alreadyLast.

This was locale-independent: switching to &locale=ro_RO or &locale=de_DE left the four titles unchanged while every other string on the screen was translated.

Root cause

gui/templates/i18n/i18n.js:175:

function t(key, params) {
  var str = _strings[key] || key;   // missing entry -> the KEY, which is truthy
  …

t() never returns undefined or '' for a missing bundle entry — it returns the key string. The call site in btn() was written as if it did:

// gui/templates/requirements/reqTreeReorder.html:414,417 (pre-fix)
title = t('reqtr.alreadyFirst') || 'Already the first requirement';
title = t('reqtr.alreadyLast')  || 'Already the last requirement';

Because the left operand is always truthy, the || branch was unreachable, so:

1. the guard silently masked the omission — a missing key and a translated key both render something non-empty, hence no error, no console warning and no events row to catch it;
2. the English literal was dead code, i.e. a hardcoded user-visible string (a violation of rule 3 of ai/AGENTS.md);
3. the key reached the DOM title via reqTreeReorder.html:420-422 (if (title) b.attr('title', title);).

And the two keys genuinely did not exist: grep -c 'reqtr\.' gui/templates/i18n/*.json returned 53 in all ten bundles — an identical set in every locale, none of them reqtr.alreadyFirst / reqtr.alreadyLast.

Why no verification step caught it

The module ships the correct existence check, TLi18n.has() (gui/templates/i18n/i18n.js:261), but this call site did not use it. The dead || 'English literal' made the missing key indistinguishable from a translated one: both produced a non-empty tooltip, so a manual pass over the screen could not surface the gap without reading the attribute in the DOM or the a11y tree.

Fix

1. The two keys now exist in all ten bundles, inserted at the alphabetical slot the bundles already keep (between reqtr.actions and reqtr.applyOrder), so each bundle diff is exactly +2 / −0 lines:

bundle	value
en	Already the first/last requirement
ro	Deja este prima/ultima cerință
de	Bereits die erste/letzte Anforderung
es	Ya es el primer/último requisito
fr	Déjà la première/dernière exigence
it	Già il primo/l’ultimo requisito
pt	Já é o primeiro/último requisito
ru	Уже первое/последнее требование
ja	すでに最初/最後の要件です
zh	已经是第一个/最后一个需求

Terminology was matched to each bundle's own word for "requirement" (de Anforderung, fr exigence, ro cerință, ja 要件, zh 需求, …) rather than machine-translated in isolation.

2. The unreachable literals were deleted and the lookup routed through the module's own existence check — the pattern already used in cfieldsTprojectAssign.html:174, cfieldsView.html:179 and installView.html:173:

// TLi18n.t() echoes the KEY for a bundle entry that does not exist
// (gui/templates/i18n/i18n.js:175), so a plain `t(key) || 'English literal'`
// never falls through: it renders the raw key and the literal stays dead code.
// has() is the module's own existence check - when the active bundle lacks the
// entry the tooltip is omitted instead of leaking the key or an untranslated
// string. Refs #1829.
function edgeTitle(key) {
  if (!TLi18n.has(key)) { return ''; }
  var v = t(key);
  // has() is hasOwnProperty, t() is `_strings[key] || key`: an entry present but
  // blank (there are such entries in the bundles) still resolves to the KEY, so
  // guard the value too - that is the leak this helper exists to prevent.
  return (v && v !== key) ? v : '';
}

The second guard is the one the mandatory code review of this fix added: has() answers "does the entry exist", but t() answers "what is the value or the key", so a key that is present with a blank value would re-open exactly the leak this helper exists to close. The 10 new entries are non-empty, so it is defensive.

The surrounding guards are unchanged: non-edge rows still get no title attribute, and an unavailable translation now degrades to no tooltip rather than to a leaked key or an untranslated literal.

Verification

Live, in headless Chrome, with the fixture php tmp/fixtures_1681.php (tproject=1, req_spec_id=2, 3 requirements TR1-1..TR1-3):

#	case	expected	measured	verdict
1	en, row 1 Up + To top	translated tooltip	Already the first requirement	PASS
2	en, last row Down + To bottom	translated tooltip	Already the last requirement	PASS
3	ro_RO, same 4 buttons	Romanian	Deja este prima cerință / Deja este ultima cerință	PASS
4	de_DE, same 4 buttons	German	Bereits die erste/letzte Anforderung	PASS
5	middle row, all 4 buttons	no title	title: null × 4	PASS
6	view-only user tr1681readonly	all disabled, no key leak	all aria-disabled="true", rawKeyLeak: []	PASS
7	TLi18n.has() forced false + render()	tooltip omitted	tips: [], leak: []; restoring has() brings the 4 tooltips back	PASS
8	t() forced to echo the key (blank value)	tooltip omitted	tips: [], leak: []	PASS
9	reorder still functional (admin)	order changes, dirty chip appears	[6,8,10] →Down→ [8,6,10] (chip true) →To top→ [10,8,6]; #discardBtn restores [6,8,10]	PASS
10	JSON validity of all 10 bundles	valid	python3 -m json.tool → OK × 10	PASS
11	Event Viewer / events table	no new Error/Warning	4 rows, all log_level = 16 (audit: project created + 3 logins); 0 Error/Warning, 0 LOCALIZATION	PASS
12	node --check on the screen's inline script	OK	OK	PASS

The a11y tree now exposes description="Already the first requirement" on the disabled row-1 Up / To-top buttons and "Already the last requirement" on the last-row Down / To-bottom buttons.

Post-fix state of the screen: the first row's Up / To top and the last row's Down / To bottom carry the translated tooltip (Already the first/last requirement); the middle row and the non-edge directions carry no title.

Known limitation — the tooltip is not hover-visible

reqTreeReorder.html:54:

.rm.dis, .rm:disabled { opacity: .35; cursor: not-allowed; pointer-events: none; }

This rule (added by 4f074a2b5 for #1804) removes the disabled arrow buttons from the hover chain, so the browser's native title bubble is not raised by hovering with a mouse — measured, document.elementFromPoint() over the disabled Up button returns TD.act, not the button. The fix is therefore observable through the DOM title attribute and the accessibility tree, which is where the defect was reproduced, but not as a mouse hover bubble.

This is a separate defect class (a pointer-events policy on disabled affordances that silently suppresses their explanatory tooltips) and was filed as its own bug rather than folded into this fix. Assert on the attribute / a11y tree, not on hover.

Files changed

file	change
gui/templates/i18n/en.json … zh.json (10 files)	+ reqtr.alreadyFirst, + reqtr.alreadyLast (+2/−0 each)
gui/templates/requirements/reqTreeReorder.html	+ edgeTitle() helper; the two t(key) || 'English …' lines replaced; the hardcoded literals deleted
CHANGELOG	one ### KEY BUGFIX — #1829 entry
docs/Bugfix-Issue-1829-reqTreeReorder-Edge-Row-Tooltips-Leak-i18n-Key.md	this page
docs/screenshots/issue-1829-reqtr-already-first-last-tooltip.png	post-fix screen state
tmp/TLU_Test_Cases.md	suite ## Regression — Issue #1829 (12 cases, append-only)

Regression suite

tmp/TLU_Test_Cases.md → ## Regression — Issue #1829: reqTreeReorder.html edge-row Up/Down tooltips leaked the raw i18n KEY — precondition, pre-fix repro, expected post-fix behaviour, the 12-case table above, the pointer-events known limitation and a RESUME block. Gate:

TLU_REQUIRE_SUITE="Issue #1829" bash ai/verify_test_suites.sh
  PASS  no suite lost vs merge-base with origin/sebiboga (= 0)
  PASS  no line removed from the suite file vs merge-base (= 0)
  PASS  own suite heading present (Issue #1829)
  GATE EXIT=0

RESUME

php tmp/fixtures_1681.php
# http://localhost:8082/gui/templates/requirements/reqTreeReorder.html?tproject_id=1&req_spec_id=2
# then, in the console:
#   [...document.querySelectorAll('button.rm[title]')].map(b => b.getAttribute('title'))
#   -> ["Already the first requirement", …, "Already the last requirement"]
python3 -m json.tool gui/templates/i18n/en.json > /dev/null   # 10/10 bundles

No API change, no schema change, no PHP change — the fix is 20 lines of JSON plus a 6-line helper.