Notifications (Refs #896, Refs #1521)

GitHub-style per-user Notifications center for TestLink 2.0.1, built LIVE from the data TestLink already stores. Legacy 1.9.20 had no notification subsystem (verified: zero %notif% tables, no bell in any modern screen), so this feature was implemented from scratch as a dedicated modern screen backed by a new plain-PHP BFF endpoint, following the Dashio bell widget pattern (gui/templates/dashio/index.html lines 172-215).

Screens

Screen	File	BFF
Notifications	gui/templates/notifications/notifications.html	api/notifications/index.php
Dashboard bell badge	gui/templates/mainpage/mainPage.html	GET /api/notifications/count

What you get notified about

The BFF computes, for the current user, four notification groups directly from existing TestLink tables (no new table, no schema migration — the DB is re-imported on every CI run):

1. Test case assigned to you (type=assignment) — rows of user_assignments (assignment_types.description='testcase_execution') for the current user from the last 30 days, joined with testplan_tcversions, tcversions, nodes_hierarchy, testplans, testprojects, builds. Shows the test case (prefix-id: name), test plan, build, assigner and an optional deadline.
2. Milestone approaching / overdue (type=milestone) — rows of milestones whose target_date is within [-7, +14] days of today. A past target becomes an "overdue" notification (red); an upcoming one is "approaching" (amber, with the number of days left).
3. Test plan fully executed (type=plan_completed) — test plans whose linked test cases are all executed (testplan_tcversions vs executions, HAVING linked>0 AND linked=executed), finished within the last 14 days, e.g. Test plan PlanA is fully executed (3/3).
4. New bug filed (type=bug) — bug links from execution_bugs joined to executions in the last 14 days, e.g. New bug #42 was filed for test case NT-3: NT-block (plan PlanA). Meant to avoid duplicate bug reports.

BFF API (/api/notifications/)

• GET / → full list for the current user: {status, notifications[], totals{total,unread,by_type{}}}
• GET /count → lightweight payload for the Dashboard bell badge.
• POST /read — JSON body {"ids":["assignment-1",...]} (selected) or {"all":true} (everything) → marks read and returns the refreshed list + totals.

Session-based authentication + bffSameOriginGuard() (same as every other BFF). Read/unread state is stored per login in $_SESSION['tl_notif_read'] — deliberately not in the DB, because no schema migration is allowed and the database is re-imported on each CI run.

Each group has a schema-drift guard (INFORMATION_SCHEMA probe, #862 pattern): if a column used by a group is missing on a not-yet-migrated DB the group is skipped instead of killing the JSON response.

All four groups are rights-scoped (code-review bonus, security): the BFF pivots through testproject::get_accessible_for_user() and only emits notifications whose parent testproject is in the current user's accessible set (global ADMIN sees all; public/private project rules from the legacy manager apply). A user without project access gets AND 1=0 → an empty list.

Each notification object carries: id, type, icon (FontAwesome), color, time_epoch, read, type-specific fields (tc_id, tcversion_id, tc_name, prefix, tc_external_id, tplan_id, tplan_name, tproject_id, build_name, assigner, deadline_epoch, milestone_name, target_date, days_left, overdue, bug_id, executed, total) and a deep-link url to the relevant screen (execution history / plan milestones / general metrics / dashboard). The client renders the localized message with TLi18n interpolation (notif.msgAssignment etc.), so no string is hardcoded either side.

UI behaviour

• Summary cards (Assignments / Milestones / Plans completed / New bugs) with live counts; clicking a card filters the table to that type, clicking again clears the filter.
• DataTable with icon, localized message (+ relative time; future-dated milestones render the actual date), read/unread badge, per-row checkbox, toolbar "select all", "Mark selected read" and "Mark all read" buttons, toast feedback, empty state. Rows sort newest-first by a hidden epoch column (not the relative-time text), and unread-row highlighting resolves via the DataTables row index so it stays correct after sorting/filtering.
• Locale switcher + page title/subtitle.
• Dashboard toolbar shows a bell with a red unread-count badge linking to the Notifications screen; the badge disappears when the count is 0.

Bugfix (2026-09-16, Refs #1521)

Mark read / Mark all read / Refresh relied on DataTable().destroy() + re-create, which threw Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'style') (jquery.dataTables.min) on the second render — the table and unread badge kept showing a stale "unread" state although the BFF had persisted read:true. Fixed in commit b8714ac6d: the DataTables instance is now reused via clear() + rows.add() + draw() and row styling moved into createdRow so it re-applies on every draw (this is the same pattern the ASIDE screens use).

Screenshots (2026-09-16)

i18n

38 new keys (notif.* + footers.notifications) added to all 10 locale bundles (de/en/es/fr/it/ja/pt/ro/ru/zh), English and Romanian fully translated; every bundle validated with python3 -m json.tool.

Verification

Browser-tested (admin) with fixture tmp/fixture_notifications_896.php (project NoteTest, 4 TCs, PlanA fully executed with bug #42 + overdue milestone, PlanB with assignment + approaching milestone): all 4 groups render, category filter works, select/mark-selected/mark-all-read update the counts, Romanian locale translates messages/badges. The Dashboard bell shows the unread badge and links to the screen. No new Event Viewer Error/Warning rows after the fixed API (the 3 E_WARNING / 1 DB-error rows present in events were generated by intermediate dev-time iterations already fixed). See tmp/TLU_Test_Cases.md suite Task — Issue #896.

Regression (2026-09-16, Refs #1521)

Full end-to-end pass with live fixtures (project MQA Project, plan MQA Plan, TC MQA-101, assignment, 3 milestones, fully-executed plan, bug BUG-100): empty state, all 4 groups, relative time + due-by + assigner, deep links, sort/search, mark-selected-read toast + badge flip, mark-all-read → "You are all caught up", the fixed refresh path, Romanian locale, anon 401 / same-origin 403, clean console, Event Viewer with only INFO rows. Suite 15/15 PASS (Screen — Notifications center in tmp/TLU_Test_Cases.md).