Make it more discoverable that you need to check out a PR to edit files

[brianjmurrell]

When viewing comments made by a reviewer I seem to be in a read-only version of the file without any easy way to even open a writable copy for me to address the comment.

It really would be best if I could edit the file right where I am viewing the comment so that I can continue to view it's context while making my change.

[alexr00]

@brianjmurrell have you checked out the pull request (right click on the pull request in the Pull Requests view and "Checkout Pull Request")?

[max-carroll-sky]

I would have expect that either its editable straight away, or there is some guidance on how to get here as intuitively this is what I would expect.

I eventually figured it out, but perhaps if you don't make it editable straight away we can show a message saying "check out the pull request to edit this file"

[shogerr]

I'm sitting here at my keyboard, having just tracked down some insight on how to manage PRs in the extension -- where this issue itself provides the information... wondering what the side-effects of clicking "checkout PR" might be... are there any? I probably should be working on this PR, but now have some cognitive overhead here, as I have just installed this extension to help my workflow, but am not quite sure how to use it. Do I shelve this and go back to the command line?

So, anecdotally, I also agree some information/documentation is probably needed for managing PRs in this extension -- the workflow isn't straight forward for this user.

[ericharper]

I'm having this issue as well. Even after checking out the pull request, the file is still in read-only mode and can't be edited.

[GMNGeoffrey]

I am also having the same issue. Checking out the pull request doesn't help, but it does put me on a new branch, which I don't want because I was already on the branch that this pull request came from.

[alexr00]

@ericharper I'm trying to "upgrade" the readonly files after you checkout the PR: https://github.com/microsoft/vscode-pull-request-github/issues/3631

@GMNGeoffrey This sounds like a bug. You are on the "from" branch of the PR already, but you cannot edit a file from the pull request? Would you be willing to open a new issue with details about how you opened this readonly file?

[GMNGeoffrey]

@alexr00 that was the case, but I can't reproduce it now. I'll file a new issue with exactly what I did if it happens again. From memory, I set up the extension and was already on the branch. When I went to PRs and clicked on the one corresponding to the branch, I was able to see comments but not edit the buffer. When I right clicked to "Checkout Pull Request" it switched me to a new branch pr/GMNGeoffrey/9765 but I still wasn't able to edit from the diff view. I also somehow ended up with pr/GMNGeoffrey/9765-1

[alexr00]

@GMNGeoffrey thank you for the additional details. This is definitely a bug. I'll see if I can figure out how this may have happened.

[xzl01]

Yes I had the same problem, I submitted the pr and someone else pointed it out to me, but when I edited it on the GitHub pull request plugin I found that it was in read-only mode, making it hard to change the code against other people's comments

[grass29]

This issue just happened to me now: I'm already on the branch the PR came from, the file with the comment is in the read-only more, clicking "check out" in the "cannot edit this pull request. check out this pull request to edit" message doesn't unlock the read-only mode.

Reloading VSCode somehow magically fixes this

[alexr00]

@grass29 I'm not able to reproduce this. Can you open a new issue and share a gif? I'm going to close this issue because we have made checking out a PR more discoverable with the "cannot edit this pull request. check out this pull request to edit" message.