[BIOMAGE-1026] Improved error messages

[xverges]

Background

Link to issue

https://biomage.atlassian.net/browse/BIOMAGE-1026

Link to staging deployment URL

https://ui-xavier-ui290-api140.scp-staging.biomage.net/

Links to any Pull Requests related to this

hms-dbmi-cellenics/api#140

Anything else the reviewers should know about the changes here

Initial goal
Error messages get to the user as notfication pop ups and as errors stored in redux and later displayed to the end user by visible components (e.g. GeneListTool or the NewProjectModal). We need to hide from the users messages that are more likley to confuse them than to help.

Bonus goal 1
Centralize in a single file error/progress messages that were in several files.

Bonus goal 2
Partially centralize the error management of fetch operations made from redux action

Bonus goal 3

await on dispatch of redux actions from other redux actions.

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I understand that this is quite a boring review :-(

Some hints to move faster understanding the changes.

• You'll see over and over this line import { isServerError, throwWithEndUserMessage } from '../../../utils/fetchErrors';, so maybe it is a good file to start the review with
• utils/endUserMessages.js is a fatter version of the now removed components/notification/messages
• 3 errorType.js files contained progress/error messages.

Changes

Code changes

Definition of DONE

Your changes will be ready for merging after each of the steps below have been completed:

Testing

• Unit tests written
• Tested locally with Inframock (with latest production data downloaded with biomage experiment pull)
• Deployed to staging

To set up easy local testing with inframock, follow the instructions here: https://github.com/biomage-ltd/inframock
To deploy to the staging environment, follow the instructions here: https://github.com/biomage-ltd/biomage-utils

Documentation updates

Is all relevant documentation updated to reflect the proposed changes in this PR?

• Relevant Github READMEs updated
• Relevant wiki pages created/updated

Approvers

• Approved by a member of the core engineering team
• (UX changes) Approved by vickymorrison (this is her username, tag her if you need approval)

Just before merging:

• After the PR is approved, the unstage script in here: https://github.com/biomage-ltd/biomage-utils is executed. This script cleans up your deployment to staging

Optional

• Photo of a cute animal attached to this PR

[xverges]

👋 @vickymorrison

This is what user that are not signed in will see until we have our own sign in page. Is the wording ok?

Error/progress messages have been moved to a single file: https://github.com/biomage-ltd/ui/pull/290/files#diff-b1858551f03aa3558df0c46dcc039ecf748b51cc1efb306800e8779034c186cdR2

Most significant changes/questions:

• hide non-muggle messages coming from the server and replace them with those in the file
• removed some granularity in messages related to saving failures (i.e. 'Error saving experiment' and 'Error saving project' and 'Error saving...' have been collapsed into a generic 'The server returned an error while saving your data'). Do we need to recover the previous granularity?
• Does this talk about the server make any sense at all? Would it be more appropriate to talk about We had an error... or We could not...

[vickymorrison]

I suggest a slight change to the message wording: "You need to sign in. Click the button on the top right."
About your comments/questions:

1. Sounds good.
2. The generic save error may be OK. The only reason we would want to give the user more details about the error is if it affects what they do to resolve the problem. If all they can do is wait / refresh / check their connection and then try again then I think a generic message is fine. Marcell may have thoughts here though.
3. It makes sense to me but I can't speak for other users! Let's leave it as is for now and we can change the messages if users report that they are confused.

[marcellp]

Thanks for asking for feedback on this. Here's my two cents:

• The message should be 'You need to sign in first. Click Sign in on the top right to begin."
• We should avoid referring to "the server" in user facing messages as this is useless information for the user and is technical for no reason. Let's stick with something like "(We) couldn't save your data."

[cosa65]

Based on the changes suggested I think this could be "We couldn't start working on your data.", other than that looks good

Changes addressed