instead of just showing the summary. this not only 
makes understanding the issue easier (you have it all at 
one instead of having to view each message separately), 
but also is how its done in the main (free) issue trackers 
i know (bugzilla, issuezilla, mantis, scarab(?)).

see customizing.txt, "Displaying entire message 
contents in the issue display" for how to ;)

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Hurm. I'll put it to a vote :) 
 

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Users of my roundup installation immedeatly demanded it, so
I think it is a useful default to see the complete message.
Also mangle the fonts a bit.
I'm using the following patch:

--- instances/kroupware/html/issue.item	Mon Oct  7 22:02:09 2002
+++ instances/testroundup/html/issue.item	Thu Oct 10 20:00:22 2002
@@ -113,6 +113,7 @@
  </p>
 
  <table class="messages" tal:condition="context/messages">
+<!--
   <tr><th colspan=4 class="header">Messages</th></tr>
  
<tr><th>Message</th><th>Author</th><th>Date</th><th>Summary</th></tr>
   <tr tal:repeat="msg context/messages/reverse">
@@ -122,6 +123,21 @@
    <td tal:content="msg/date">date</td>
    <td tal:content="msg/summary">summary</td>
   </tr>
+-->
+  <tr><th colspan=3 class="header">Messages</th></tr>
+  <tal:block tal:repeat="msg context/messages/reverse">
+  <tr>
+   <th><a tal:attributes="href string:msg${msg/id}"
+          tal:content="string:msg${msg/id}"></a></th>
+   <th tal:content="string:Author: ${msg/author}">author</th>
+   <th tal:content="string:Date: ${msg/date}">date</th>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+   <td colspan="3" class="content">
+    <pre tal:content="msg/content">content</pre>
+   </td>
+  </tr>
+  </tal:block>
  </table>
 
  <table class="files" tal:condition="context/files">
--- instances/kroupware/html/style.css	Mon Oct  7 21:57:48 2002
+++ instances/testroundup/html/style.css	Thu Oct 10 20:08:15 2002
@@ -166,11 +166,13 @@
   border-bottom: 1px solid gray;
   font-weight: bold;
   background-color: white;
+  font-size: 100%;
   color: #707040;
 }
 
+
 table.messages th {
-  color: black;
+  font-size: 90%;
+  font-family: monospace;
   text-align: left;
 }
 

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I agree, showing all the messages (or at least some number of them) is 
required. It was the first thing I implemented when doing a proof of concept 
with roundup.

One possible refinement may be to show all the 
messages up to a specified number (say 20), and then show the links 
after that. That may be easier for people accessing the ticket over slow 
links.

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Well, the vote's in favour of the entire message by default, so be it.