More user friendly URL to create new merge request when pushing code
Problem to solve
When someone pushes a new branch to GitLab, we display a nice message telling them to visit a URL to create a merge request based on that branch.
The problem with that URL is that it contains special characters, as part of the URL is generated using query params. This not always translate well with the terminal application the user may be using and so it may fail to provide a click to open browser integration.
Further details
The URL is generated by our backend (the internal API). Whatever we change there will be displayed to the user.
Proposal
Create a new friendly route following this syntax: https://#{gitlab.host}/:namespace/:project_path/merge_requests/new/:source_branch_name
Here is an example of how the final URL will look like in gitlab.com: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/new/1234-awesome-branch
What does success look like, and how can we measure that?
We get a URL like the example above: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/new/1234-awesome-branch, instead of https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/new?merge_request=%5Bsource_branch%5D=1234-awesome-branch