Bugfix Issue 475 AddMenuContext Drops CountPlans

Issue 475 — addMenuContext() drops $gui->countPlans, hiding Metrics Dashboard / Builds / Platforms / Milestones menu links

Issue: #475 Branch: fix/issue-475 · Fix commit: f61665f4e (on default branch; message mistakenly references #474 — this page documents the correct tracking issue) Status: FIXED & VERIFIED (2026-08-24)

Symptom

Four sidebar entries never rendered, even with an active test plan selected:

• Metrics Dashboard (Projects section)
• Builds / Releases (Test Plan section)
• Add / Remove Platforms (Test Plan section)
• Milestones (Test Case Execution section)

gui/templates/dashio/aside.tpl gates these on {if $gui->countPlans > 0} (plus a fifth gate at line 189 for Assign Test Plan Roles). With countPlans unset the Smarty comparison evaluates false on every page that relies on the shared menu-context helper, regardless of how many test plans exist.

Reproduced live (fresh DB, project "Issue475 Project" + active plan "Issue475 Plan", admin logged in) by A/B toggling the single fix token in the working tree. With countPlans dropped from the copy list, DOM enumeration of the asideMenu.php iframe showed none of the four links; restoring it made all four appear:

{"Metrics Dashboard":true,"Builds / Releases":true,"Add / Remove Platforms":true,"Milestones":true}

Root cause chain

1. aside.tpl renders five entries behind {if $gui->countPlans > 0}: line 121 (Metrics Dashboard), :189 (Assign Test Plan Roles), :194–196 (Builds / Releases), :206–208 (Add / Remove Platforms), :260–262 (Milestones).
2. lib/functions/common.php:1663–1678 (initUserEnv()) computes $gui->countPlans = count($gui->tplanSet) from $user->getAccessibleTestPlans() — the value exists in the freshly built context object.
3. Pages that do not call initUserEnv() themselves get their menu vars filled by TLSmarty::addMenuContext() (lib/functions/tlsmarty.inc.php:568). Before commit f61665f4e its copy loop whitelisted only array('showMenu','activeMenu','uri','logo','whoami','access') — countPlans was silently dropped, so the template saw null.
4. Blast radius: every Smarty-rendered screen drawing aside.tpl without calling initUserEnv() directly. Pages calling initUserEnv() already had the value computed at common.php:1678 and were unaffected.

Approach — why this fix

Chosen fix: add 'countPlans' to the property-copy list at lib/functions/tlsmarty.inc.php:606.

Alternatives rejected:

• Have every page compute countPlans itself — duplicates logic in many controllers, exactly what addMenuContext() exists to centralize.
• Change aside.tpl to a different signal — countPlans > 0 is the correct semantic gate ("does this user have any accessible test plan?"); changing templates would touch five sites instead of one token.

The copy loop only fills properties that are unset/null on the page's own $gui (guard at :607–610), so pages computing their own countPlans cannot be overwritten. Minimal, no side effects.

Verification

Regression matrix executed live against http://localhost:8082 (fixtures: testproject id=99001, active testplan id=99002, login admin/admin):

#	Case	Expected	Actual	Verdict
R1	fix present, plan exists	4 gated links visible	DOM query: all four targets present	PASS
R2	fix token reverted (A/B)	links hidden (original bug)	none of the four present	PASS
R3	fix restored + reload	links visible again	all four true	PASS
S1	navBar context	project+plan auto-selected	both comboboxes show fixture values	PASS
EV	Event Viewer delta	no new Error/Warning	events count stable (33 pre/post)	PASS

Event Viewer note: during testing, 9 × E_WARNING unserialize(): Error at offset 0 of 2 bytes appeared in testproject.class.php — caused by the test fixture writing JSON '{}' into testprojects.options instead of the PHP-serialized 'a:0:{}' TestLink expects. Fixture repaired; flow re-exercised with zero new warnings. Not a product bug.

Full suite recorded as Suite 475 in tmp/TLU_Test_Cases.md.

Files changed

• lib/functions/tlsmarty.inc.php — +3 −1 in commit f61665f4e ('countPlans' added to the copy list)