Unclear error message when on index screen

[benmurphyy]

I have multiple toms in the book, tom a, tom b etc. I type delete tom at which point it prompts mee to type the index of the tom i wish to delete. Anything i type other than a positive number, even "tom a" (specific name), just returns "Unknown command", which is not helpful as an error message.

[nus-pe-bot]

Team's Response

Hi! Thank you for bringing up this issue. However, since this command was expecting an index, the word tom a is an unknown command to this command. Hence, we believe that this error message matches the error.

Items for the Tester to Verify

:question: Issue response

Team chose [response.Rejected]

• [x] I disagree

Reason for disagreement: Actually this bug is really a feature flaw, not a functionality bug. I mislabelled in the practical exam. However it is still valid to argue against this bug being rejected since the team is expected to have corrected the label, as per: https://github.com/nus-cs2103-AY2122S2/forum/issues/283
Additionally I clarified with Prof Damith regarding this:

Thus i will explain why this is a feature flaw bug:

As stated in the CS2103 website,

1) "Lack of proper handling (either blocking or warning) for potentially invalid inputs can be considered a type.FeatureFlaw bug too. Not detecting easy-to-detect incorrect flags (e.g., user entered /t but it should be /tag) is a FeatureFlaw too."

2) "Specificity of error message: Error messages can be correct but not specific enough (e.g., it says the input is 'invalid' without giving the reason, or gives too many possible reasons without pointing out the specific reason). These cases can be considered type.FeatureFlaw."

This issue is clearly fulfils both criteria.
For 1, it can be expected that some users type in the exact name of the user they wish to edit/delete on the index page (like 'tom a' in the above scenario) instead of the index. However, no information is provided to the user in the resulting error message that they have entered in a name instead of an index.

For 2, "Unknown Command" is clearly not specific enough as it does not inform the user that they have typed in a name instead of an index, or at the very least, that only positive integers representing index are allowed as input on this page. Hence the error message is not helpful to helping the user realise their mistake. Not to mention that "Unknown command" appears for every single input on this page except when the input only has numbers. So a user could be typing in another valid command thinking it may work on this page, and they may not realise why it is a problem, or be able to differentiate the issue from the issue of using name instead of index to identify a user.

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:question: Issue severity

Team chose [severity.VeryLow] Originally [severity.Low]

• [x] I disagree

Reason for disagreement: Referring to bug severity scale, this issue is clearly not a cosmetic one, as it does cause a minor inconvenience to some users, hence the right severity label is Low.

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