Fix Repository transferring page

[PineBale]

While editing frontend, I found some inconsistencies while testing transferring repositories:

• No button for accepting/rejecting/cancelling the transfer of an empty repository.
• The redirect_to in templates/repo/header.tmpl is useless.
• There's no redirection when there's an error from handleActionError in routers/web/repo/repo.go. Therefore, instead of flash message, a blank page will be displayed.

This pr adds some commits to resolve all these issues.

Update: see the new changes #37277 (comment)

[bircni]

Why ever would you want to transfer an empty repo

[PineBale]

@bircni Whoever’s designed the page did not hide the button for empty repository either. Sometimes you may wanna do so just because of mistakenly picking a wrong namespace.

[bircni]

@bircni Whoever’s designed the page did not hide the button for empty repository either. Sometimes you may wanna do so just because of mistakenly picking a wrong namespace.

It is faster to just recreate the repo in another namespace than transferring it - I personally dont see a use case for transferring an empty repo

[PineBale]

@bircni Whoever’s designed the page did not hide the button for empty repository either. Sometimes you may wanna do so just because of mistakenly picking a wrong namespace.

It is faster to just recreate the repo in another namespace than transferring it - I personally dont see a use case for transferring an empty repo

As a matter of fact, it's faster to transfer with admin privilege than recreating repo. 😂

Anyway, imho the page is bugged. A, the transfer button is there for empty repo. B, after clicking the button, in the empty repo, there's just nowhere to cancel the transfer, which raises confusion. C, the redirection after handleActionError is missing. Even without modifying the template as per #37277 (comment), the redirection issue should be addressed 😔 . I did not find any related issue post.

[bircni]

If other see it as useful they can review.

[wxiaoguang]

Overall I think it is good enough, nothing will become worse.

By the way, since this part code has been changed, it's a good chance to refactor more, will push some more changes.

[wxiaoguang]

Will explain my changes one by one:

1. Since we have removed htmx, our fetch-action framework can correctly handle JSONError responses now
   • So "handleActionError" now always use "JSONError" for consistency and better user experiences
2. Split RepoAssignment in "services/context/repo.go" to small functions
   • To make code easier to maintain and refactor in the future
   • And "repoAssignmentPrepareRepoTransfer" doesn't check "IsEmptya" anymore (as this PR's purpose)
   • It's safe to do so, because these functions are executed for all repo requests, and many of them have tests
3. Refactor the "accept" and "reject" buttons to our fetch action framework
4. Still show a disabled button when there is "RepoTransfer"
   • This PR's old approach removes such button, but it is not right.
   • If such button is removed, the old owner won't know that the repo is being transferred.

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Screenshots:

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[Copilot]

Pull request overview

This PR fixes UX and error-handling issues around repository transfers, especially for empty repositories, by switching transfer actions to the fetch-action (link-action) flow and ensuring action errors return JSON responses consumable by the frontend.

Changes:

• Update repo header transfer controls to use link-action buttons and show a “Transferring…” state when the viewer can’t act.
• Refactor RepoAssignment to ensure pending transfer metadata is prepared even for empty repositories.
• Adjust transfer action handlers to return JSONRedirect/JSONError and add new locale strings for updated messaging.

Reviewed changes

Copilot reviewed 5 out of 5 changed files in this pull request and generated 3 comments.

Show a summary per file

File	Description
templates/repo/header.tmpl	Switch transfer accept/reject UI to fetch-action buttons and add a “Transferring…” disabled state.
services/context/repo.go	Refactor RepoAssignment into staged functions; ensure transfer info is prepared for empty repos.
routers/web/repo/transfer.go	Return JSONRedirect after accept/reject to support fetch-action navigation.
routers/web/repo/repo.go	Make handleActionError return JSON errors for fetch-action callers.
options/locale/locale_en-US.json	Add new strings for permission denied + transfer-in-progress messaging; remove unused permission strings.

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[silverwind]

Small nit for future: Avoid basic buttons, instead use regular button with colored text. Looks better. Could do a full-codebase refactor later.

[wxiaoguang]

Small nit for future: Avoid basic buttons, instead use regular button with colored text. Looks better. Could do a full-codebase refactor later.

But this case, "basic button" indeed looks better, and it matches the other elements alongside.

#37277 (comment)

[silverwind]

Not exactly, they look same on light theme because non-basic buttons on light theme have no distinct bg color, but on dark theme they have.

We should fix this too so light mode buttons have a subtly different bg color to match dark theme.