When I try to Query for Watchers, I get an empty query unless I have fully downloaded the issue. I think this means that I have to download the entire data base with attachments and everything just to get a simple field (watchers). It would be nice if watchers were part of the partial download up front so that the query works without downloading everything. Maybe I am doing something wrong and there is another way to do this.

ZAK, thank you very much for this observation. (We've been waiting for someone to notice this!)

Actually, we're thinking about removing the ability to search for specific watchers -- for exactly this reason: we need issues fully downloaded to search. We're limited by JIRA here: partial download loads XML issue representation, which doesn't list watchers; and there's no way to search for watchers in JIRA. So, in worst case, we need to issue 1 server request per each candidate issue to answer user's query, which may take a long time and stress the server.

We have a choice: a) disable search for watchers; b) leave it as it is now -- with a good probability of an incorrect result; c) load all watchers from JIRA when request is made (1 request per issue at most).

What would you think is the best option?

-- Igor