4 ms·

GitLab contributors, please take note. Fossil's UI is very fast and the navigation is intuitive and discoverable. I know it's on the roadmap, but it is so oft

by pestaa 10y ago

GitLab contributors, please take note. Fossil's UI is very fast and the navigation is intuitive and discoverable. I know it's on the roadmap, but it is so often an afterthought.

spraak 10y ago
I couldn't find any screenshots on the site, can you share any?
- detaro 10y ago
  Just click the link above, the entire site is Fossils interface.
- ubercore 10y ago
  I believe the site itself is running an instance of Fossil?
  - rwbt 10y ago
    That's correct. Fossil is just a single binary and all the 'artifacts' in the repo are stored in a single sqlite file. The built-in server works really well or it can also be used with CGI.
    - rkeene2 10y ago
      And SCGI as well.
  - gglitch 10y ago
    Yep. Cloning it is also a great way to poke around and get a better sense of its functionality.
sytse 10y ago
Thanks, we're indeed working on making the UI faster in https://about.gitlab.com/2017/02/06/vue-big-plan/ https://about.gitlab.com/2017/02/06/vue-big-plan/ I've clicked around in the UI of Fossil. It indeed is very fast. About the navigation: 1. Fossil has home, GitLab has a hamburger menu with different top level view, Fossil doesn't seem to account for multiple project but I'm probably overlooking something. 2. Fossil timeline seems similar to GitLab Activity https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/activity https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/activity 3. Fossil code seems similar to GitLab Repository https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/tree/master https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/tree/master 4. Fossil docs seems similar to GitLab help https://gitlab.com/help https://gitlab.com/help (in this case, for other projects I think it has the documentation of the project, not sure what standard they use) 5. Fossil branches are in the GitLab repo view 6. Fossil tickets are similar to the GitLab issues view 7. Fossil wiki is similar to GitLab wiki 8. Fossil includes a download tab, in GitLab that would be the tags view https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/tags https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/tags to download the repo (not sure if this is always to download Fossil or the specific project) 9. The Fossil "More..." link looks like a sitemap. What would you change in GitLab to make it more discoverable?
- eslaught 10y ago
  The issue is not that Gitlab is missing any of the pieces. The issue, I believe, is the organization of such pieces so that you can find them intuitively. This is admittedly a lot better in Gitlab today that it used to be. When I started, I literally could not figure out basic things like how to get to a specific repository inside of an organization. It also doesn't help that Gitlab has chosen to use its own jargon for each of the basic concepts. A "project" is a "repository" and a "group" is an "organization", etc. I can kind of grok it, but I sometimes do a double take when something isn't where I expect. For example: In my mental model, "project" == "repository". But when I go to a project home page like say [1], I don't see a code browser or commit list, or options that obviously take me to either of those. Instead, I have to click the "Repository" tab first. (It turns out that tabs can have second-level tabs, which means those options are hidden initially and thus not discoverable.) But I thought a "project" was a "repository"? I fully realize the Gitlab notion of "project" may be more general than just a "repository", but this is an example of the sort of cognitive dissonance that I get navigating around the site. At this point I've mostly made peace with the Gitlab interface, so it's a bit hard for me to pull up examples like this now. And as I said above, the interface has improved. But when I first started using Gitlab, there were a lot of things like this (little points of cognitive dissonance) which made it seriously an uphill battle to even use the product. [1]: https://gitlab.com/StanfordLegion/legion https://gitlab.com/StanfordLegion/legion
  - sytse 10y ago
    Thanks for the response, and I'm glad that it is better than it used to be. In GitLab people can have a project without a repository, for example with just a wiki or an issue tracker. For that reason we use different words for it. Single people also use GitLab as a single tenant we prefer to use the word group over organization. That will also fit better when we introduce nested groups in GitLab 9.0 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/2772 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/2772 Good point about showing files by default, we're discussing that in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/26834 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/26834 Thanks for using GitLab!

by pestaa 10y ago

GitLab contributors, please take note. Fossil's UI is very fast and the navigation is intuitive and discoverable. I know it's on the roadmap, but it is so often an afterthought.

spraak 10y ago

I couldn't find any screenshots on the site, can you share any?

detaro 10y ago
Just click the link above, the entire site is Fossils interface.
ubercore 10y ago
I believe the site itself is running an instance of Fossil?
- rwbt 10y ago
  That's correct. Fossil is just a single binary and all the 'artifacts' in the repo are stored in a single sqlite file. The built-in server works really well or it can also be used with CGI.
  - rkeene2 10y ago
    And SCGI as well.
- gglitch 10y ago
  Yep. Cloning it is also a great way to poke around and get a better sense of its functionality.

sytse 10y ago

Thanks, we're indeed working on making the UI faster in https://about.gitlab.com/2017/02/06/vue-big-plan/ https://about.gitlab.com/2017/02/06/vue-big-plan/ I've clicked around in the UI of Fossil. It indeed is very fast. About the navigation: 1. Fossil has home, GitLab has a hamburger menu with different top level view, Fossil doesn't seem to account for multiple project but I'm probably overlooking something. 2. Fossil timeline seems similar to GitLab Activity https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/activity https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/activity 3. Fossil code seems similar to GitLab Repository https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/tree/master https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/tree/master 4. Fossil docs seems similar to GitLab help https://gitlab.com/help https://gitlab.com/help (in this case, for other projects I think it has the documentation of the project, not sure what standard they use) 5. Fossil branches are in the GitLab repo view 6. Fossil tickets are similar to the GitLab issues view 7. Fossil wiki is similar to GitLab wiki 8. Fossil includes a download tab, in GitLab that would be the tags view https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/tags https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitaly/tags to download the repo (not sure if this is always to download Fossil or the specific project) 9. The Fossil "More..." link looks like a sitemap. What would you change in GitLab to make it more discoverable?

eslaught 10y ago
The issue is not that Gitlab is missing any of the pieces. The issue, I believe, is the organization of such pieces so that you can find them intuitively. This is admittedly a lot better in Gitlab today that it used to be. When I started, I literally could not figure out basic things like how to get to a specific repository inside of an organization. It also doesn't help that Gitlab has chosen to use its own jargon for each of the basic concepts. A "project" is a "repository" and a "group" is an "organization", etc. I can kind of grok it, but I sometimes do a double take when something isn't where I expect. For example: In my mental model, "project" == "repository". But when I go to a project home page like say [1], I don't see a code browser or commit list, or options that obviously take me to either of those. Instead, I have to click the "Repository" tab first. (It turns out that tabs can have second-level tabs, which means those options are hidden initially and thus not discoverable.) But I thought a "project" was a "repository"? I fully realize the Gitlab notion of "project" may be more general than just a "repository", but this is an example of the sort of cognitive dissonance that I get navigating around the site. At this point I've mostly made peace with the Gitlab interface, so it's a bit hard for me to pull up examples like this now. And as I said above, the interface has improved. But when I first started using Gitlab, there were a lot of things like this (little points of cognitive dissonance) which made it seriously an uphill battle to even use the product. [1]: https://gitlab.com/StanfordLegion/legion https://gitlab.com/StanfordLegion/legion
- sytse 10y ago
  Thanks for the response, and I'm glad that it is better than it used to be. In GitLab people can have a project without a repository, for example with just a wiki or an issue tracker. For that reason we use different words for it. Single people also use GitLab as a single tenant we prefer to use the word group over organization. That will also fit better when we introduce nested groups in GitLab 9.0 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/2772 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/2772 Good point about showing files by default, we're discussing that in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/26834 https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/26834 Thanks for using GitLab!