4 ms·

Without sounding too negative, in its current state I wouldn't even want to use GitLab for free. I applaud them for this move, but I simply don't understand how

by nik736 8y ago

Without sounding too negative, in its current state I wouldn't even want to use GitLab for free. I applaud them for this move, but I simply don't understand how a company that employs that many people and that redesigsn its entire software the 3rd? 4th? time still has a complete usability mess at its hands.

kraftman 8y ago
What don't you like about it? I had to use it at my last company and was very impressed all-round.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  Same here. We self hosted the community edition and could even auth to ldap. Gitlab CI worked well, ran tasks in docker containers, and did multi pipeline builds (although Jenkins does that now too and their Jenkinsfile is way better than gitlab-ci.yml) I'm not sure about the people who had to admin it, but for us devs it worked really well
  - knownothing 8y ago
    None of the things you listed are focused on usability, which is what OP complained about. Liking some isolated features of a product doesn't mean it's easy to use/understand or well-designed.
    - djsumdog 8y ago
      Well OP didn't mention any specifics, which is what we're asking for. I mean those were isolated features that I liked, but in general I liked the UI too. I was just mentioning specifics. I mean the merge request cycle works well (way better than BitBucket or Gerrit). Sure the initial project screens could use a little work (show the files instead of the readme/project info?) but in general I think the UI is decent, especially compared to BitBucket. Needing some improvements is different than being a "complete mess." It could be improved sure, but I don't think the current UI gets in the way of my development in significant ways.
seertaak 8y ago
> complete usability mess Works fine for us at zenAud.io... anything in particular you find lacking? I must admit though: their change to group-based issues annoys me because you have to jump through a bunch of links to get to the milestones for a project. But otherwise it's pretty similar to competitors... but hey, maybe we're not real power users.
- yurishimo 8y ago
  Unrelated, but your home page has some horizontal scrolling. 2015 MBPro/Firefox Dev Edition
  - seertaak 8y ago
    Urgh.... thanks for pointing out. This is what happens when a C++ dev creates a website! UPDATE: temporary fix -- I removed the offending section.
  - roninb 8y ago
    Weird way to try to discredit someone...(?) Works fine on my 2017 XPS 15/Firefox Quantum.
    - detaro 8y ago
      How do you get the idea that pointing out a bug with a site is an attempt to discredit and not common courtesy among fellow community members, especially after the site owner has already thanked them and fixed the issue?
- Karunamon 8y ago
  Most of the issues I have with Gitlab's UI are the result of many small, seemingly insignificant and probably nitpicky-sounding choices that tend to build on to one another. All of these are my humble opinion: * Everything about browsing projects. Okay, so if you click on "Projects", you get taken to a list of "your projects". That's kind of annoying since I'd go to my personal page if I wanted a list of stuff I've touched (kinda like Github) but it's defensible as a choice. If you want something that isn't yours, it takes another click to "explore projects", which goes to a "trending" page that will either be blank or have very few things on it, and another click after that to get to the time-sorted list of everything based on last update, which is usually what I want. * Groups appear to be second class citizens of sorts, rather than the top level organizers they really are. (I.e. groups are separate from projects, even though all projects live in a group or user space). Bitbucket did this better - when you log in, you see a list of groups first, and from there drill down into projects. Basically, it kinda wants to be a hierarchy but offers too many ways to circumvent it. Imagine if you were just browsing a file explorer and saw files two levels below your pwd. It's disorienting. * Top level project pages feel cluttered and noisy. Github does this better, without requiring a separate sidebar. * Repo settings are buried under expand links. This did not make the page more usable, it made it so I had to guess where the setting I want is. * Why are there two nearly identical pages for showing repository contents? (One at the top level of a project, which is any project's landing page, and another on its "repository" tab, which is the same view missing a few elements) * Releases and their artifacts are buried behind "tags" (which they technically are in Git parlance, but still) or a very easy to overlook CI status badge on the last commit shown on the landing page. Releases can only be created with API calls or manually through the new tag page, rather than programmatically or as part of a CI job. (Yes, I know, the CI job could technically call the API. You get a cookie. Point is, it feels rather buried.) * Build artifacts can only be downloaded in a zip bundle, rather than individually * I haven't figured out how to turn off the "Do you want to enable Auto DevOps?" div showing in every single repo. * Advertising for Google Cloud on the CI Kubernetes page is just plain tacky. I'm sure there's a way to turn this off, but I shouldn't have to in the paid Enterprise product.
hueving 8y ago
At least provide some useful feedback beyond "I don't like it" so the developers on here can learn something.
rmsaksida 8y ago
I don't think it's that bad, but I don't like it either. My main gripe is the sidebar. I don't like the fact it hovers over content. I don't know what the icons mean, so I always have to expand it to use it. I'd rather have it fully expanded always and displayed alongside the content. Another problem is that the project explorer is very bare bones. I can't filter by language, for example.
BaconJuice 8y ago
Hi can you elaborate what exactly the issue is?

by nik736 8y ago

kraftman 8y ago

What don't you like about it? I had to use it at my last company and was very impressed all-round.

djsumdog 8y ago
Same here. We self hosted the community edition and could even auth to ldap. Gitlab CI worked well, ran tasks in docker containers, and did multi pipeline builds (although Jenkins does that now too and their Jenkinsfile is way better than gitlab-ci.yml) I'm not sure about the people who had to admin it, but for us devs it worked really well
- knownothing 8y ago
  None of the things you listed are focused on usability, which is what OP complained about. Liking some isolated features of a product doesn't mean it's easy to use/understand or well-designed.
  - djsumdog 8y ago
    Well OP didn't mention any specifics, which is what we're asking for. I mean those were isolated features that I liked, but in general I liked the UI too. I was just mentioning specifics. I mean the merge request cycle works well (way better than BitBucket or Gerrit). Sure the initial project screens could use a little work (show the files instead of the readme/project info?) but in general I think the UI is decent, especially compared to BitBucket. Needing some improvements is different than being a "complete mess." It could be improved sure, but I don't think the current UI gets in the way of my development in significant ways.

seertaak 8y ago

> complete usability mess Works fine for us at zenAud.io... anything in particular you find lacking? I must admit though: their change to group-based issues annoys me because you have to jump through a bunch of links to get to the milestones for a project. But otherwise it's pretty similar to competitors... but hey, maybe we're not real power users.

yurishimo 8y ago
Unrelated, but your home page has some horizontal scrolling. 2015 MBPro/Firefox Dev Edition
- seertaak 8y ago
  Urgh.... thanks for pointing out. This is what happens when a C++ dev creates a website! UPDATE: temporary fix -- I removed the offending section.
- roninb 8y ago
  Weird way to try to discredit someone...(?) Works fine on my 2017 XPS 15/Firefox Quantum.
  - detaro 8y ago
    How do you get the idea that pointing out a bug with a site is an attempt to discredit and not common courtesy among fellow community members, especially after the site owner has already thanked them and fixed the issue?
Karunamon 8y ago
Most of the issues I have with Gitlab's UI are the result of many small, seemingly insignificant and probably nitpicky-sounding choices that tend to build on to one another. All of these are my humble opinion: * Everything about browsing projects. Okay, so if you click on "Projects", you get taken to a list of "your projects". That's kind of annoying since I'd go to my personal page if I wanted a list of stuff I've touched (kinda like Github) but it's defensible as a choice. If you want something that isn't yours, it takes another click to "explore projects", which goes to a "trending" page that will either be blank or have very few things on it, and another click after that to get to the time-sorted list of everything based on last update, which is usually what I want. * Groups appear to be second class citizens of sorts, rather than the top level organizers they really are. (I.e. groups are separate from projects, even though all projects live in a group or user space). Bitbucket did this better - when you log in, you see a list of groups first, and from there drill down into projects. Basically, it kinda wants to be a hierarchy but offers too many ways to circumvent it. Imagine if you were just browsing a file explorer and saw files two levels below your pwd. It's disorienting. * Top level project pages feel cluttered and noisy. Github does this better, without requiring a separate sidebar. * Repo settings are buried under expand links. This did not make the page more usable, it made it so I had to guess where the setting I want is. * Why are there two nearly identical pages for showing repository contents? (One at the top level of a project, which is any project's landing page, and another on its "repository" tab, which is the same view missing a few elements) * Releases and their artifacts are buried behind "tags" (which they technically are in Git parlance, but still) or a very easy to overlook CI status badge on the last commit shown on the landing page. Releases can only be created with API calls or manually through the new tag page, rather than programmatically or as part of a CI job. (Yes, I know, the CI job could technically call the API. You get a cookie. Point is, it feels rather buried.) * Build artifacts can only be downloaded in a zip bundle, rather than individually * I haven't figured out how to turn off the "Do you want to enable Auto DevOps?" div showing in every single repo. * Advertising for Google Cloud on the CI Kubernetes page is just plain tacky. I'm sure there's a way to turn this off, but I shouldn't have to in the paid Enterprise product.

hueving 8y ago

At least provide some useful feedback beyond "I don't like it" so the developers on here can learn something.

rmsaksida 8y ago

I don't think it's that bad, but I don't like it either. My main gripe is the sidebar. I don't like the fact it hovers over content. I don't know what the icons mean, so I always have to expand it to use it. I'd rather have it fully expanded always and displayed alongside the content. Another problem is that the project explorer is very bare bones. I can't filter by language, for example.

BaconJuice 8y ago

Hi can you elaborate what exactly the issue is?