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GitHub dashboard UI refresh

90 points by rococode 8y ago

ninefoxgambit 8y ago
man the github blog design is fresh!
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
dochtman 8y ago
I really like the new GitHub dashboard (have been using it for a while now), but the thing that's really annoying me is how on mobile browsers it has much less comment (missing the activity feed). Then, when you go to the desktop version, it turns out they have a perfectly fine responsive version of the full activity feed, too! So why not enable that in the mobile version directly?
- rad_gruchalski 8y ago
  This always annoys me with github on mobile. Why is it not possible to change to the desktop view permanent with a setting in the profile.
  - kevinvdburgt 8y ago
    You can click on “Desktop version” at the bottom of the page when browsing mobile, but only the dashboard is responsive :(
    - WorldMaker 8y ago
      This blog post says they are working on more full width and responsive pages, so maybe one day they'll get rid of the need for a separate "Mobile version".
    - rad_gruchalski 8y ago
      Yes, I do that. Every second day! Cookies expire.
  - giancarlostoro 8y ago
    I absolutely cannot stand how GitHub on a Mobile browser is, no offense to whoever works on that part of GitHub, it's not your fault. But I hate looking up code and finding a GitHub repository on my phone only to get a fragment of what the repository should show me. I want to see the whole damn README every single time. I wish they would show me the whole README not force me to click on show in desktop mode. The fact they show that button tells me people've complained about the mobile mode enough, cause without that link I would just set my browser to render as a desktop browser. I love GitHub but mobile UX is one thing that kills me about the web, and it's not GitHub's fault, lots of websites get it wrong, especially ad riddled sites, or sites that redirect you to their mobile page only to not take you to the original content.
    - ramraj07 8y ago
      At least on Android chrome you can check the desktop version option in the menu and get regular GitHub which is surprisingly very usable!
      - giancarlostoro 8y ago
        Yeah you can do that on Firefox as well. Though they have a web URL to view the desktop version, which begs the question: do they get complaints about the mobile version? Why bother...
    - yellowbuilding 8y ago
      I sometimes forget about that limitation then get bummed out when I remember it.
- justinclift 8y ago
  Ironically, I friggin hate it. It takes up extra screen real estate for negative gain. Tried it out ages ago, then opted out of the beta. Now it's back, and there's no way to disable it. Pretty sure I'll be deleting my GitHub account in very near future. Really over this kind of distraction-oriented crap being forced onto frequent users. :(
flocial 8y ago
No screenshots?
- tpaksoy 8y ago
  Exactly. I have no idea what changed... Have I been part of a test group or something for the last months?
gamanoid 8y ago
UI looks great; still wish we get the ability to organise our repos under subgroups like gitlab does.
- kevinvdburgt 8y ago
  It would be awesome to have subgroups! Usually my projects contains multiple repo’s which i currently prefix with the project name.
dmitriid 8y ago
I don't honestly know what they are talking about (unless there are some new changes they are gradually rolling out and I haven't received the update yet). Left column: 7 repos I'm contributing to (out of a few dozen), 7 teams I'm a part of (out of about 12) Middle column taking up ~70% of screen width: 3-4 updates from "recent activity" which has a lag of a few minutes (my own PRs don't show up there until after some long unspecified time). This is followed by "All activity" which is more of the same, but with way more wasted space. But since GitHub seems to think it's a social network, it's also flooded by things like "Your friend starred a repo you don't care about". Right column: Discover repositories. Three repositories from projects I may or may not care about. How is this useful in any way? Oh. The right column also boasts a text which reads "Welcome to the new dashboard. Get closer to the stuff you care about most." which is a link to the Github Blog post above.
joelbluminator 8y ago
Looks like the competition from Gitlab is very real, first free private repos and now this in a pretty short time span...
- iamrobschiavone 8y ago
  The dashboard was in beta for a while now. I opted in in late 2018.
- hnarayanan 8y ago
  Me as well. I was struggling to see what is new, but then recalled that I've been on the beta of this for months.
pouring_rain 8y ago
Undoubtedly this refresh is directly correlated with the Microsoft acquisition. A new designer and a new PM like to make their mark on a product for better or for worse
vortico 8y ago
So it's uhhh... wider, with distractions on the side. Often breaks my concentration when loading up GitHub to find an issue of a particular project. A net downgrade IMO.
dotdi 8y ago
The best thing for me is that I have quicker access to my own repositories via the left sidebar and quick search.
- justinclift 8y ago
  That's been been there for a while. The only thing they've added is the fixed width column on the right side - which can't be gotten rid of - listing "suggested repos". Personally, if I was looking for extra stuff, I'd damn well go find it. Taking away screen real estate I actually use, for this crap... not in any way positive (for me). :( :( :(
charlietango592 8y ago
seems distracting to me
V-2 8y ago
Fix-width layouts are a pet peeve of mine. What's the point of having a large monitor with 1920 or 2048 pixels in the middle, if the content only takes up like 40% of it.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  You can still put multiple things side-by-side…
- hombre_fatal 8y ago
  I don't mean to be harsh on you in particular, but I do think it's funny that, when it comes to ads, HNers will rush to say "my browser, my rules, it's me who decides how your content will render!" Meanwhile, also HNers: "Ugh, can you zoom your content for me and shape your content to my browser?"
  - dspillett 8y ago
    Hear hear! As long as the design doesn't fall apart when you resize the window and/or set a zoom level other than 100%, which is far from always the case.
  - kodablah 8y ago
    > HNers: "Ugh, can you zoom your content for me and shape your content to my browser?" You got it backwards. More like "Stop fixating on a width and shaping your content in a browser limiting way". They are asking for the removal of viewing restrictions in both cases, no need to pretend like they're at odds.
- dustinmoris 8y ago
  I agree in most cases except when reading articles. It's scientifically proven that it is easier to read anything if a line doesn't exceed ~ 75 characters. I love blogs and news websites which have very narrow fixed width UIs for optimal reading and really dislike blogs which are wider than 600-700 pixels.
  - 8y ago
huhtenberg 8y ago
> updated dashboards to surface personalized repository suggestions This implies that a LOT of people visit GH in search of new and exciting repositories to... erm... hrm... why exactly would anyone EVER do that?
- detaro 8y ago
  I've actually been positively surprised by that. I normally don't have high hopes for automated suggestions, but it actually has managed to surface interesting new projects from areas I work in a few times. Still of course a question if that justifies the space it takes in the UI, especially since it can't be turned off.
- _jezell_ 8y ago
  I visit the trending page multiple times every day. It's a great way to keep an eye on up and coming projects.
- cyborgx7 8y ago
  I visit https://news.ycombinator.com/show https://news.ycombinator.com/show and most of what you get there is new and exciting repositories. I don't think personalized suggestion are without merit.
  - TeMPOraL 8y ago
    Things on Show HN are ready to be showcased. A random repo on GitHub most likely isn't.
    - akerl_ 8y ago
      The “random repos” shown in Github’s various Explore/Suggestion interfaces bias towards repos with higher star counts / repos followed by people you follow / that are similar to ones you already follow. I’ve found plenty of interesting repos from the suggestions. Whether their creator was looking to “showcase” them or not isn’t directly material to me: I’m looking for inspiration, or examples, or just to see what other folks are up to. The suggestions are a useful window into those categories.
rplnt 8y ago
I don't mind it since I never used it, but I hate the new "status" feature. Seems rather out of place.
erusev 8y ago
I find the sticky behaviour of the left sidebar a bit distracting and unnecessary.
- invalidusernam3 8y ago
  Also it only list 7 repos with a "show more" button, and then a huge chunk of empty space beneath that. Just "show more" by default.
  - justinclift 8y ago
    Yeah. They seem to have taken the feedback ("Don't do this") from people in the beta (like me), piped it to /dev/null, then rolled it out anyway. I guess someone had to show something for the time they'd spent on it or something. "What've you been working on for the last month?" -> "Adding an extra column to everyones dashboard, even though it takes up useful screen real estate, and many people don't want it". -> "Yeah, that's obviously a win, roll that out!" Not impressed.
dhdhrhdhsj 8y ago
What about gitlab? Does anyone have something to say about gitlab??? Something about it being better or awesome or something else not even related to this post?? GITLAB
ilovetux 8y ago
I'm not sure why, but on an up-to-date firefox (64.0.2) running on Windows 10 I cannot see the changes. When I open in Chrome (71.0.3578.98) it shows the changes. Also on firefox the login link at the top of the page shows up in a "hamburger" menu and the page loads scrolled down to about half page neither of which affect chrome.
- ilovetux 8y ago
  I found the issue. I was zoomed in to 153% which caused the "issues". I am leaving this here in case anyone else experiences this and is confused.
Macha 8y ago
What GitHub needs is to copy the review queue from Stash/bitbucket server. 1. All the PRs you (or one of your groups) is an assigned reviewer of that you've interacted with and have since been updated. 2. All the PRs you (or one of your groups) is an assigned reviewer of that you've never interacted with. 3. All the PRs you (or one of your groups) is an assigned reviewer of that you've marked as lower priority for you. Currently you can only find out if you're assigned in the depths of the UI and have to navigate to individual PRs to see if action is required. That is what the dashboard needs, not suggested repositories (disclaimer, I use my employers GitHub enterprise instance way more and I'm not active enough to be an assigned reviewed on any GitHub.com repo, so maybe that has it now and it's not trickled down to enterprise)

90 points by rococode 8y ago

ninefoxgambit 8y ago

man the github blog design is fresh!

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

dochtman 8y ago

I really like the new GitHub dashboard (have been using it for a while now), but the thing that's really annoying me is how on mobile browsers it has much less comment (missing the activity feed). Then, when you go to the desktop version, it turns out they have a perfectly fine responsive version of the full activity feed, too! So why not enable that in the mobile version directly?

rad_gruchalski 8y ago
This always annoys me with github on mobile. Why is it not possible to change to the desktop view permanent with a setting in the profile.
- kevinvdburgt 8y ago
  You can click on “Desktop version” at the bottom of the page when browsing mobile, but only the dashboard is responsive :(
  - WorldMaker 8y ago
    This blog post says they are working on more full width and responsive pages, so maybe one day they'll get rid of the need for a separate "Mobile version".
  - rad_gruchalski 8y ago
    Yes, I do that. Every second day! Cookies expire.
- giancarlostoro 8y ago
  I absolutely cannot stand how GitHub on a Mobile browser is, no offense to whoever works on that part of GitHub, it's not your fault. But I hate looking up code and finding a GitHub repository on my phone only to get a fragment of what the repository should show me. I want to see the whole damn README every single time. I wish they would show me the whole README not force me to click on show in desktop mode. The fact they show that button tells me people've complained about the mobile mode enough, cause without that link I would just set my browser to render as a desktop browser. I love GitHub but mobile UX is one thing that kills me about the web, and it's not GitHub's fault, lots of websites get it wrong, especially ad riddled sites, or sites that redirect you to their mobile page only to not take you to the original content.
  - ramraj07 8y ago
    At least on Android chrome you can check the desktop version option in the menu and get regular GitHub which is surprisingly very usable!
    - giancarlostoro 8y ago
      Yeah you can do that on Firefox as well. Though they have a web URL to view the desktop version, which begs the question: do they get complaints about the mobile version? Why bother...
  - yellowbuilding 8y ago
    I sometimes forget about that limitation then get bummed out when I remember it.
justinclift 8y ago
Ironically, I friggin hate it. It takes up extra screen real estate for negative gain. Tried it out ages ago, then opted out of the beta. Now it's back, and there's no way to disable it. Pretty sure I'll be deleting my GitHub account in very near future. Really over this kind of distraction-oriented crap being forced onto frequent users. :(

flocial 8y ago

No screenshots?

tpaksoy 8y ago
Exactly. I have no idea what changed... Have I been part of a test group or something for the last months?

gamanoid 8y ago

UI looks great; still wish we get the ability to organise our repos under subgroups like gitlab does.

kevinvdburgt 8y ago
It would be awesome to have subgroups! Usually my projects contains multiple repo’s which i currently prefix with the project name.

dmitriid 8y ago

I don't honestly know what they are talking about (unless there are some new changes they are gradually rolling out and I haven't received the update yet). Left column: 7 repos I'm contributing to (out of a few dozen), 7 teams I'm a part of (out of about 12) Middle column taking up ~70% of screen width: 3-4 updates from "recent activity" which has a lag of a few minutes (my own PRs don't show up there until after some long unspecified time). This is followed by "All activity" which is more of the same, but with way more wasted space. But since GitHub seems to think it's a social network, it's also flooded by things like "Your friend starred a repo you don't care about". Right column: Discover repositories. Three repositories from projects I may or may not care about. How is this useful in any way? Oh. The right column also boasts a text which reads "Welcome to the new dashboard. Get closer to the stuff you care about most." which is a link to the Github Blog post above.

joelbluminator 8y ago

Looks like the competition from Gitlab is very real, first free private repos and now this in a pretty short time span...

iamrobschiavone 8y ago
The dashboard was in beta for a while now. I opted in in late 2018.
hnarayanan 8y ago
Me as well. I was struggling to see what is new, but then recalled that I've been on the beta of this for months.

pouring_rain 8y ago

Undoubtedly this refresh is directly correlated with the Microsoft acquisition. A new designer and a new PM like to make their mark on a product for better or for worse

vortico 8y ago

So it's uhhh... wider, with distractions on the side. Often breaks my concentration when loading up GitHub to find an issue of a particular project. A net downgrade IMO.

dotdi 8y ago

The best thing for me is that I have quicker access to my own repositories via the left sidebar and quick search.

justinclift 8y ago
That's been been there for a while. The only thing they've added is the fixed width column on the right side - which can't be gotten rid of - listing "suggested repos". Personally, if I was looking for extra stuff, I'd damn well go find it. Taking away screen real estate I actually use, for this crap... not in any way positive (for me). :( :( :(

charlietango592 8y ago

seems distracting to me

V-2 8y ago

Fix-width layouts are a pet peeve of mine. What's the point of having a large monitor with 1920 or 2048 pixels in the middle, if the content only takes up like 40% of it.

saagarjha 8y ago
You can still put multiple things side-by-side…
hombre_fatal 8y ago
I don't mean to be harsh on you in particular, but I do think it's funny that, when it comes to ads, HNers will rush to say "my browser, my rules, it's me who decides how your content will render!" Meanwhile, also HNers: "Ugh, can you zoom your content for me and shape your content to my browser?"
- dspillett 8y ago
  Hear hear! As long as the design doesn't fall apart when you resize the window and/or set a zoom level other than 100%, which is far from always the case.
- kodablah 8y ago
  > HNers: "Ugh, can you zoom your content for me and shape your content to my browser?" You got it backwards. More like "Stop fixating on a width and shaping your content in a browser limiting way". They are asking for the removal of viewing restrictions in both cases, no need to pretend like they're at odds.
dustinmoris 8y ago
I agree in most cases except when reading articles. It's scientifically proven that it is easier to read anything if a line doesn't exceed ~ 75 characters. I love blogs and news websites which have very narrow fixed width UIs for optimal reading and really dislike blogs which are wider than 600-700 pixels.
- 8y ago

huhtenberg 8y ago

> updated dashboards to surface personalized repository suggestions This implies that a LOT of people visit GH in search of new and exciting repositories to... erm... hrm... why exactly would anyone EVER do that?

detaro 8y ago
I've actually been positively surprised by that. I normally don't have high hopes for automated suggestions, but it actually has managed to surface interesting new projects from areas I work in a few times. Still of course a question if that justifies the space it takes in the UI, especially since it can't be turned off.
_jezell_ 8y ago
I visit the trending page multiple times every day. It's a great way to keep an eye on up and coming projects.
cyborgx7 8y ago
I visit https://news.ycombinator.com/show https://news.ycombinator.com/show and most of what you get there is new and exciting repositories. I don't think personalized suggestion are without merit.
- TeMPOraL 8y ago
  Things on Show HN are ready to be showcased. A random repo on GitHub most likely isn't.
  - akerl_ 8y ago
    The “random repos” shown in Github’s various Explore/Suggestion interfaces bias towards repos with higher star counts / repos followed by people you follow / that are similar to ones you already follow. I’ve found plenty of interesting repos from the suggestions. Whether their creator was looking to “showcase” them or not isn’t directly material to me: I’m looking for inspiration, or examples, or just to see what other folks are up to. The suggestions are a useful window into those categories.

rplnt 8y ago

I don't mind it since I never used it, but I hate the new "status" feature. Seems rather out of place.

erusev 8y ago

I find the sticky behaviour of the left sidebar a bit distracting and unnecessary.

invalidusernam3 8y ago
Also it only list 7 repos with a "show more" button, and then a huge chunk of empty space beneath that. Just "show more" by default.
- justinclift 8y ago
  Yeah. They seem to have taken the feedback ("Don't do this") from people in the beta (like me), piped it to /dev/null, then rolled it out anyway. I guess someone had to show something for the time they'd spent on it or something. "What've you been working on for the last month?" -> "Adding an extra column to everyones dashboard, even though it takes up useful screen real estate, and many people don't want it". -> "Yeah, that's obviously a win, roll that out!" Not impressed.

dhdhrhdhsj 8y ago

What about gitlab? Does anyone have something to say about gitlab??? Something about it being better or awesome or something else not even related to this post?? GITLAB

ilovetux 8y ago

I'm not sure why, but on an up-to-date firefox (64.0.2) running on Windows 10 I cannot see the changes. When I open in Chrome (71.0.3578.98) it shows the changes. Also on firefox the login link at the top of the page shows up in a "hamburger" menu and the page loads scrolled down to about half page neither of which affect chrome.

ilovetux 8y ago
I found the issue. I was zoomed in to 153% which caused the "issues". I am leaving this here in case anyone else experiences this and is confused.

Macha 8y ago

What GitHub needs is to copy the review queue from Stash/bitbucket server. 1. All the PRs you (or one of your groups) is an assigned reviewer of that you've interacted with and have since been updated. 2. All the PRs you (or one of your groups) is an assigned reviewer of that you've never interacted with. 3. All the PRs you (or one of your groups) is an assigned reviewer of that you've marked as lower priority for you. Currently you can only find out if you're assigned in the depths of the UI and have to navigate to individual PRs to see if action is required. That is what the dashboard needs, not suggested repositories (disclaimer, I use my employers GitHub enterprise instance way more and I'm not active enough to be an assigned reviewed on any GitHub.com repo, so maybe that has it now and it's not trickled down to enterprise)