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It's great and impressive how quick Gitlab moves in adding new features. But if I have a Graphic Design repo it emphasises Kubernetes, Packages and Security fe

It's great and impressive how quick Gitlab moves in adding new features. But if I have a Graphic Design repo it emphasises Kubernetes, Packages and Security features that have zero relevance. And there is no way to disable them. And that on every single repo it places these Add License/Contributors etc buttons front and centre even though for 99% of internal projects they serve no purpose. Every release Gitlab seriously needs to step back and think about how to simplify the interface. Because it's starting to get a bit ridiculous.

sytse 6y ago
This comment makes a lot of good points. I think we can stop recommending License and Contributors since GitLab is mostly used for closed source software. The templates will still be there but just not suggested until you started to create a new file. And you should be able to disable everything but the repo if you want to. And of course you can disable the repo as well if you just want the planning features for example.
- threeseed 6y ago
  Also please put in place this simple UI rule: "If it doesn't need attention don't make it coloured or bold" e.g. thumbs up/down, report abuse etc.
  - sytse 6y ago
    Thanks for the examples. BYW There is also a reply in this thread from a GitLab UX team-member who responds to a comment about the thumbs up/down and report abuse buttons https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23606854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23606854
lttlrck 6y ago
Yes agree completely. I'd love to whittle down the noise.
rossmohax 6y ago
> It's great and impressive how quick Gitlab moves in adding new features. Don't trust their feature list, they often "forget" to use it themselves. Many of those features are there to tick the box and daze executives, but are barely usable in practice. It took them a year to start supporting Kubernetes clusters with RBAC, they didn't use autodevops for their own releases, even for simple components, nor any kubernetes integration, monitoring, feature flags, Geo, backup procedure. Who in the right mind is going to enable Web Application Firewall feature, when rules exceptions cannot be configured? Somewhere in comments here will be reply from Gitlab employee, saying that dogfooding is something they are constantly working on, it doesn't matter. What they should be doing is to update documentation pages with feature maturity level and have a block of links to most popular bugs related to the feature, so that poor devops engineers don't have to rediscover all the pain and come prepared. Just to be clear, Gitlab is an awesome tool, it is just not as awesome as their marketing wants us to believe.
- sytse 6y ago
  "Somewhere in comments here will be reply from Gitlab employee, saying that dogfooding is something they are constantly working on" To ensure we meet your expectations I want to state that we're continuously working on dogfooding, you can track our progress in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues?label_name=Dogfooding&sort=updated_desc https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues?label_name=Dog... "What they should be doing is to update documentation pages with feature maturity level and have a block of links to most popular bugs related to the feature" That is a great idea and I wonder if https://about.gitlab.com/direction/maturity/ https://about.gitlab.com/direction/maturity/ meets your expectations. We recently update the criteria for viable and complete to incorporate dogfooding: - Viable: Significant use at GitLab the company. - Complete: GitLab the company dogfoods it exclusively. And thanks for calling us an awesome tool. Hope you don't mind the tongue-in-cheek response at the top of my comment :)
  - ldoughty 6y ago
    While not the above commenter, I found the reply enjoyable. Thank you. GitLab had been great for us, though we've had issues around their educational institutions license.. so we can't use a lot of the fancy features... But I've enjoyed ops work more on GitLab than GitHub or Jenkins.
jayd16 6y ago
>Graphic Design repo it emphasises Kubernetes, Packages and Security features that have zero relevance. And there is no way to disable them. You can do it in Settings > General > "Visibility, project features, permissions"
- threeseed 6y ago
  Not for everything you can't. I am using Gitlab Next and Kubernetes, Security & Compliance, Operations, Analytics, Members are not removable options.
  - sytse 6y ago
    Thanks, I will raise this with our product team.
    - josegonzalez 6y ago
      +1 At my last place, we deployed via Nomad and not Kubernetes, yet we had "AutoDevops" on every repository page and developers trying to use it/ask questions about it. Being able to wholesale disable features across the install would be a good first step.
tenaciousDaniel 6y ago
A graphic design repo...that's fascinating. UI design? Print? I've never seen designers use full-on version control, so this is super interesting to me. Do you consider yourself more of a technical person?
chillfox 6y ago
It feels very cluttered these days. I really wish I could disable features on a group/project basis and have those things just disappear from the interface. Ideally by a simple list of toggles. Mostly I only use the Git, CI, Readme rendering, Docker registry and that's about it. Everything else just gets in the way and makes the interface harder to navigate.

sytse 6y ago

This comment makes a lot of good points. I think we can stop recommending License and Contributors since GitLab is mostly used for closed source software. The templates will still be there but just not suggested until you started to create a new file. And you should be able to disable everything but the repo if you want to. And of course you can disable the repo as well if you just want the planning features for example.

threeseed 6y ago
Also please put in place this simple UI rule: "If it doesn't need attention don't make it coloured or bold" e.g. thumbs up/down, report abuse etc.
- sytse 6y ago
  Thanks for the examples. BYW There is also a reply in this thread from a GitLab UX team-member who responds to a comment about the thumbs up/down and report abuse buttons https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23606854 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23606854

lttlrck 6y ago

Yes agree completely. I'd love to whittle down the noise.

rossmohax 6y ago

> It's great and impressive how quick Gitlab moves in adding new features. Don't trust their feature list, they often "forget" to use it themselves. Many of those features are there to tick the box and daze executives, but are barely usable in practice. It took them a year to start supporting Kubernetes clusters with RBAC, they didn't use autodevops for their own releases, even for simple components, nor any kubernetes integration, monitoring, feature flags, Geo, backup procedure. Who in the right mind is going to enable Web Application Firewall feature, when rules exceptions cannot be configured? Somewhere in comments here will be reply from Gitlab employee, saying that dogfooding is something they are constantly working on, it doesn't matter. What they should be doing is to update documentation pages with feature maturity level and have a block of links to most popular bugs related to the feature, so that poor devops engineers don't have to rediscover all the pain and come prepared. Just to be clear, Gitlab is an awesome tool, it is just not as awesome as their marketing wants us to believe.

sytse 6y ago
"Somewhere in comments here will be reply from Gitlab employee, saying that dogfooding is something they are constantly working on" To ensure we meet your expectations I want to state that we're continuously working on dogfooding, you can track our progress in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues?label_name=Dogfooding&sort=updated_desc https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues?label_name=Dog... "What they should be doing is to update documentation pages with feature maturity level and have a block of links to most popular bugs related to the feature" That is a great idea and I wonder if https://about.gitlab.com/direction/maturity/ https://about.gitlab.com/direction/maturity/ meets your expectations. We recently update the criteria for viable and complete to incorporate dogfooding: - Viable: Significant use at GitLab the company. - Complete: GitLab the company dogfoods it exclusively. And thanks for calling us an awesome tool. Hope you don't mind the tongue-in-cheek response at the top of my comment :)
- ldoughty 6y ago
  While not the above commenter, I found the reply enjoyable. Thank you. GitLab had been great for us, though we've had issues around their educational institutions license.. so we can't use a lot of the fancy features... But I've enjoyed ops work more on GitLab than GitHub or Jenkins.

jayd16 6y ago

>Graphic Design repo it emphasises Kubernetes, Packages and Security features that have zero relevance. And there is no way to disable them. You can do it in Settings > General > "Visibility, project features, permissions"

threeseed 6y ago
Not for everything you can't. I am using Gitlab Next and Kubernetes, Security & Compliance, Operations, Analytics, Members are not removable options.
- sytse 6y ago
  Thanks, I will raise this with our product team.
  - josegonzalez 6y ago
    +1 At my last place, we deployed via Nomad and not Kubernetes, yet we had "AutoDevops" on every repository page and developers trying to use it/ask questions about it. Being able to wholesale disable features across the install would be a good first step.

tenaciousDaniel 6y ago

A graphic design repo...that's fascinating. UI design? Print? I've never seen designers use full-on version control, so this is super interesting to me. Do you consider yourself more of a technical person?

chillfox 6y ago

It feels very cluttered these days. I really wish I could disable features on a group/project basis and have those things just disappear from the interface. Ideally by a simple list of toggles. Mostly I only use the Git, CI, Readme rendering, Docker registry and that's about it. Everything else just gets in the way and makes the interface harder to navigate.