Poor UI performance is the no1 complaint I get from our devs when I talk to them about jenkins.
I would be really really interested in killing ajax polling all over jenkins UI and using servlet 3.0 for async stuff. I posted couple of threads earlier about Servlet 3.0 upgrade but it didn't receive much attention. On Wednesday, February 18, 2015 at 10:27:12 AM UTC-6, Gus Reiber wrote: > > At the end of last summer, my friend and co-worker, Tom Fennelly > <https://github.com/tfennelly>, along with the help of Kevin Burke > <https://github.com/kevinburke>, Daniel Beck > <https://github.com/daniel-beck>, and others began the first steps of > improving and modernizing the Jenkins user experience. In addition to some > of the superficial enhancements, these changes are meant to add a bit of > responsiveness and cross-device usability to the Jenkins GUI, as well as > adding a means of creating and swapping new CSS based display themes. This > effort is best summarized by this article from Jenkins-ci.org, and this > thread from the Jenkinsci-users group: > > - *User Interface Refresh > <http://jenkins-ci.org/node/501#disqus_thread>:* > http://jenkins-ci.org/node/501#disqus_thread > - *Any comments on the UI changes in 1.572 > > <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/jenkinsci-users/ui$20tom/jenkinsci-users/ULEV87g9iac/LaTt5J2tHV8J>:* > > > https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/jenkinsci-users/ui$20tom/jenkinsci-users/ULEV87g9iac/LaTt5J2tHV8J > > As part of our second wave effort here at CloudBees, I am looking at ways > of improving the usability of the Jelly based form controls used in the > item creation and configuration pages and the responsiveness and > interactivity of the main dashboard grid control. > > In my investigations so far, I believe there are essentially 3 > non-exclusive paths forward for enhancing these elements: > > 1. *CSS only --* Building on the last round of enhancements, we can > offer a set of theme extensions that will allow the Jenkins users and > community to customize basic layout, iconography, and typeface to tailor > Jenkins to their own tastes. > 2. *UI component expansion and refactoring --* By modifying and adding > to the existing set of Jelly files and their corresponding data binding > rules we can significantly modernize the way Jenkins views and configs > draw > themselves and potentially streamline plugin creation. > 3. *Client side MVC veneers --* In a manner similar to what CloudBees > has recently done with the new Workflow visualization, we can rethink our > approach to new feature UIs by using a REST API based architecture coupled > with client-side rendering widgets. This would allow us to use newer > framework libraries like Angular.js and newer component libraries like > Bootstrap and JQuery UI to add greater richness to the Jenkins user > experience. > > These are likely not the only paths forward, but merely the first I can > think of. With that reality in mind, I am hoping to reach out to you the > Jenkins community to help ground and sculpt our thinking about what is both > possible and desirable. > > If you are at all interested in the Jenkins user experience, I would love > to get your feedback of any sort on this thread, which could be as simple > as a "+1" or as involved as a PHD thesis or as much as you have time to > type into a response box. > > To the extent that it helps conversation along, I also have a handful of > questions to which I would love responses: > > 1. For plugin builders, can you tell me a bit about creating the UI > portion of your plugin (did you use the data binding form controls, what > was hard, what did you have to invent)? > 2. For regular Jenkins users, what are the UX areas of Jenkins you > would most like to see improved (I think it is the item create/config and > the dashboard/job list grid, but would love to hear others and general > feedback)? > 3. For UXers and other Jenkins contributors, how do my 3 forward paths > seem (are there others, do you have experience with any yourself, do any > seem scary)? > 4. Has anyone tried to make their own themes with the new capabilities > Tom has added or would you appreciate and handful of canned options to > choose between? > 5. Has anyone started using Workflow on a regular basis, and in > particular used the new workflow progress visualization enough to offer > feedback? > > > Again, if any of you all are at all interested in the Jenkins UX, we at > CloudBees are interested in helping move this ball forward and would love > to hear your feedback. > > Thanks for your help, > Gus > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Jenkins Developers" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jenkinsci-dev/c108db80-b171-4cee-b585-dcc03bd178d1%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
