@Ullrich -- I love your post, as it fits with my suspicions. Tom is right that a lot can be accomplished via CSS, not all of which is just window dressing, but the concern I share is that if the communities top concerns are things like screen performance, control complexity, and clarity of what the standards are and even how the component code works, it likely sends the wrong message when we invest in things like fonts and icons. Again, that isn't to say we shouldn't also look at the fonts and icons, but that can't be all we do.
Ullrich, correct me if I am wrong, but it sounds like you would be willing to accept some level of plugin compatibility risk to see some improvement and modernization in the Jenkins UX and an enhancement to the tool set that allows for the construction of future UIs? On Friday, February 20, 2015 at 3:57:28 PM UTC-8, Ullrich Hafner wrote: > > As I plug-in developer I would like to have more powerful UI building > blocks that I can *easily* use. E.g., in my static analysis plug-in I’m > currently using plain and old YUI tabs to categorize warnings by module, > package, etc. Now that Tom improved the main view tabs in Jenkins core I > also would love to improve these plug-in tabs in the same way. Is this > feasible? How much effort does it take? What are the steps to do? etc. > > As you already mentioned, the job configuration is not very user friendly, > especially if there are multiple Advanced, Add, Delete, etc. buttons. If > the input field layout is complex then it is really hard to understand > which button belongs to which group. Having some layout templates would > help... > > And finally what I also would like to see is the possibility to have a > more appealing project view where trend graphs etc. could be rearranged > (e.g., like the Jira dashboard). One of my students is planning to provide > some views in a way similar to Sonar in his master thesis. Is this easy to > achieve in Jenkins? Where should we start the work? Can we reuse some > existing components/libraries? > > So my +1 for your path 2 and 3. > > What I think is not so important is theming (but this might be a matter of > taste). This works quite well for Jenkins core but as soon as other plugins > are involved (and we have more than 1000) this is normally getting a mess. > I would rather prefer to have *one* good looking theme for core *and* > plugins. (This is quite similar to e.g. IOS themes where you get really > beautiful new icons for the most important apps, but you still have a lot > of other icons around that look totally misplaced in the new icon scheme). > Here it would help if we would have some interested volunteers who would > help plug-in developers to provide consistent icons. > > Am 18.02.2015 um 17:27 schrieb Gus Reiber <gre...@cloudbees.com > <javascript:>>: > > 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 jenkinsci-de...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jenkinsci-dev/83937142-c675-4260-92ab-1dd1be82ca03%40googlegroups.com > > <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jenkinsci-dev/83937142-c675-4260-92ab-1dd1be82ca03%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer> > . > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > > > -- 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 jenkinsci-dev+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/jenkinsci-dev/f08464f5-3532-4215-acb0-7d150c909651%40googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
