| Matthew | |
| Jun 10 2021, 19:34 |
| F165: image.png | |
| Jun 13 2021, 18:39 |
This is open to discussion. My thoughts initially:
Dashboards: left side (2/3) would contain announcements, recent tasks, and recent diffusion revisions. Right side (1/3) would contain the feed.
Sidebar:
Favorites:
| Status | Assigned | Task | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Resolved | Matthew | T15003 Configure default dashboards / sidebars / favourites | ||
| Resolved | Matthew | T15007 Extends access to part of phorge to logged out users |
I feel that the first center-panel should be a "Welcome" panel. This panel would in the shortest amount of text possible :
I feel each of these things would just be links - Sort of similar to how Evan's welcome message was.
So - Shortest amount of text possible, but allows a brand new person arriving at the home page, to know what the heck Phorge is all about
Welcome to Phorge. Phorge is an open source, community driven platform for collaborating, managing, organizing and reviewing software development projects. You can learn more about the features of Phorge [here] and how to install Phorge [here]. You can ask for help [here] and [here] and you can learn about contributing to Phorge (here)
Dashboard adjusted, we only need to work on the links. Dashboard has been set to the home page.
Sidebar and favorites also adjusted.
I'm going to have to be honest here. While this is more appropriate for logged out users, this is a net regression for a regular user.
It takes a ton of screen space for things that are not relevant for a regular contributor - the welcome thing - and adds an indirection for what's actually most useful - tasks and diffs that needs something from me.
It's especially a problem, IMO, since none of this is viewable for a logged out user anyways, which is presumably the only target audience for which this is better. I'm going to have to reopen this.
On a more positive note, I can set things up so that patches, tasks &al can be viewed when not logged in, if this is something we want to proceed with. I'll create a task for it and make it depend on that one.
This dashboard was originally intended for non-logged in users. See discussion in T15000. We are holding off opening this install until anti-spam measures are configured. Logged-in users are welcome to create their own dashboards, with information they see fit.
This nevertheless regressed the dashboard for everybody vs what was before. I'm sorry but I don't want to be welcome to create my own dashboard with the information I see fit on it, because I had one that was pretty good to begin with. You just broke everybody's dashboard. If it is for logged out users, and you don't want to put it up now, then just park it somewhere.
Okay, I added one module (which was the "Welcome" box) and moved three modules into a tabbed view ("recent stuff"). While I did remove some features from the sidebar, those are editable at https://secure.phorge.it/home/menu/configure/custom/ . This task was up for 24 hours for feedback, and was mentioned on Zulip during that time.
If it's an issue, make your own dashboard or set of favorites. There is no option to have a "logged-out" vs "logged-in" set of favorites or dashboards. An enhancement to change that might be in order for the future, but for now, I don't see a compelling case to change things back.
Apologies, I just re-read this comment and the heat-to-light ratio was too high. I find the dashboards application frustrating, and I think that came out in this comment.
Long story short, there is no way that I can see to create a separate logged-out and logged-in dashboard for users. There is no way to mark a dashboard as "logged-out" only. Same thing with favorites. In the future, I feel that we need to change this, having a separate set of "Global favorites" for logged-out and logged-in. In theory, we should be able to create multiple sets of favorites and set them to specific groups. The application doesn't support that now, and that's my biggest frustration.
@deadalnix Since you seem to have some issues with the current configuration, I invite you to reconfigure as you see fit. Dashboard is the dashboard itself, while the sidebar is configured at https://secure.phorge.it/home/menu/configure/global/ .
No need to apologize, i wasn't super clear myself, so let me try to make my point in a more cogent manner. The main thing that bothered me with what happen is that our default should be to use the phorge's default (that I happen to find good myself, but it is not super relevant to the point). This comes down to dogfooding. The default configuration is what we are going to put into people's hand. We must ensure this is as good as possible for as many users as possible right out of the bat. This will never happen if the standard phorge install doesn't use the default, because what's out of sight also typically is out of mind.
If we think the default dashboard is inadequate, then we should be working on what's the right new default dashboard. I do not think the result of this task are that right default dashboard, because it is geared toward logged out users, and is a regression in my opinion for logged in users, for the very reason that it makes infos directly related to the user less accessible, in order to make infos that do not bring much value to a contributor (they presumably already know what phorge is by the point they become contributor).
Looking at it through that lense, I don't think we should configure a default dashboard for users.
So - If I am a brand new user that comes across this main Phorge page
If these questions are not answerable within 2 seconds from the home page - You lose audience - Potential and potential new user.
I get what @deadalnix is saying, however, having a welcome message is critical to ensure that first time visitors to phorge.it have a path forward
Currently - If a new user, with no knowledge of Phorge ends up on our home page - They will leave
This comes down to dogfooding.
Creating a text-based component with a welcome message IS dogfooding - We are using our own application and adding a panel....You could even add a "learn how this panel was created" link in there if you want
is a regression in my opinion for logged in users,
I always used secure.phabricator.com welcome message - it had links to docs, the discourse forum, and contribution - I have been a visitor to that site for 5 years and I always looked to the welcome message
And further to that - Showing this welcome message, instantly helps a user realize that this home page is completely customizable, without even having to say it.
If we think the default dashboard is inadequate, then we should be working on what's the right new default dashboard
The most important point about dashboards - is that they are customizable - when you install Phorge, you can design your own dashboard - I would be surprised to find an install that doesn't in some way customize their home page
make infos that do not bring much value to a contributor
Links to docs, how to install, etc. - Are useful - And secure.phorge.it is NOT just for contributors is it? - It is for anyone that is a user of Phorge, or interested in learning more about Phorge, AND contributors.
The logged out dashboard is already different from the logged-in default dashboard:
I don't think we should leave the default dashboard just for the sake of dogfooding; For one thing, this instance has different usage behavior than most instances (It's a public instance with lots of "passing-through" users; for example, 95% of the users here will never have a task assigned to them).
Another idea here: Why don't we create a demo instance with all of the defaults? Like, half a dozen sample tasks, some sample repositories, allow users to mess around with it, and wipe it every hour back to a default database. I've seen that in multiple open source projects.
That way, we can have a customized dashboard for this ("upstream") install, and leave the defaults for that ("demo") install. It also might cut down on people testing on this install as well, which is a net positive for upstream management.
In general, the Welcome message stuff (And most of the concerns I outlined in T15003#216) will be taken care of in a new root / webpage(s) that will live at phorge.it and/or www.phorge.it - See T15000#234 for some background discussion
I added T15008 to cover this project