Move the clone button to the tree controls area
Problem to solve
The clone button was moved to the top in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/merge_requests/22196 to highlight one of the main CTAs in the project details page but has caused some a discoverability issue (see https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/59001) since the clone button is no longer visible in the project repository page.
The new clone button has also received some negative feedback (see https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/59001#note_156860519 and https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/59001#note_157282792).
Intended users
Most of the users, but let's focus on the Development Team Lead, Product Designer, Software Developer, and DevOps Engineer.
Further details
See project details v. project repository.
Proposal
Moving the clone button to the tree controls area in project details page (see https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/59001#note_152160287) along with project repository (see #59001 (moved)) could have the following benefits:
- The button will become bigger and maybe more easy to detect.
- Help maintain navigation consistency by having this in the same relative order next to controls like Find File, Web IDE, etc. See Consistent Navigation in VPAT.
- On mobile, the clone button currently occupies a large area of the view and the action is hardly useful on mobile, if not redundant.
| Before | After |
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Empty repo
Let's add a 'Clone' button to the empty repository as it improves the experience of finding a way to clone the newly created repo (gitlab-org/ux-research#184).
What does success look like, and how can we measure that?
Users access the clone URL from the project repository page.