Inconsistent Changes
From a Customer (Also CC'd) ticket:
today I installed the new version 9.0.0 ee (coming from 8.14) for testing and found the ui was changed again. The new ui has brings several changes which are really annoying:
· after upgrading the background color is lost
· the menu changed again à lost the ability to pin the menu à need two clicks instead of one now
· when trying to change the merge request author nothing happens
· the ui is inconsistent, merge request on the global list don’t have the search box
· the search box allows do strange mixing text and filtering and feels more complicated in use
· the switch from the searchbox to the comboboxes when ticking the checkbox might lead users to confuse with the old selection boxes.
Due to the fact that you have to press enter to apply the filter in the searchbox, the button for updating the merge requests gets confused with updating the merge request list (apply filter).
· I accidently changed the merge requests assignee just? This is dangerous. There should be at least the possibility to enable a warning dialog similar as when your delete a tag/branch.
Overall I have fears to release GitLab 9 to production without the risk some body screws up the database. When you do such changes please at least do them in a consistent way and add the necessary warning dialogs. GitLab EE is sold for business but seeing the inconsistencies and the many changes in the ui from version to version, makes it appears to us more like is a playground for ui designers. Don’t get this wrong we have nothing against adding new things to the ui and improve it where it’s necessary, especially when it’s just no longer matching the needs. But this time we really changing the navigation to a menu is step backwards. Combined with the inconsistency, losing the coloring this is just doesn’t look like a release mature for ee.
So here some question which arise:
· Can we get back the old style navigation bar? Why was that change needed at all?
· Where are the application theme gone? This allows us to change the background which was very handy to see directly on which GitLab instance you were.
· Can we disable the searchbox and get the combo-boxes back? Why can’t we just type “author” space “username”?