Feedback Issue: New dashboard 💬

[gtsiolis]

Objective

The aim of this issue is to gather feedback on the recent changes of the dashboard design to be released at the end of this milestone (March 2021). Any feedback is welcome! 💭

Background

We've implemented the first iteration of the new dashboard design while a) rewriting the frontend part using utility classes, b) building our own components from scratch, and more. We're approaching the development of the dashboard using an MVC (Minimum Viable Change) approach and we plan to iteratively improve existing or add new functionalities in the upcoming milestones. See also component: dashboard label in the issue tracker.

Feedback

Any feedback is welcome but we're primarily looking for the following types of feedback:

1. How could the new dashboard be improved? 💡
2. What didn’t work as you expected it to? 💭
3. What do you like best about the new dashboard? 🧡

Feel free to send in any comments, thoughts, emojis, screenshots, or screencasts as well as open any new separate issues with a concrete problem statement for further discussion.

[erasmuswill]

Where did the dark mode go 😭
Other than that, looks pretty good!

[filiptronicek]

Where did the dark mode go 😭
Other than that, looks pretty good!

That's the only thing missing so far for me, love the new UI and the new logo!

[filiptronicek]

Ok, found a couple of things that I think can be improved:
I would love to have the VS Code logo colored when I hover over it or have it selected. I know that Theia only has a darker logo, but I'm sure there's something that can be done to make it stand out when it's selected, maybe lesser opacity or a stronger grayscale effect.

Right now	My proposal

Also, the billing popup has the old color scheme and logo, just noting that if it got swept under the rug somehow

/cc @gtsiolis

[erasmuswill]

I'm on Chrome OS and ctrl-C and ctrl-shift-C don't work to copy in the terminal any more. I also miss the repo link in the bottom left corner.

[gtsiolis]

Thanks @filiptronicek @erasmuswill! ❤️

1. Dark theme is on our definitely on our radar for the upcoming releases, currently planned for the next milstone (Q2'2021). Added [dashboard] Dark theme #3806 to track this.
2. @filiptronicek regarding the icon colors, we decided to dim the colors from third-party integrations like other git providers and editors but we can certainly consider turning the lights on for the editor preferences.
3. @filiptronicek brand logos will be gradually replaced including the ones in the billing pop-up (see Update Logo / brand #3771). Stay tuned for some more updates on www.gitpod.io tomorrow. 😇

[filiptronicek]

Not sure if this is intended (probably not), but when I search for a workspace, and no results are found, for some reason the New Workspace button disappears.

There is a search result	There is no search result

[gtsiolis]

Thanks for noticing @filiptronicek! This is known, see #3639. Feel free to search for bug reports or feature requests using the component: dashboard label for anything related to the dashboard. 💡

[filiptronicek]

@gtsiolis sorry, my bad, thanks for redirecting me.

[jabuwu]

Hiding unpinned/inactive workspaces is a good change. I'm happy to see dark mode is a priority. Removing the target="_blank" from "Open" is a nice change - I don't think there's much benefit to leaving the workspaces page open. Switching to VS Code by default is a good change, but I won't be using it, since there's no working Vim plugin (or if there is, maybe someone can point me in its direction?) Unfortunately, this rollout seems to have broken the Vim plugin in Theia, but that's a separate issue.

I wish that the Open/Stop operations were more easily accessible. Those two operations are the primary reason I visit the /workspaces page so I think it would be better if they were not behind a menu that takes up so little space on the page.

Edit: I just noticed you can click on the name to open the workspace, but this really wasn't obvious to me. I actually expected clicking it to rename the workspace. Wasn't that an option before, or am I misremembering?

[raghubetina]

If the default filter is going to be "Active", maybe we should expand the definition of "Active" from only "running or pinned" to also include workspaces that were interacted with within, say, the past week? A couple of reasons:

• I just starting reviewing a PR yesterday (I usually create the workspace using the Chrome extension directly from the PR) and will be using the workspace for the next day or two. Now I need to remember to visit the dashboard to Pin the workspace (but I don't really want to keep it); or I have to switch my filter from Active to All every time I come to my dashboard to find it over the next few days.
• If I want to restart a workspace, I have to (click) ellipsis menu, (click) stop, wait for it to stop, it disappears from my list of workspaces, (click) "Filter", (click) "All", find workspace again in the list, (click) to start workspace.

[pattacini]

Edit: I just noticed you can click on the name to open the workspace, but this really wasn't obvious to me. I actually expected clicking it to rename the workspace. Wasn't that an option before, or am I misremembering?

@jabuwu yep in the old dashboard there was the possibility to click on the workspace for renaming it, which is an option I was using a lot and that I'd like to have available again if possible 😀

[shaal]

When clicking on the 3 vertical dots🚦 on the right side of each workspace - the menu opens up (as expected).
If I don't click on the 3 vertical dots again, to close the menu, the menu will show up opened every time I hover above the workspace row.