Please use a useful workspace name instead of a nonsensical one

[rfay]

I never can figure out what is in a tab without looking at the code. Instead of a nonsensical name like https://purple-scorpion-d98aj3rj.ws-us04.gitpod.io/ could we have one that hints at the contents?

So for example, if I open up github.com/drud/ddev with GitHub Codespaces I get a URL like this: https://rfay-drud-ddev-479f.github.dev/ - it indicates that it's owned by rfay, and is drud/ddev at 479f. Nice. Thanks! Solves several other name-related complaints here like #3908

Thanks for gitpod! It's amazing.

[csweichel]

This definitely needs feedback from @svenefftinge; wdyt?

(removing from groundwork until this becomes actionable)

[svenefftinge]

I think it's a good improvement. We currently have two name segments followed by 8 characters to make the workspace unique. Since seeing my username as the first segment wouldn't help me to distinguish workspaces, I propose to leave that out.

We can change the name function so that you can optionally pass in two segments that match the regexp [0-9a-z]{2,16}. We could include _ which we use to replace any character that doesn't fit.

For git-based workspaces we can then generate names using org followed by the repo-name.

e.g.: gitpod_io-gitpod-12rpnh3r

[atduarte]

Related with #898 and #4857

[svenefftinge]

We just had another discussion on this. To make sure we are moving in the right direction I'd like to understand what you wrote here:

I get a URL like this: https://rfay-drud-ddev-479f.github.dev/ - it indicates that it's owned by rfay, and is drud/ddev at 479f. Nice.

Assuming that the problem to solve is distinguishing workspaces based on the URL, I don't see how this pattern helps, because

1. all my workspace would start with the same username
2. many people work mostly on one or two projects, so with ephemeral workspaces in Gitpod you'd get many workspaces with the same name I assume.

I can only see this becoming more helpfully once we add information that really separates workspaces from each other (e.g. context, such as mr/pr, issue, branch). But encoding all this into the URL doesn't seem great either. So would it help if we were surfacing the workspace description (derived from context) a bit more again?

I'm thinking about showing the workspace description in the browser tab again and also allow editing it.

[rfay]

1. One doesn't just open their own workspaces... People test drud/ddev, they test shaal/gitpod, they test shaal/Drupalpod, lots of things. That's the whole idea behind Gitpod right? You can just visit a repo and have a workspace to test it.
2. Again... you have deliberately designed GitPod to be used with disposable workspaces, so we'd assume more than just a few.

I welcome editing the name, it would help. But a default name that's meaningful is superb to start with.

[stale]

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