Hmm, as someone who spends most of their time on github looking at pull requests and issues, this seems a step backwards.
Not a huge one, but it was nicer to have my most frequent points of interaction at the top. I deal with the code itself in my local repo. I don't need to know how many commits/branches/tags/contributors there are -- that is the redundant info for me, and that should have been shoved to the side.
If I'm using github's UI, it's because I'm managing a project. Might be nice to have a separate "management" interface you can opt into?
tldr: They moved all the "extra" stuff to the side, while keeping the info directly related to the git repo in the center. But the whole point of using github is the value they add, not the core functionality that I can already get through my commandline!
>> replaced with a slim, de-emphasized icon-based navigation.
This is the same problem I had with a Gmail redesign a while back. Using icons looks nice and allows for slimmer navigation but it decreases ease of use for me. I can find things much quicker with text labels.
I have the same concern. I find it's even more troublesome with the flat/simplistic design aesthetic: it just takes way longer for my brain to differentiate one light-gray-on-white abstract symbol from another than it does to pattern match word shapes.
I've even turned on whatever Gmail lab puts the words back into the buttons.
It was pretty common during the 90s when screen resolutions were really low and preserving space was a big deal. We're seeing it again now because of mobile friendly responsive designs dealing with the same issue.
I have this problem all the time when using various minimal websites on my tablet. I can't mouse over for a tooltip, so if I don't recognize the icons I just have to start randomly clicking and hoping I don't end up being redirected to my mail app or something.
Finding the right balance between casual consumers of github and developers who live in it all day must be challenging, though.
EDIT: I didn't realize that the front page for a given repo shows text in the sidebar. Good on them, I like that compromise.
Honest question: Is Github supposed to be about Git and code?
Statement of opinion: It seems to me that Github is the leader of online code hosting. However, this position could be disrupted because, and I could be wrong, Github focuses on items not directly related to git and/or code.
I dream of a time when the average person making manuals or Stand Operating Procedures in an office environment can see the benefits of source control and has tools that make git easy.
The company that truly focuses on making Git itself dead simple and powerful will win. I pay github every month, but I am starting to lose my patience. I am actively looking to support a company that focuses on abstracting the completely unforgiving nature of git.
In my opinion, you shouldn't need to be a command line virtuoso nor need to grok the entirety of the git code base to use git. Eventually, everyone gets dirty with git and thats when the lack thought in usability exposes itself. Github could focus on this, but it seems like they have other priorities which is fine. I have mine too.
You can clone with HTTPS, SSH, Subversion, and other methods.
Before I clicked "Enable Repository Next" there was also a "Git Read-Only" option.
The "other methods" text points to https://help.github.com/articles/which-remote-url-should-i-u... which lists HTTPS read-only & read-write and SSH read/write. Last time I looked that page also listed Git read-only (with the description "All git:// URLs are anonymous, public and read-only. Private repositories do not have this URL type. // Use these URLs when cloning someone else's repository (where you don't have write access) and for submodules that point at public repositories.").
There was no explanation in the "Repository Next" blog posting that git:// URLs were being disappeared...
Agreed. I use Bitbucket every day, and while it's far short of 30 seconds, I do find it takes a second or two of extra scanning to notice where the repo URL is. And it's essentially on the top right, not aggressively out of the way.
Now, Github's pushing it even further out of view than Bitbucket's location.
Yeah but by the time you've used the site a couple times, you'll be able to find the repo url from then on. It really doesn't make any sense being at the top of the page taking up so much prime space.
They added a green button which i assume is "fork on github". It seems they want to encourage people to use github rather to clone to local filesystem.
The new design looks stunning next to the older one - which already looked good.
Am I the only one wishing the readme was above the file list? In my case, I often read the readme and rarely look at the files, and as a landing page standpoint it seems logical that the readme would be front facing instead of hidden at the bottom. I'm curious what's the reasoning behind that order, since it's been that way forever and GitHub seems to be fairly dedicated to elegant and thoughtful design while being open to change, I imagine there must be a good explanation.
edit: It's for pull requests. When you enable the new design, you get a quick explanation of the green button and where the clone URL has moved to. So far I'm really liking the new design!
I really wish Github would bring back issues search and would stop making the top search bar default to the current repository. I constantly search something there and always forget to select "Search all Github". That being said, I think it's good that they are reducing the clutter.
Yeah, me too. It happens to me at least daily. I don't think I have ever wanted to search within the repository and it certainly shouldn't be default. In fact, I might write a browser extension to make it global by default again.
I don't mind the navigation being on the right, but the clone url doesn't appear on most repositories which is one of the most important elements of the repo.
search all of github is broken anyway. Half of my projects couldn't run with the language they choose to label it with. Unless you wade into the src, you have no idea what the repo actually is.
I wish there was a good way to search code. The input is filtered to be safe, which makes it really difficult to find a specific piece of code (especially when searching all of GH).
Call me a Luddite, when a tool I use every day is completely redesigned, and marketed with phrases like "The content is the interface", I begin to shit my pants.
It's especially scary because there's no rollback. At least I still have gnome desktop, for now...
GitHub issues is another kettle of fish, but does anything force you to use the github interface to use the repositories? Forking, or making buckets?
You can host a copy of your repo on github, another on, say, bitbucket, and another on gitorious, and as long as you take care of syncing between them, you should be alright, right?
I just switched over to the new design and I like it. My favorite part: no more silly horizontal sliding animation. Thank you so much for removing that.
Though--and I hate to sound ungrateful--Github has always seemed slow and unfortunately this new design doesn't help as much as I hoped it would when I read about it. I acknowledge that the new design is quicker, and removing the animation makes the wait for a response considerably less annoying, but Github remains a slow site to navigate. Put as positively as I can: thank you for working on performance, and please continue to do so.
This might be a nice update, I'll opt-int for some projects and try it out, but it doesn't address my biggest problem with GitHub: the lack of decent code review tools.
I have to use an external review tool like Reitveld to get side-by-side diffs and better comment and patch-set management.
Can't say I like the new look. The pjax improvements are great, of course. But moving all the top menus to a right-hand sidebar just doesn't work well. How glaring is it when the cloning uri, which is wide sequence of letters, is squeezed into a narrow sidebar and thus mostly cutoff. It is is awful. Did they consider drop down menus if it was really necessary to reduce the clutter at the top of the page? Otherwise move the navigation menu to the left and allow the page to fill the screen.
Sorry to be negative. I appreciate work to improve things, some of these changes just aren't. Hope they keep working on it.
I have never understood the reason for putting the commit comments of some random file within it next to the folder name.
It's unnecessary noise and what would be far more useful is how many files and folders that folder actually contained.
To be honest I don't really see the point of putting the comments next to the file name either.
Also, I wish for the love of god that they put the file size there.
Then again my primary use case of github is reading code to learn and having a nosey at how good a coder someone is, so I'm generally looking for the bulk of a program, hence the usefulness of file size and the uselessness of commit comments.
It is, of course, not just some random file -- it's the file that has the most recent commit in that directory.
Or rather, it's the commit message from the most recent commit in that directory (it's not so much about files at all).
I find it quite useful, to see if there have been any recent changes in that directory (and specifically when and what) or if it hasn't been changed in years.
The code browser is in my opinion one of the most useful features of github. Commit history and blame combined with the "unnecessary noise" you describes makes it very easy for me to find out the last time I touched some line or file and what changed.
Why do you really care about the file size and amount of files btw?
A few quick first thoughts, having just flipped the switch. I think the description and website fields should be click to edit (and the labels need to be wired up). And I'm not a fan of the increasing emphasis on % LOC by programming language - this seems like an extremely low value metric to be so prominent, and a terrible way to distinguish between repos!
I'm looking forward to digging more into the redesign in my usage of it today. Glad to see GitHub continuing to improve and happy to re-think the current state of the app.
I guess that's a matter of opinion... they're changing things, and whether that qualifies as improvement is, in most cases, likely to end up being pretty subjective (unless the change is exactly limited to something like "our pages now all render twice as fast!").
And really... do we need to make everything about something Jobs said? The only part I'd agree with here is that "foolish" might apply if they drop the ball by making the UI less usable/intuitive, in which case "stay foolish" is horrible advice and will negatively effect a whole lot of users.
It looks like the code viewing area was narrowed. If the redesign was meant to put more focus on content, this decision is perplexing.
I wish they'd make a responsive design that would make use of my 24" monitor. Right now I've resorted to writing a Chrome plugin to widen the code viewing area via CSS.
> It looks like the code viewing area was narrowed.
Doesn't look like it[1].
I'm not sure that a much wider github would be of use to me. Most projects usually place some kind of limitation on the number of characters per line and even in the file browser I don't find filenames long enough to take that kind of space. Maybe you have some other use cases worth sharing?
I dislike the right side persistent navigation bar. It takes up considerable room and it makes the page unbalanced as you scroll down. I prefer the content to take up the full width and to be centered. When you scroll down on a long page, the navigation scrolls out of view and content is off center. When I code, I prefer to designate the majority of my screen to the code. The right navigation column seems like wasted space.
This was my first impression too. Especially when viewing the Readme for a project it's much narrower and feels more squashed. They seem to of focused on the project owner use case and ignored the project user use case.
No matter whether you love or hate the new UI, github is going to actively iterate on this design and improve it.
I can't tell you how many times I have had a github tab open and then popped open another and my layout has slightly changed (like shrinking a font or changing colors). They don't stop with UI tweaks until they think things are perfect.
Expect this to continue to evolve even without another major release from them.
I think this redesign is pretty bad for UX but great for design (e.g. it's pretty but useless).
1.) You cannot make a PR from the main repo page anymore, you must go to a branch.
2.) The number of commits is emphasized over the number of pull requests, WTF? This one just blows me away.
3.) The whole PR process itself is largely more complicated and requires many more clicks (e.g. trying to swich repos is a bitch, and you have to click just to see the drop down, which then disappears after you select one).
4.) The right hand navigation bar is more or less worthless and too small.
5.) Moving the link to clone/co to the bottom right of the page is silly and totally makes it harder to find/use. I still don't see how this can be less important than the number of commits...
I still love github, it looks nice, it's just totally unusable. Feels like an April Fool's day joke come early with bad taste.
[+] [-] shardling|12 years ago|reply
Not a huge one, but it was nicer to have my most frequent points of interaction at the top. I deal with the code itself in my local repo. I don't need to know how many commits/branches/tags/contributors there are -- that is the redundant info for me, and that should have been shoved to the side.
If I'm using github's UI, it's because I'm managing a project. Might be nice to have a separate "management" interface you can opt into?
tldr: They moved all the "extra" stuff to the side, while keeping the info directly related to the git repo in the center. But the whole point of using github is the value they add, not the core functionality that I can already get through my commandline!
[+] [-] ericras|12 years ago|reply
This is the same problem I had with a Gmail redesign a while back. Using icons looks nice and allows for slimmer navigation but it decreases ease of use for me. I can find things much quicker with text labels.
[+] [-] ianterrell|12 years ago|reply
I've even turned on whatever Gmail lab puts the words back into the buttons.
That said, Github looks to be mitigating this issue by having full text on the root screen for the repo. Compare the sidebar here: https://f.cloud.github.com/assets/1354/660756/cc8cad9c-d714-... and here: https://f.cloud.github.com/assets/1354/660769/fe4a1a0e-d714-...
Maybe that will train my brain with positional data a little better than Gmail managed to.
[+] [-] hkarthik|12 years ago|reply
It was pretty common during the 90s when screen resolutions were really low and preserving space was a big deal. We're seeing it again now because of mobile friendly responsive designs dealing with the same issue.
[+] [-] tarr11|12 years ago|reply
You shouldn't have to click on icons to find out what they do. There isn't even alt text.
They should have set with devs in a room and asked them - "What do these mean to you?"
UPDATE: hover seems to work now to figure out what the button does. Not sure if this was just my browser or they literally fixed it in the past hour.
[+] [-] sandyarmstrong|12 years ago|reply
Finding the right balance between casual consumers of github and developers who live in it all day must be challenging, though.
EDIT: I didn't realize that the front page for a given repo shows text in the sidebar. Good on them, I like that compromise.
[+] [-] chintan|12 years ago|reply
Then I thought how awesome GitHub was and it really understood users. It always had the big repo url on front and top where one can never miss it.
In this new design, GitHub has pushed it on to bottom right and reduced the input size. Bad Decision IMHO.
[+] [-] monkmartinez|12 years ago|reply
Statement of opinion: It seems to me that Github is the leader of online code hosting. However, this position could be disrupted because, and I could be wrong, Github focuses on items not directly related to git and/or code.
I dream of a time when the average person making manuals or Stand Operating Procedures in an office environment can see the benefits of source control and has tools that make git easy.
The company that truly focuses on making Git itself dead simple and powerful will win. I pay github every month, but I am starting to lose my patience. I am actively looking to support a company that focuses on abstracting the completely unforgiving nature of git.
In my opinion, you shouldn't need to be a command line virtuoso nor need to grok the entirety of the git code base to use git. Eventually, everyone gets dirty with git and thats when the lack thought in usability exposes itself. Github could focus on this, but it seems like they have other priorities which is fine. I have mine too.
[+] [-] technoweenie|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jomar|12 years ago|reply
Before I clicked "Enable Repository Next" there was also a "Git Read-Only" option.
The "other methods" text points to https://help.github.com/articles/which-remote-url-should-i-u... which lists HTTPS read-only & read-write and SSH read/write. Last time I looked that page also listed Git read-only (with the description "All git:// URLs are anonymous, public and read-only. Private repositories do not have this URL type. // Use these URLs when cloning someone else's repository (where you don't have write access) and for submodules that point at public repositories.").
There was no explanation in the "Repository Next" blog posting that git:// URLs were being disappeared...
[+] [-] Legion|12 years ago|reply
Now, Github's pushing it even further out of view than Bitbucket's location.
[+] [-] MattRix|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] simonz05|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kawsper|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] alberth|12 years ago|reply
- Current/Old https://github.com/etsy/skyline
- New/Redsigned https://f.cloud.github.com/assets/1354/660756/cc8cad9c-d714-...
EDIT: typo
[+] [-] stephth|12 years ago|reply
Am I the only one wishing the readme was above the file list? In my case, I often read the readme and rarely look at the files, and as a landing page standpoint it seems logical that the readme would be front facing instead of hidden at the bottom. I'm curious what's the reasoning behind that order, since it's been that way forever and GitHub seems to be fairly dedicated to elegant and thoughtful design while being open to change, I imagine there must be a good explanation.
[+] [-] cpeterso|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reledi|12 years ago|reply
edit: It's for pull requests. When you enable the new design, you get a quick explanation of the green button and where the clone URL has moved to. So far I'm really liking the new design!
[+] [-] olalonde|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Gazler|12 years ago|reply
I don't mind the navigation being on the right, but the clone url doesn't appear on most repositories which is one of the most important elements of the repo.
[+] [-] monkmartinez|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] reledi|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Oompa|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danbmil99|12 years ago|reply
It's especially scary because there's no rollback. At least I still have gnome desktop, for now...
[+] [-] herge|12 years ago|reply
You can host a copy of your repo on github, another on, say, bitbucket, and another on gitorious, and as long as you take care of syncing between them, you should be alright, right?
[+] [-] bhauer|12 years ago|reply
Though--and I hate to sound ungrateful--Github has always seemed slow and unfortunately this new design doesn't help as much as I hoped it would when I read about it. I acknowledge that the new design is quicker, and removing the animation makes the wait for a response considerably less annoying, but Github remains a slow site to navigate. Put as positively as I can: thank you for working on performance, and please continue to do so.
[+] [-] BHSPitMonkey|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spankalee|12 years ago|reply
I have to use an external review tool like Reitveld to get side-by-side diffs and better comment and patch-set management.
[+] [-] zsombor|12 years ago|reply
There is two click quick demo link in the toolbar.
[+] [-] bcuccioli|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aroemers|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] miloshadzic|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] transfire|12 years ago|reply
Sorry to be negative. I appreciate work to improve things, some of these changes just aren't. Hope they keep working on it.
[+] [-] mattmanser|12 years ago|reply
It's unnecessary noise and what would be far more useful is how many files and folders that folder actually contained.
To be honest I don't really see the point of putting the comments next to the file name either.
Also, I wish for the love of god that they put the file size there.
Then again my primary use case of github is reading code to learn and having a nosey at how good a coder someone is, so I'm generally looking for the bulk of a program, hence the usefulness of file size and the uselessness of commit comments.
[+] [-] jrochkind1|12 years ago|reply
Or rather, it's the commit message from the most recent commit in that directory (it's not so much about files at all).
I find it quite useful, to see if there have been any recent changes in that directory (and specifically when and what) or if it hasn't been changed in years.
[+] [-] simonz05|12 years ago|reply
Why do you really care about the file size and amount of files btw?
[+] [-] nfm|12 years ago|reply
I'm looking forward to digging more into the redesign in my usage of it today. Glad to see GitHub continuing to improve and happy to re-think the current state of the app.
[+] [-] wyck|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sktrdie|12 years ago|reply
Steve Jobs' "stay hungry. stay foolish" applies perfectly to GitHub's attitude.
Keep up the great work!
[+] [-] eightyone|12 years ago|reply
http://wikipedia.org/wiki/Whole_Earth_Catalog
[+] [-] obviouslygreen|12 years ago|reply
And really... do we need to make everything about something Jobs said? The only part I'd agree with here is that "foolish" might apply if they drop the ball by making the UI less usable/intuitive, in which case "stay foolish" is horrible advice and will negatively effect a whole lot of users.
[+] [-] MattRix|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] julien_c|12 years ago|reply
I just think that the alignment of the right vertical icon bar is a bit off, I think it'd be better off-canvas.
The emphasis on speed is great. I hope they'll improve keyboard navigation with this release as well.
[+] [-] sauravc|12 years ago|reply
I wish they'd make a responsive design that would make use of my 24" monitor. Right now I've resorted to writing a Chrome plugin to widen the code viewing area via CSS.
http://github.com/sauravc/github_wideload
[+] [-] Vieira|12 years ago|reply
Doesn't look like it[1].
I'm not sure that a much wider github would be of use to me. Most projects usually place some kind of limitation on the number of characters per line and even in the file browser I don't find filenames long enough to take that kind of space. Maybe you have some other use cases worth sharing?
[1] https://f.cloud.github.com/assets/1354/660780/2e217312-d715-...
[+] [-] mrinterweb|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snowwolf|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] zachgersh|12 years ago|reply
I can't tell you how many times I have had a github tab open and then popped open another and my layout has slightly changed (like shrinking a font or changing colors). They don't stop with UI tweaks until they think things are perfect.
Expect this to continue to evolve even without another major release from them.
[+] [-] minikomi|12 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rubyn00bie|12 years ago|reply
1.) You cannot make a PR from the main repo page anymore, you must go to a branch.
2.) The number of commits is emphasized over the number of pull requests, WTF? This one just blows me away.
3.) The whole PR process itself is largely more complicated and requires many more clicks (e.g. trying to swich repos is a bitch, and you have to click just to see the drop down, which then disappears after you select one).
4.) The right hand navigation bar is more or less worthless and too small.
5.) Moving the link to clone/co to the bottom right of the page is silly and totally makes it harder to find/use. I still don't see how this can be less important than the number of commits...
I still love github, it looks nice, it's just totally unusable. Feels like an April Fool's day joke come early with bad taste.