[users at bb.net] Feedback about buildbot 9

Greg MacDonald gmacdonald at trionworlds.com
Fri May 5 19:25:15 UTC 2017


I requested more room in the step names and Pierre was nice enough to accommodate me. But I've actually gone back to the terse names. Before I had full sentences so I wouldn't mind going back to the width it was before. I like the tabbed layout that request brought though. But yes it's too much white space now.

I'm not sure what to do about it, it needs to resize automatically with the amount of information being displayed. Before long names were running into the right hand information, especially with visual studio or robocopy steps.

-Greg

-----Original Message-----
From: users [mailto:users-bounces at buildbot.net] On Behalf Of Gelonida
Sent: Friday, May 05, 2017 9:15 AM
To: users at buildbot.net
Subject: [users at bb.net] Feedback about buildbot 9

Hi Guys,

I'm having some feedback about the WebUI changes between 0.8 and 0.9.

Perhaps some other people have similiar impressions, have suggestions, can suggest plugins, . . .


My First impression when switching from bb 0.8 to 0.9 was:

"Wow much nicer look and feel. and there's life screen updates!"

However only shortly later my impression was:

"Looks nicer, but a lot of space is used to display quite little 
information and sometimes in the middle
of looking at a page it is destroyed in order to be refreshed" (and on 
my PC refreshing can need a little time)

In the end miss the uglier, but more compact representation of bb 0.8


I'm more a back-end person than a web designer, but I have the 
impression, that some minor changes might improve
ergonomics and efficiency of the 0.9 web interface and combine life 
updates and modern web uis with compact web uis

1.) All Screens
-----------------------

There is a side menu, which is pinned. I can unpin it, but if I reload 
the page it pins again and consumes again space on narrow window.  
(either because I work on an old display or because I some space for 
other things than my web browser.)

Wouldn't it be possible to have a user setting, that the side menu is by 
default unpinned and doesn't waste space?


2.) The home Screen:
--------------------------------

Top section.

- I can see the amount of builds currently running.
Couldn't we display how many builds are waiting?
I think this information is quite important.
It can indicate, that some builders don't have any worker, that is up 
and running.
It can indicate, that it would be beneficial to throw more workers at 
certain builders.
It should probably just display the amount of builds, that are waiting 
for a free worker. When clicking on the number we might see
a list of all waiting builds.


The last 20  builds section:

It displays in my setup only the 20 last builds, however due to the very 
generous layout I still have to scroll (even if in full screen mode)
and if the browser window is a little narrow the success/Failure tag 
overlaps with the buildername/# link
Couldn't this layout be made more efficient?

One build consumes about 6 lines. The space of 4 lines is taken by 
decoration and only the other two lines are useful.
I can see
- buildername / build#
- status
- execution time
- state.
In most cases I care more about the age of a build than its execution time.
Couldn't we also add the age of the build or the "finished_time"?
I personally would also like to see the branch (and if there's still 
place) the commit id.

It's impressive how little space 0.8 needed to display the last 20 
builds compared to the new layout.
Admittedly the 0.8 layout was not very beautiful, but quite efficient.

3.) Top link on each screen
When being on the home page there is a clickable link 'Home' which 
allows me to go the screen, that I'm already on
When for example on the Console View I have a clickable link 'Console 
View' which brings me to the Home page, though it  is labeled
"console View'
Shouldn't the link text be related to where I'm giong to if I click on it?

Well as you see nothing really serious, but I connect to this webif 
rather often and think every time, that it could be a little less 'wasty'

thanks for reading and comments

G





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