Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

news.ycombinator.com

321–330 of 590 posts

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#322
post #287

The worst redesign yet. It looks even worse than an early version of Gogs I tried. Of course, if you're paying designers they ultimately have to design something even if it's crap. Ideal github design was maybe in 2012. Unrelated to the redesign, but the documentation for things like Actions just scream "microsoft." It was really hard for me to find the important information; had to sift through pages of abstraction…

Sorry tangential, but what's this frog neural network project? Looks fun!

Oh, I dunno I just found that by exploring gitee

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#323
Hmmm. The new design seems to be pushing hard towards "dev in the browser" with the new. "Add file", which forks the project, and drops you straight to editing a new file, ready for commit.

Kinda interesting. But beyond a README, I can't imagine making any significant edits this way.

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#325
Some positive feedback that may be overlooked with all the UI changes:

Love that releases are shown prominently on the repo page! It's always been a 'trick' of mine to check for releases for a repo by appending `/releases/` to the URL. Now I don't have to, and can just peek at a glance.

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#326
I’m open to change. But I question whether this was necessary.

I’ve admired Github for having a clear and readable UI that didn’t change. All their UI feature additions before I thought were fantastic.

Devs don’t want to have learn new things if not necessary. I’m hoping it will grow on me.

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#327
My browser window is 1059x751 (inner dimensions; to get yours, open your web inspector and type window.innerWidth). For context, this is a desktop machine, but those dimensions fall into Bootstrap's "tablet" size. The only thing I immediately noticed is that README's on the project root have lots of wasted space to their right. Interestingly, historical versions of Github seem to go back and forth on this (the presence of a sidebar) every major redesign.

> Migrating to gitlab...

Wow, some serious "looks like JIRA" PTSD there. Did Gitlab promise they wouldn't redesign?

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never thought trendy modern GUI design would get so bad that looking at screenshots of programs running on Windows 98 would feel instantly and overwhelmingly relaxing, like settling into a warm bath, as if parts of my brain being taxed for no reason could finally just chill . Yet, here we are.

One of the arguments by Designers is that they make the UI more approachable - they don't realize that they are biased by their personal aesthetic taste, their friends like the same type of flat sleek modern UI designs, and they like going to minimal galleries, subscribe to itsnotthat and read the colossal blog. This is a cultural imposition, not something a professional would do. Yet, we have modern designers inject…

True story: my dad is confused by basically all technology and all modern user interfaces. The one site he finds usable without assistance? Craigslist.

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#329
post #159

I know obviously files are important in GitHub, but for the opening page of a random repo I think I would actually prefer to see the README first. I just went to the Explore page and picked the first repo: https://github.com/johannesboyne/gofakes3 You have to scroll so far down to find out what the project _actually is_. I know there's an about message on the right, but it's not great. The new UI does look more moder…

That seems like a tradeoff between people discovering a project and people developing that project. People initially discovering a project usually want the README; people developing a project may potentially want either.

You can also put a Readme in any folder and it will show up the same way. You usually wouldn't want those up top while browsing the files though. So it's also about consistency.

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#330
post #126

I submitted feedback over it but, aside from the over-reliance on rounded corners, and making pills and buttons hard to separate, the single worst change is that you can't see the latest commit status from the repo screen. Instead, you get the commit hash, and have to click a tiny ellipsis button to get the commit message and the status indicator. When I'm browsing on github and not using git directly, the commit sho…

Thanks for the feedback about the latest commit status. This is something we should definitely fix. Also – I don't think there is a principle of lowering information density at work here. I think it's just a design that we will keep iterating. We are pro information density at GitHub.

I have a light sensitivity condition; large patches of white really hurt to look at for any real amount of time. Please consider implementing an optional dark variant in the vein of https://github.com/StylishThemes/GitHub-Dark as an option.
Post reply on HN