Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#471

Post by maple3142 » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 7:32 AM UTC

peterkos wrote: post #375

Aside from the accessibility concerns -- which is honestly inexcusable -- the non-centered repo layout is so strange to me: All that info that's now in the sidebar is temporary. All of it. I never need to look at a project language more than once. However, it takes up 100% of the height of the page, so when I'm halfway through a README, the README gets offset by some magical space. The ghost of the 1 paragraph of "la…

Exactly same as my feeling. I am okay with most of the changes, but not left aligned README.

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#472

Post by imtringued » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 7:34 AM UTC

bconnorwhite wrote: post #266

DreamScatter wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The new design is terrible. If it actually made the website easier to use, then I would be all for it. Unfortunately this is an actual step backwards in functionality and information layout design.

Let's take the simplest action - cloning a repo. Old: https://web.archive.org/web/20200619163555/https://github.co... New: https://github.com/torvalds/linux It was always strange to have all the language info at the top

It was in a location where it didn't take up any space. Now it's consuming a massive amount of space.

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#473

Post by heipei » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 7:34 AM UTC

Ugh, just realised how bad it is. The menu bar and repo toolbar are float left/right but the repo content is in a centered max-width div which means that it does not align with the buttons and text in the bars above it at all. Who the hell came up with that design, it's unusable!

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#474

Post by Ataraxy » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 7:36 AM UTC

bconnorwhite wrote: post #234

This is the MacOS 11 thread all over again. Apparently no one on HN has been through a redesign... For those of you complaining, congratulations, you've discovered ~ nostalgia ~ In two weeks you'll inevitably find the old design ugly, and forget GitHub ever looked any other way. In 5 years, each will get another round of improved designs, and there will be a thread on HN full of people complaining about how the new d…

There's nothing better about the wasted sidebar column.

That's my biggest gripe anyway. I much prefer a centered design for the site.

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#475

Post by jmiskovic » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 7:44 AM UTC

A related question: Why is it so hard to find a most up-to-date fork?

When I come upon a useful lib, there would often be hundreds of forks. 99% of those forks don't make any commit on top of upstream repo. Why even bother forking if you're not actually changing the code? Can we agree those are useless and just hide them in GitHub interface?

You can list all the forks on GitHub, there's even a nice hierarchy, but no other information. So you open hundred tabs and scan all the forks to see if they are ahead or behind the original. There must be a better way! Few years back there was a graph that took forever to load, but it gave good idea of commits that each fork applied on top of original. Is it still available?

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#476

Post by ethanwillis » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 7:44 AM UTC

file size? I have to click a bunch of files to see if they're even viewable. E.G. which of these files are data files small enough to view and which are not? https://github.com/LahiruJayasinghe/RUL-Net/tree/master/CMAP...

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#477

Post by ilmiont » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 7:44 AM UTC

Looks horrific at 3440x1440...

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#478

Post by FZambia » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 8:00 AM UTC

I also don't really like new design of main repo page. Repo short description on the right – so inconvenient. BTW this is how it looks on mobile: https://i.imgur.com/SqV23WN.jpg - the most interesting things about repo usually located in first lines of README - now we can't see it.

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#479

Post by janpot » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 8:01 AM UTC

I often go to a repo and look at the recent commit history. Maybe it was just muscle memory, but I keep struggling finding where to click for this, especially on mobile. Doing this now takes me considerably more time with the new design. (been on this for a week or so)

Re: Ask HN: Thoughts on new GitHub layout?

#480

Post by anonytrary » Wed, Jun 24, 2020, 8:17 AM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #118

Like with every redesign everyone will eventually get used to it and completely forget how the old one looked. When the next redesign happens everyone will rage the same way and say they want the "old" design back.

That's because the switching cost is less than the payment of inconvenience. Plus the inconvenience isn't permanent... it fades as people re-achieve workflow parity with the previous design.