We should make PolyGerrit the default ui for wikimedia gerrit.
It would let new users get use to the new ui (as the old ui is going away very soon upstream possibly in the next couple of weeks or when ever the next release gets branched).
PolyGerrit in 2.15 is mature enough for most users, users can still go back to the old ui (which on the footer has a nice switcher to ease this)
| Subject | Repo | Branch | Lines +/- | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gerrit: Make PolyGerrit the default ui | operations/puppet | production | +1 -0 |
Proposition of summary for User-notice / tech news:
New users to Wikimedia' Gerrit instance will have the new interface enabled by default as opt-out mode. Every user can already switch the UI using a link in the bottom of the page.
The lack of editing support is a pretty serious limitation IMO, especially for beginners who might find that a much easier way of creating a patch then setting up git, virtualbox, vagrant & git-review locally.
Yeh, upstream have added that support in 2.16 / 3.0.
Though they can still switch to the old ui.
While I'm not a huge fan of forcing a new ui, if this ui is going away in future releases I agree it's better to default to the new one and let the ui-switcher provide the old version while it can.
I am thinking about doing this next monday (which will give users plenty of time to give there opinion).
I will update the email with the date.
We definitely should use polygerrit as the default. It still beta in 2.15 but that will prepare people to switch to it when later on there is no other choice.
Surely it lacks the inline editing, but overall the experience is way more pleasant :]
Yeh, upstream have implemented a really nice inline editing ui for 2.16 / 3.0 :).
Upstream are also offically supporting polygerrit from 2.15+.
@Framawiki wondering can we get the user notice out so we can do this next monday please? :)
We will have to do it on friday as no ops are around to do it from next monday due to offsite.
Or delay it to after the SRE offsite? It is not that urgent anyway :] That also let time for people to react on the announcement, specially volunteers who are usually active solely during the week-end.
Hmm, though i revised the email by sending out the updated date :).
Also they can easily ?polygerrit=0 to get back to the old ui :).
This also fixes a font issue with safari apparently a bug in the way polygerrit and gwtui are switched but upstream are unlikely to fix that as gwtui is being removed soon.
Please delay until after the SRE offsite :)
And next time, please do coordinate with me/RelEng on any planned changes like this so we can get the timeline correct.
@Framawiki oh sorry forgot to tell you that we have postponed it until after the sre offsite (and then a date agreed with releng).
Should probably remove it from there.
PolyGerrit is now the default ui upstream https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/c/gerrit/+/184550 (patch by me)
Though that’s for the master branch, gwtui is still the default for 2.15
We've typically excluded these kind of updates from Tech News, as they don't affect editors on the wikis and as there have always been better ways to reach out to developers – especially wikitech-l but also mediawiki-l etc. I don't really see that this has changed. Am I mistaken?
Hello @Johan, sorry for the delay.
Gerrit is the mandatory gateway for all volunteers wishing to propose code.
So far its interface considered not very welcoming has discouraged more than one. Many of them did not dare or could not come up with their ideas.
The fact that the interface of the site will change soon will I think attract these people. But they still need to be informed! I think it's a big step forward that should be announced. Technews is the best place for this.
The vast majority of the readers have probably already opened a Gerrit page, by following links from phabricator tasks, but did not have to understand much.
With the new interface this constraint should disappear.
OK, I simplified a bit and geared it a bit more towards the main audience of Tech News (non-developers), but it's included.
They only need to add ?polygerrit=1 which sets a cookie (which then sets PolyGerrit to the ui).
But making it the default ui, nope they won't need to do anything.
I got approval (after speaking with releng).
We will be doing this next monday (06/08/2018)
A lot of screenshots and documentation on mediawiki.org will be needed to go with this major UI change. It might be nice for someone to organize a small editathon to make these updates soon after the deployment.
I've updated some of those screenshots to include polygerrit. Including the extra expand diff view (you don't have to go inside the diff to view it).
Please see and discuss docs in T179759: Update Wikimedia's Gerrit documentation for new UI (GWTUI to be superseded by polygerrit) instead. Thanks!
@Paladox Can you confirm a couple questions:
answers:
Which is the vast majority, I presume.
What is the timeline of polygerrit and removal of the old ui upstream? What release will remove the old UI?
@greg PolyGerrit has been made the default UI as of 2.16. David O (upstream) has a change to remove gwtui (https://gerrit-review.googlesource.com/c/gerrit/+/116790), but wants to keeps gwtui for at least one more release so 3.0 could possibly be the release marked for GWTUI removal.
GWTUI is officially deprecated too per https://www.gerritcodereview.com/releases/2.16.md#Release-Highlights
There are 3 groups of people.
a) people who knowingly activated polygerrit and kept it
b) people who knowingly activated polygerrit but then switched back to gwtui
c) people who never activated polygerrit / didn't even know about it
Group A will would notice no difference because they already have pg.
Group B will notice no difference because they have gwtui and keep it (for now)
Group C will be affected by this change and be switched from gwtui to polygerrit (without doing anything by themselves).
I am guessing that group C is the largest of all user groups (but that isn't based on real numbers).
I am also expecting that people will still be surprised about a (in their eyes "sudden") change in the Gerrit UI even when list mail has been sent.
Also i would expect that there might questions about it on IRC shortly after a merge.
I personally have nothing for or against the new skin, don't really have a dog in the race about the design itself. Paladox has a point though that we have to follow upstream and they will deprecate gwtui.. so this is probably the right away and to do it early.
I am happy to merge this, if others want it. But it should be clear that there was consensus and Gerrit maintainers/releng made a decision/announcement rather than me.
Does 2.16 have the 'a new changset has been uploaded by so-and-so' feature for polygerrit, like the current ui does, or is that a later release?
I would prefer solid reasoning for doing it now or solid reasoning for doing it later. Given we have a choice that needs to be made we need reasons to do it or to wait. Can you help with those?
It would help provide feedback so that there's a higher possibility of there suggestions getting into 2.16. Though at the same time there may be duplicate feedback that may have already been implemented.
2nd reason here https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T196812#4326743 (some users do not think gerrit's ui is welcome (gwtui). They may not even notice there's a new ui available.
3rd reason is polygerrit protect against xss attacks (https://github.com/Polymer/polymer-resin)
4th reason is gwtui hacks things like you can insert scripts and html into GerritSite.css where as polygerrit provides gerrit-theme.html.
The reason why polygerrit was not made the default in 2.15 is because of the missing inline editing feature which was added to 2.16.
Using a new ui will possible attract new users, since when they go to "gerrit.wikimedia.org" currently they view the old ui and may not notice there's a new ui and then just leave it.
Thanks for the reasoning.
I'm not terribly inclined to use our user base as test subjects, especially when there are known issues that are not yet resolved on our install. But, if it's easy for them to go back to the old UI then maybe that's OK.
To be clear, in which upstream release will the old UI be removed?
From my understanding anything after 2.16 so 3.0. (i doin't think there will be a 2.17 release).
Google employee was going to remove it in 2.16, but then the user of the patch to remove gwtui said lets wait until after 2.16.
I've requested here https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/repo-discuss/E34-HQ3mP3c what are the plans for 2.16 / 3.0. As we should be near to when they should start branching 2.16.
Let me know when you know more :)
I'm just concerned with a lot of people not being able to do what they want to do and having a lot of support requests for an incomplete new UI.
Change 439444 abandoned by Paladox:
Gerrit: Make PolyGerrit the default ui
Reason:
Gerrit 2.16 will make polygerrit the default ui.
Looks like this may be redundant with T200739: Upgrade to Gerrit 2.16.13.
Switching the default for our 2.15 seems problematic given we know certain workflows are broken on it (e.g. project dashboards), and 2.16 (which is meant to fix this) already switches the default.
Agreed. Let's decline this task and switch on the new UI when we upgrade to 2.16. T200739 tracks that.