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by psimyn
2615 days ago
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thanks for the feedback - it always helps. There was some discussion around max widths of certain pages here: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/design.gitlab.com/issues/47#no... We prefer 990px containers where possible, so if you're using gitlab on a browser smaller than that it'll usually butt up against the edges. Couple of questions about your issue: 1. Any pages this is particularly bad for? Some dense pages (e.g. Pipelines or side-by-side diffs) need all the width they can get 2. what screen size do you normally use? 3. In Settings > Preferences > Behaviour, are you using Fixed layout or Fluid? Fixed should give you left/right margins if your window is >1280px 4. Do you collapse the left/right sidebars? I usually keep them both collapsed which helps reduce the crowding. But since they are expanded by default this is not an ideal solution |
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The main middle section is fine, your eye doesn't have to travel far to read the code files and the readme because it's in your primary viewing area.
But you know what's not in your primary viewing area? All of the buttons that do important things. They're shoved off to the side. If you want to do anything other than read the code files, you need to be looking at the exact leftmost edge of your screen and away from the main content. It's a disjointed viewing experience.
But that's just about the navigation. Let's say that you find the Issues page and go there: https://gitlab.com/pwoolcoc/fedichat/issues
Ok, now the main content AND the most important buttons (navigation) are shoved to opposite sides of the screen. There is no max width on the main content, so your eye has to travel a veritable mile to read all of the content for each issue.
Even looking at the content for a specific issue has the same problem: https://gitlab.com/pwoolcoc/fedichat/issues/6
If I had to put my finger on the primary reason for this design, it's probably an over-focus on the idea that you should feature some "main content" for each page and kind of hide what you believe is "superfluous".
For example, "oh they clicked on an issue, so they really only care about the discussion that is taking place. Let's feature the discussion text but make all of the metadata shoved to the side and even collapsible." But the problem with this line of thinking is that the user _does_ care about more than just the "main content" of a page. The metadata, the navigation, it's all factored into a typical user experience. So when you are making the decision for the user about what they _should_ be looking at, you're forcing them to break your flow to do what they want. Now the user has to dart their eye from the far left to the far right just to see what they want.
I know I didn't answer your numbered questions directly, but I hope I'm conveying this correctly. I've never made a gitlab account, so I just use the default settings.