New UI

[Mark WatIng]

Hi All,

Just wondered people's thoughts on the new UI that is being developed.

Personally I really like the existing one - very functional if not the most pretty - definitely functional and quick to navigate.

I also really like the Corral interface - looked and operated like a professional UI - would love if we could use this as the goto UI onto 11?

The new UI - which I know is still being developed feels very cumbersome and lacks overall direction.

What do others think and will we still be able to use the existing UI along side the new one?

Thanks,
Mark.

 

[Bostjan]

Current UI is confusing: icons on top does not do the same job as icons on the right. They actually look the same, and the name is the same, but they do different things.

I agree, new UI still need a lot of development and a lot of graphic design. Who wants to volunteer? :)

 

[Mark WatIng]

Ass

Current UI is confusing: icons on top does not do the same job as icons on the right. They actually look the same, and the name is the same, but they do different things.

I agree, new UI still need a lot of development and a lot of graphic design. Who wants to volunteer? :)

Assume someone did the Corral Design?

 

[Mark WatIng]

Also not to de-motivate the devs who are working on it - just think if there is time/budget/people/capability an awesome UI would do wonders for the product in the market place as well.

 

[gpsguy]

iXsystems considers it to be an alpha version right now. Give them time to do it right.

I agree, new UI still need a lot of development and a lot of graphic design.

Delivering 11.1 is a priority, since it includes a number of features that users have been anxiously waiting for.

 

[Bostjan]

I understand iX that is why I asked if anyone wants to volunteer and actually do it, not just talk abou it. I hope you understand me.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Mark WatIng]

iXsystems considers it to be an alpha version right now. Give them time to do it right.



Delivering 11.1 is a priority, since it includes a number of features that users have been anxiously waiting for.

ok and agree - a good UI could make a big difference to the end commercial product and developing a broader/bigger user base for FreeNAS - all feeds upwards into TrueNAS.

 

[dlavigne]

It should be noted that many of the same devs who worked on the Corral UI are working on the new UI. When it is complete, it will be fully themeable and will have a different layout.

The UI work is happening in stages. The bulk of the current work is rewriting all of the middleware calls to be asynchronous while rewriting all of the UI bits in Angular. This is slow and necessary work that doesn't show much "pretty" results. During this phase, the plan is not to change around the screens, meaning that the layout will be the same as the old UI, minus the redundant top bar. This work is expected to be complete for 11.2 (early/mid 2018).

Once that work is complete, we can start to replace the current layout with a layout that is more intuitive and workflow oriented. So, we'll get there, it just takes time.

 

[Mark WatIng]

It should be noted that many of the same devs who worked on the Corral UI are working on the new UI. When it is complete, it will be fully themeable and will have a different layout.

The UI work is happening in stages. The bulk of the current work is rewriting all of the middleware calls to be asynchronous while rewriting all of the UI bits in Angular. This is slow and necessary work that doesn't show much "pretty" results. During this phase, the plan is not to change around the screens, meaning that the layout will be the same as the old UI, minus the redundant top bar. This work is expected to be complete for 11.2 (early/mid 2018).

Once that work is complete, we can start to replace the current layout with a layout that is more intuitive and workflow oriented. So, we'll get there, it just takes time.

Thanks for the progress/approach update - understand the effort required having been through this professionally (not as a dev though) and makes sense - best of luck!

Mark

 

[murphy666]

I don´t miss anything with the 11.0 UI , for me it is perfect. It´s all at the right place and i can see all needed informations.
The Top Bar of the UI gives a good look and many Informations on a small place.
It is the best NAS UI that i have seen.

The upcoming UI is to big and complicated to use. It looks like a comic for me, sri - i hope that the old one is also available in the future versions. I like it very much.

best regards

 

[danb35]

i hope that the old one is also available in the future versions.

It will not be. If you have constructive suggestions about the new GUI, see https://forums.freenas.org/index.ph...-gui-suggestions-and-discussion-thread.58815/

 

[Xelas]

I don´t miss anything with the 11.0 UI , for me it is perfect. It´s all at the right place and i can see all needed informations.
The Top Bar of the UI gives a good look and many Informations on a small place.
It is the best NAS UI that i have seen.

The upcoming UI is to big and complicated to use. It looks like a comic for me, sri - i hope that the old one is also available in the future versions. I like it very much.

best regards

From my perspective, as someone who's been using FreeNAS for 3-4 years, the old UI is information-dense (which I like) but the wierd top bar/ side bat layout is extremely incoherent and confusing. I know the 2-3 spots I need to go to occasionally to check up on things, but I distinctly remember being confused when I was new to FreeNAS. The old GUI also does not display very important things like status of last scrub, status of Smart tests, etc, and some of the screens, such as the Volume Manager, is REALLY unclear. I am never 100% sure that the volume manager is doing what I think it's doing. The screens (and the GUI widgets) for scheduling things is also REALLY dated and clunky. I think the new screens are a huge leap in the right direction, even if they are just a rough prototype for now and not 100% functional.

 

[danb35]

status of last scrub

This is on the volume status page.

 

[Xelas]

This is on the volume status page.

Oh, that's right - I forgot about that screen. Sorry!