Launchpad 3.0 is here! New UI and more.
The Launchpad team is proud to announce the release of Launchpad 3.0!
Highlights in this release include:
- a new clearer web interface with in-line editing
- personal translation dashboards: see what needs your attention
- automatically updated diffs during code reviews.
Let’s take a look at these, and more, in closer detail.
New user interface, with in-line editing
Visit Launchpad to see our new web interface. You can now view more information on many pages without scrolling, particularly on people and project profile pages.
And the web interface is now faster: you can update more data, including almost everything on bug report pages, without reloading the page.
Take a look at our screencast for more on the new interface:
(Read our interview with Launchpad’s UI guy, Martin Albisetti)
Personal translation dashboards
Want to check if a translation needs your review? Or perhaps you want to see which projects need translation work in your language.
You can now get a quick overview of translation work that needs your attention by visiting your new translation dashboard.
(Read Danilo’s post on Launchpad Translations 3.0)
Automatically updated code diffs during code reviews
When you’re going through a code review, you’re likely to make changes to your code based on your reviewer’s comments.
Now, when you push your changes up to Launchpad in the middle of a code review, Launchpad updates the diff shown on the review page. So now it’s easier for your reviewers to see your proposed changes even as you update them.
Launchpad now using Bazaar 2.0
We’re now running Bazaar 2.0. This means that all new code imports — from git, Subersion and CVS sources — are in Bazaar’s new more efficient 2a format. We’re also starting to upgrade existing imported branches to the new format.
To use Bazaar’s new 2a repositories, you should upgrade to Bazaar 2.0.
Community contributions
Now that Launchpad’s an open source project, 3.0 also includes a number of contributions from developers outside Canonical’s Launchpad team.
Many thanks for their work and enthusiasm for Launchpad go to:
- William Grant
- Max Bowsher
- Jamal Fanaian
- Andrea Corbellini
- Simon Olofsson
- Severin Heiniger
(See more detail on our contributions page)
Also in release 3.0
For full details of the bugfixes and blueprints that make up Launchpad 3.0, visit its milestone page.
If you come across a bug, please report it.
See you next time
Launchpad 3.1.10 is due on the 4th of November. See the releases calendar for more.
In the meantime, stay up to date with Launchpad news and views here on our blog.
As always, you can join us in channel #launchpad on irc.freenode.net and on the launchpad-users mailing list.
For development discussion, come to channel #launchpad-dev on irc.freenode.net or to the launchpad-dev mailing list.
September 24th, 2009 at 5:48 am
Hello Launchpad Team,
Thank you for such a great LAUNCHPAD.
I have been using this since more than a year.I see LP continuously 7 to 8 hours out of my 9 hours.
However, I honestly did not like the current GUI which changed after 23rd sept.
Previous one was simply a magical one.
Good Luck.GOD bless you.
Thanks.
September 24th, 2009 at 5:54 am
Hehe you sounded pretty enthusiastic in the video Matthew! But then again for a good reason, this UI is awesome (just those pesky ‘also effects project/distribution’ buttons remain non-ajaxy…)
September 24th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Can you clarify what the Bazaar repository format upgrade means? Will users with older versions of Bazaar (Hardy has 1.3.1, Jaunty 1.13.1) be unable to check out code? AFAICS Bazaar 2.0 is not out yet.
September 24th, 2009 at 11:30 am
That is a good question, Marius. I note that the 2a format was only introduced in Bazaar 1.16 (or Bazaar 1.14 if we consider its introduction under the name development6-rich-root). You could take a look at the upgrade guide:
http://doc.bazaar-vcs.org/bzr.2.0rc2-html/en/upgrade-guide/index.html
But its Launchpad section only says that the branches in the old format(s) will be available… maintaining them might be a different story.
September 25th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Loved the screencast! I think I like the AJAX in bug reports best.
September 26th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Mixed reaction to the UI changes.
I LOVE the new AJAXification of things. It will definitely make editing things (especially Bugs) way faster. The many AJAX-ified parts of Launchpad definitely increase its usability.
However, the new UI sort of looks like just too much text directly on the background. Now that you’ve gotten rid of the gray backgrounds behind some of the menus and such, some things that were visually “grouped” together are now just text that is visually not as distinguishable from all the other bunches of text.
I think you need to consider bringing the tabs back for the main menu.
(And I’m fairly certain I’m a minority in asking for this next part, but I would love to see the return of icons for the main menu’s categories—e.g. a bug icon for Bugs, a paper blueprint for Blueprints, and so on. These were great minimalist icons that I could “read” much quicker than I read words.)
September 30th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
I agree with Tony. Some things are great, such as an improved bug interface. But my only complaint would be the home page looks more cluttered than it probably should. Lots of text floating around the screen. Also, if you have a lot of downloads (which my project does), the list of big green buttons takes up a huge amount of space… especially considering that most of the downloads on my project are for language packs, and other optional downloads. It really ‘over-emphasizes’ those downloads.
Sorry to sound so negative. I love LaunchPad! My project uses every single feature it offers. Hopefully you will consider adding back some grouping to the home page, and maybe offer a toggle for which downloads to include on the home page.
Thanks! Keep up the good work.
-Jonathan
October 6th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
The more I use Launchpad 3.0, the more I dislike it.
• harder to visually scan for what I want
• harder to read text because sections of page because sections aren’t scannable
• no search field at the top (I have to scroll to the bottom to search…)
• I still miss the icons from old-school Launchpad for Bugs, Blueprints, etc. (Launchpad is asking for help with icons—I say, pull out the old set and use that as a starting point)
Sorry to keep repeating this feedback. And sorry to repeat that I dislike sounding so negative! I’m only bothering to write this because I _DO_ love Launchpad so much. The Launchpad team has done an absolutely stellar job with regular updates and improvements to the system. It’s just that this is the first update that’s actually made the system more difficult for me to use. I’m a very visual person, and maybe removing things like the main navigation’s tabs help the page load a tiny bit faster, but as a user I’m honestly noticing my use of Launchpad is much slower as a direct result of the new interface.
Again, I feel it’s important to let you guys know the above. But I am definitely loving the AJAXification. And I don’t know anything about the guts of version control systems, but I think it’s wonderful that Launchpad has been able to migrate everything to Bazaar 2.0 repositories pretty much the instant they were released.
That’s the kind of stuff you need more of. You need less of the UI obfuscation. 🙂
Keep it up, and thanks for you tremendous hard work. In spite of my feelings about LP 3.0 I still feel that Launchpad is without a doubt the best open source project hosting on the Web. And by that I mean that I like it better than Tigris, better than SourceForge, and—except for the lack of a wiki—better than Google Code. (And I know the request for a wiki is already a Blueprint. 🙂
—Tony
October 10th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
I love the new menus, please don’t bring back the crusty old tabs!
October 21st, 2009 at 6:11 pm
I will keep it short and sweet, I love the upgrade and new look. The added tools are also going to benefit a lot of us just starting to try to contribute. Keep up the good work and just so you know, it is definitely starting to show itself!!! Congratulations!
October 21st, 2009 at 6:14 pm
I also wanted to add, that I hope this helps to keep some of those new to launchpad from being scared away, as in maybe they thought that it looked to complicated and was only for developers, when it is actually for everyone, from newbies like me on up, in order to contribute and help track bugs/issues/etc.
October 30th, 2009 at 4:40 pm
Sorry to say but Launchpad getting worse and worse. Maybe it looks nice but generally is useless.
I visited my launchpad account page and cannot go back.
I cannot report a bug!!!!!
What the point of any of your changes if I cannot perform the most important action?
I don’t want the system think for me, I want it to work for me.
October 30th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Sorry if my question is stupid but… which server-side software do you use for the online translations of programs?