Me complaining about GitHub notification UI v2

1_small_repos_first_please.md

This is what I sent to GitHub's feedback form (plus a few edits)

The new notifications page is blocking me from working on small open source projects!

The first thing I want to do is see the projects with the least new notifications. But you have truncated them off the bottom of the list! (The list down the left-hand side.)

With the old UI, I used to immediately scroll to the bottom, and interact with the small projects first, before reading the notifications of larger projects.

Why? Because these small activity projects are more likely to be projects with only a few contributors, where I can make the most impact. Sometimes they are even my own projects. These are usually the projects of most interest to me.

For me, the many notifications from large popular projects are more like reading the news, and it's less likely I will actually get involved. They already have enough attention. It's the smaller projects where I really get involved. (Isn't that true for your other users too?)

Possible solutions:

1. Don't truncate the list of repositories, so I can scroll down and see the repos with fewer notifications, just like I could do with v1.

2. Alternatively, let me sort the list of repositories from least notifications to most notifications (reverse of current order).

3. Alternatively, make it easier to clean out (mark as read) all the notifications from the larger repos. (I wrote a long rant about this, which you can find below. But this isn't really a solution for me. Even if you streamline the clearing, it will still be a hassle to clean out the notifications from 5 large repos, when all I really want to do is look at the notifications from the smaller repos. And in a few days or hours those big repos will just make their way back up the list again!)

Please implement one of the first two. Thanks!

2_rip_the_old_ui.md

https://openuserjs.org/scripts/joeytwiddle/Github_Notifications_Dropdown

I had to update my userscript (a little) for v2, and now it's worse! This is how it used to look:

The old UI would let us click those little ticks, and the visible notifications for that repo would be marked as read, and then the repo block would collapse, so I could focus on the next one. One click, move on. So effortless!

(Although I admit I still had to visit the main notifications page, to look at the smaller repos.)

3_longer_feedback_not_very_focused.md

This was what I originally wrote, before I truncated it

Two pieces of feedback, related:

First, the new notifications page is blocking me from working on open source projects!

I need to see the projects with the least new notifications first. But you have truncated them off the bottom of the list (down the left-hand side)!

With the old UI, I used to immediately scroll to the bottom, and interact with the small projects first, before reading the notifications of larger projects.

Why? Because these small activity projects are more likely to be projects with only a few contributors, where I can make the most impact. Sometimes they are even my own projects. These are usually the projects of most interest to me.

The huge projects with thousands of notifications are more like reading the news, and it's less likely I will actually get involved.

Possible solutions:

1. Don't truncate the list of repositories, so I can scroll down and see the repos with just a few notifications, like I could before.

2. Alternatively, let me sort the list of repositories from least notifications to most notifications.

3. Alternatively, make it easier to clean out the notifications of the larger projects. (See below.)

Please implement one of these. Thanks!

---

So, trying to survive with the new UI, in order to see the notifications from smaller projects, I will have to clear some notifications from the large activity projects at the top of the list. OK fine.

Edit: I have since realised that it's better to clear out the notifications from small repos than from large ones. Because in a day or two, the large repos will be back there at the top of the list again!

That used to be ONE click. There was a tick by the repo name, I clicked it, and all the visible notifications for that repo would disappear.

With the new UI, it is TWO clicks: [x] Select All, Done. And I didn't know that until I saw the ProTip, because I didn't really know what "Done" meant.

Anyway those only clear the visible notifications for that repo.

If I want to clear all the notifications for a large repo, it is FIVE clicks: [x] Select All, Select all nnn notifications, (...), Mark as read, Done.

[Edit: I have since realised the (...) and Mark as read steps are not needed, reducing this to THREE clicks. Apparently "Done" always means "Mark as read"?]

(I can't really imagine the purpose of the batch "mark as unread". Why would I want that? Because I have just accidentally marked a lot of issues as read? Honestly you could have just the old tick icon which would clear all visible notifications, after which an undo button could then appear in caase I pressed it by mistake.)

(I do hope you guys did user research, so you are addressing real problems that users have, and not just changing things for the sake of it! The changes have not improved my workflow, but perhaps other users have different needs.)

Anyway this part of the UI is not my largest concern. My largest is the first section. Even if you streamline this clearing, it will still be a hassle to clear the notifications of 5 large projects, just so I can see the notifications from the smaller projects. P.S.: Look at how easy it was to clear notifications from the v1 UI: I could just click the tick icon for the repo and all the visible notifications for that repo would 2 disappear. And then that repo would collapse, so I could look at the next one.