The Foreman is a complex project and it’s difficult to stay updated on what’s going on in every corner. From all of its aspects, UI is quite special because every change there directly affects users and both core and plugin developers. Therefore we’d like to improve insights into what’s being worked on as well as better inform developers about new features they can use by providing a monthly newsletter from the world of Foreman’s UI.
So, here it is, the first issue:
Stabilizing webpack packaging process
Efforts to stabilize webpack packaging continue. A PR with an important improvement that helps us detecting broken bundles in rpm build time has been merged quite some time ago. Even though it helps us catching breakages timely, it’s not the final solution. There’s ongoing discussion about how to move the process further and avoid such breakages completely:
Another nice debugging improvement merged lately is adding js sourcemaps to the Foreman core’s rpm. They enables us view and debug the original structure of bundle.js in production installations. There’s unfortunately an issue with plugin sourcemaps that contain still need to be fixed.
Changes in i18n
Another big step towards unified js stack has been merged in https://github.com/theforeman/foreman/pull/5342 that moves internationalization code to webpack. The PR has also added a compatibility layer that ensures the old js code in the asset pipeline and plugins keep working seamlessly. Instructions how to use translations in the webpack stack are documented in a storybook.
Progress with HW model page
@boaz1337 keeps working on his PR that turns HW model pages into single page app. This is an important prototype that demonstrates how components already present in the Foreman can be glued together into a single page experience. It will help us to evaluate necessary steps and discover desired improvements in the code base, for example adding middleware and higher order reducers (see the discussion).
I highly recommend testing the PR live to see the difference in speed.
Other recently added features
There’s couple of other outstanding UI features that have been added recently. Some of them are still under development so if you’re interested in the changes, please jump in, test them and let us know what you think. We appreciate your feedback!
- Template editor is being rewritten into React to get us rid of some technical debt. It also adds some improved UX.
(discussion, PR) - The login page is being updated to better adhere to Patternfly design.
(discussion, PR) - Charts on the trends page were migrated from legacy jquery library to patternfly-react charts.
(PR) - The Empty state component that’s used on welcome pages has been unified in Foreman and Katello. Both projects now use one implementation.
(Foreman PR, Katello PR)
