Notification about beta release

[humitos]

I'd like to start promoting the new Beta dashboard. I think we are ready for it now. I've been using it during the last weeks and I haven't found big issues.

My idea here is to send a notification to all users. I wrote this code that we can use (after improving the copy):

from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy as_
from readthedocs.notifications.notification import SiteNotification
from messages_extends.constants import SUCCESS_PERSISTENT

class BetaDashboardNotification(SiteNotification):

    success_message = _(
        'We are launching our new <strong>Beta dashboard</strong>. '
        '<a href="https://beta.readthedocs.org/">Give it a try</a> and send us feedback.'  # noqa
    )
    success_level = SUCCESS_PERSISTENT

for u in User.objects.filter(profile__banned=False).iterator():
    BetaDashboardNotification(user=u, success=True).send()

This notification will be shown to users on the old dashboard. They can dismiss the notification by clicking on the link or in the cross:

Besides, when they arrive to the new beta dashboard they will see another notification saying this instance is in beta and we appreciate them sending back feedback to us. This notification cannot be dismissed on purpose; that's why I put it on the HTML template directly.

[agjohnson]

We talked about easing into notifications here, as we probably already wanted to gate a beta, and time frames in July will be tricky with time off.

Continuing to point users to the beta in issues is still a great idea. We'll pick up the pace on a beta when I'm back in July.

[humitos]

I opened this 8 months ago. I think we are more than ready to start promoting the beta templates. I would like to move forward with this idea, I don't see any blocker on the ext-theme side. What do you think?

[agjohnson]

The issue I noted above originally is still a problem. As this is implemented, the block is not dismissable and will be on every page. The notification system we have implemented is a better option for this. I'd prefer something that feels more purposeful here even I suppose.

As for time frame, I don't have any worries for ext-theme. My main concerns on time frame would be for commercial mostly, as that is much less tested and not public beta yet.

[humitos]

Dismissing a notification is not implemented on the new dashboard yet, and it will also require https://github.com/readthedocs/ext-theme/issues/259 to do it properly. I'm fine adding this as a static block for now and improve it in the next iteration. My main goal here is to get more people using the new dashboard --it's objectively better than the old one, but nobody is taking advantage of it.

If we don't want to go this way, I'm also fine not adding this notification in the ext-theme templates; but I really want to add a notification in the old dashboard pointing people to the new one. We can use the new notification system there to attach a one-time and dismissable notification to all the users.

[agjohnson]

Yeah, I think you are talking more about adding a link from the legacy dashboard here. A notification here is just an exit path back if things go wrong. We do need this and it should be easy to find.

I don't feel a static block at the top of all pages is the best approach though. It interferes with the design on all pages -- forms, 404 pages, etc. There are lots of downstream places this doesn't fit.

I would suggest a more limited approach in both cases, like only on the main dashboard template. We already discussed starting with the build detail page, which is a step before this all.

[humitos]

OK. I'm closing this PR since we are not going to move in the static block direction --which is what this PR was about.

I would suggest a more limited approach in both cases, like only on the main dashboard template

We can start there, then 👍🏼 . This can be achieved by creating a one-time-dismissable notification as I mentioned before.