[JENKINS-67366] Improve usability of plugin manager

[timja]

Followup to https://github.com/jenkinsci/jenkins/pull/5916:

Some ideas on how to improve the usability of the update manager are still open:

Position of new search bar: It is far too wide in the upper right corner (where it looks unrelated) and a lot of users will not find them when opening the new page the first time. It already is not ideal in the current UI (where it is above the tabs rather than right above the table), but now I think the usability is getting worse.

General

• The tabs are using different URLs (pages), that means I cannot install and update plugins in a single step. When I move to another tab, then my selections are deleted.
• All tabs: some have a filter, some not. It makes sense to move the filter inside the tab so the tabs are not moving vertically anymore: I think only the table should move, the tabs should have a fixed position. This would also move the filter button more close to the corresponding table.

Installed

• The installed version column seems to be so far away from the version that is going to be installed. But I have no idea how to improve that. Maybe changing the order of release date and version?
• It would be helpful if each table row would be expandable (see jQuery DataTables) so one could see the release notes (if available).
• I would move the "Update information obtained: 4 hr 11 min ago" text to the table right side and replace the button with a non-primary button. (Or even better a button with a "Reload" button and a corresponding reload icon)
• The download button should be simply called "Download" and should be the only primary one.
• The Buttons Select: "All, Compatible, None" should be actually buttons and should be placed before the download button. Normally, such a "All/None" button is shown inside the table header with a checkbox so one can select all by clicking the checkbox and select none by deactivating the checkbox. I know from a lot of people that they are not aware that it is possible to select all of the plugins.
• Shaded but selectable rows are in progress or failed: this should be named "Shaded rows are in progress or failed": I cannot select anything if the plugin has been installed.

Available

• The boxes are really nice now. I wonder if it would be possible to show the tags "warning", "deprecated" and "adoption" as single buttons in the style of the content tags (like "github" or "pipeline") without the boring and repeating texts. They can be placed right after the tags with the corresponding color. I think for me it would be sufficient if the corresponding texts are shown as a tooltip. Otherwise a lot of place is used for the repeated and boring texts "This plugin is up for adoption! We are looking for new maintainers. Visit our Adopt a Plugin initiative for more information.". When these things are also shown as tags, then one can filter by them as well
• Install and Download buttons: these buttons should be replaced by a checkbox ([ ] install without restart) and a "Download" button that considers the checkbox on how to actually install. Also only a single word should be used as text of the button.
• I would move the "Update information obtained: 4 hr 11 min ago" text to the table right side and replace the button with a non-primary button. (Or even better a button with a "Reload" button and a corresponding reload icon)

Installed

• The new downgrade button looks awesome. I would recommend to add an additional button for the upgrade. As user it makes no sense that I need to switch to another tab to show the updates. Maybe there should be a toggle to show only plugins with updates.
• The buttons are very far way from the text on my screen. I would suggest to place them before the text as first column:

• The adoption and warning boxes should be replaced with single tags (see above)
• The "Restart" button at the button is not visible (on the available tab it is?). I think it would be helpful if it is sticky. And it should be a destructive one? Again: I am not a fan of using buttons with sentences, they should be short as possible.

Advanced

• I mentioned that already in another PR: it would make sense to have one one thing with one primary button on one tab. It would be better to have more tabs.

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Originally reported by drulli, imported from: Improve usability of plugin manager

• status: Open
• priority: Minor
• resolution: Unresolved
• imported: 2022/01/10

[timja]

JIRAUSER132935:

Additionally I would like to mention that the downgrade button does not treat plugins nicely, which do not use semver for release builds, but incrementals or other kinds of versioning.

2.319.1

2.326

The downgrade buttons simply omits longer version strings. That's not a major loss, but in my opinion it would definitely be handy to always show the full previous version.