build/posts/improving-githubs-new-design/index.html


1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87

<!doctype html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
	<meta charset="utf-8">
	<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1">
	<meta name="color-scheme" content="dark light">
	<link rel="icon" href="data:,">
	<title>Improving Github's New Design</title>
	<link href="/atom.xml" type="application/atom+xml" rel="alternate" title="Atom feed for blog posts" />
	<link href="/rss.xml" type="application/rss+xml" rel="alternate" title="RSS feed for blog posts" />
<style>*{box-sizing:border-box;}body{font-family:sans-serif;line-height:1.33;margin:0 auto;max-width:650px;padding:1rem;}blockquote{background:rgba(0,0,0,0.1);border-left:4px solid;padding-left:5px;}img{max-width:100%;}pre{border:1px solid;overflow:auto;padding:5px;}table{text-align:left;width:100%;}.footnotes{font-size:90%;}</style>
</head>

<nav>
	<a href="#menu">Menu &darr;</a>
</nav>

<main>
<h1 id="improving-githubs-new-design">Improving Github&#8217;s New Design</h1>
<p>2020-07-07</p>
<p>Like many other Github users, I am not a big fan of their recent repository page redesign. In my mind it seems like a change just for the sake of change - the original UI worked perfectly fine.</p>
<p><em>Sigh.</em></p>
<p>I was planning on recreating the original Github layout with custom CSS but decided against it. Tackling such a big change in design would cause headaches if Github ever changed even one simple class or id on a given element. My final conclusion was to just improve their new design with my own personal quality of life improvements.</p>
<p>So, enough chit-chat. Let&#8217;s get into it.</p>
<h2 id="current-design-2020">Current Design (2020)</h2>
<p>The default view for a repo&#8217;s homepage and ticket items are locked at a set <code>max-width</code>. This causes some visual strain in comparison to the full-width headers and navigations directly above. I use a decently sized montior when using your app Gitub - <strong>let me use all the space available to me</strong>!</p>
<h2 id="my-improvements">My Improvements</h2>
<p>Your users shouldn&#8217;t have to jump around the page looking for the important information they want to see. Resetting the basic repo information to the left side of the screen allows user to <em>instantly</em> read-up on the project details. (This design is catered towards left-to-right readers mind you).</p>
<p>We now also utilize all the available screen space, dependent on the user&#8217;s browser window size.</p>
<p>We make similar updates to the ticket item view and also remove the out-of-place <code>margin-bottom</code> from the project link headers.</p>
<h2 id="try-it-yourself">Try It Yourself!</h2>
<p>You can very easily implement these custom CSS changes with an extension for the browser of your choice:</p>
<ul>
<li>Firefox: <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/">Stylus</a></li>
<li>Chrome: <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylebot/oiaejidbmkiecgbjeifoejpgmdaleoha">Stylebot</a></li>
</ul>
<p>Then create a new custom CSS file to target <code>github.com</code> with the following properties:</p>
<pre><code>.container-xl {
    max-width: 100%;
}

.repository-content .gutter-condensed.gutter-lg {
    flex-direction: row-reverse !important;
}

.repository-content #discussion_bucket .gutter-condensed.gutter-lg {
    flex-direction: row !important;
}

.repohead &#62; div.d-flex {
    margin-bottom: 0 !important;
}

#show_issue {
    display: flex;
    flex-direction: row;
    flex-wrap: wrap;
}

.repository-content #discussion_bucket,
#partial-discussion-header {
    width: 100%;
}
</code></pre>
<p>That&#8217;s it! Feel free to improve on this and further make it your own! I might create a new repo for this project if I end up adding even more improvements to the core CSS.</p>
<footer role="contentinfo">
    <h2>Menu Navigation</h2>
    <ul id="menu">
        <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
        <li><a href="/projects">Projects</a></li>
        <li><a href="/uses">Uses</a></li>
        <li><a href="/wiki">Wiki</a></li>
        <li><a href="/resume">Resume</a></li>
        <li><a href="/colophon">Colophon</a></li>
        <li><a href="/now">Now</a></li>
        <li><a href="/donate">Donate</a></li>
        <li><a href="/atom.xml">RSS</a></li>
        <li><a href="#top">&uarr; Top of the page</a></li>
    </ul>
    <small>
        Built with <a href="https://barf.btxx.org">barf</a>. <br>
        Feeds: <a href="/atom.xml">Atom</a> & <a href="/rss.xml">RSS</a><br>
        Maintained with ♥ for the web. <br>
        Proud supporter of <a href="https://usefathom.com/ref/DKHJVX">Fathom</a> &amp; <a href="https://nextdns.io/?from=74d3p3h8">NextDNS</a>. <br>
        The content for this site is <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/">CC-BY-SA</a>.<br> The <a href="https://git.sr.ht/~bt/bt.ht">code for this site</a> is <a href="https://git.sr.ht/~bt/bt.ht/tree/master/item/LICENSE">MIT</a>.
    </small>
</footer>