Change text for update label depending on user permissions

ZD: https://gitlab.zendesk.com/agent/tickets/17258

Description

The update message that informs about GitLab's version status seen in the admin dashboard is useful information for admins but not for other users. Having a message displaying Update ASAP to a user may not be necessary at all or even hinder its use.

Customer requires this badge be removed from the Help page but left to be displayed for admins on the admin dashboard.

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Solution

For admins we want to show the current messages: Up to date, New version available, Update ASAP

For non-admins we want to show only the first two messages: Up to date, New version available

/cc @jschatz1

Added ~113220 label

Added feature proposal label

@JobV Your take?

Makes sense. maybe move it away from the help to the admins dashboard?

The admin screen is not visited that often, as we see in our metrics. We want to make sure people actually update the instance whenever a new release is out. I'm on the fence for this one.

I like the current behavior. I don't see the upside in hiding the version check.

@ksylvan I could imagine that if you have users opening issues because gitlab was not updated (because they were browsing the help) and then you understand. I think to display it in the help is not really useful but only in the admin area. @JobV which metrics ? GitlLab.com? I think on-premise customers (EE) may have a different interpretation .

@dimitrieh What do you think please?

I think I agree with @JobV on that we need to display this information in more places than the admin screen. This is perhaps related to the comment here: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/23598#note_17754440 stating:

I do hope to bring a "What's new" thing to GitLab in the future, which would give you the same and more information. Maybe look into that :)

Also this issue https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/24479 which thinks of an area to show this kind of information in the bottom of the left sidebar.

Perhaps we should combine these issues by making a good whats new section. An existing product which does this really nicely is notion.so:

It spawns this pop-up when clicking the Help&Feedback, giving access to a really nice what's new page (which is their Changelog)

Perhaps we should to the same in the place mentioned by @tauriedavis in #24479 (closed) or add a section above "help" in the profile dropdown:

With a notification if you are not on the most recent version, thus you need to update. Something like:

If we would do something like that, we could remove the label from the help section i think and solve https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/24479#note_18576925 at the same time. Thoughts @JobV and @tauriedavis ?

Can we show the update message for only admins and hide it for all others?

@dimitrieh I think the What's new? idea could be neat. I've liked this feature on slack and it could promote our release post or something similar. It feels a little separate from this issue where the primary concern seems to be showing the update message to users who have no need for it. But I do like the idea!

mentioned in issue #25341 (moved)

@tauriedavis I agree! Moved it to its own issue: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/25341

@JobV perhaps with our eyes on that issue, we can display the "Update Asap" message only got admins as @tauriedavis suggested.

@dimitrieh I like the your idea of showing the version info under the user dropdown.

@tauriedavis an alternative solution for this issue could be to change the text to: "A newer version is available!" for all to see

Yes, I think that would also work @dimitrieh!

@tauriedavis let's go for that in that case :)

updated main issue body. @JobV schedule this? :)

@dimitrieh

I just noticed that the message does change. According to the handbook:

GitLab users who open the help page in the web interface or the admin area 
will see an image in the top right corner with the text "up to date" in green,
"new version out" in yellow or "update asap" in red. This enables them to
quickly see if they run an outdated or even vulnerable version of GitLab. 
The version check is enabled by default and can be disabled in the admin area.

I'm not sure what causes the message to change states though? Maybe we could make it so that admins see the changing states but non-admins only see "Up to date" or "A new version is available!"?

@tauriedavis I would be okey with that!

@lbennett would you know why it changes states from "up to date" to "update ASAP".. according to the handbook if there is new version out and your current one contains an important vulnerability... but how is this retrieved?

@dimitrieh Yah, looks like it uses version_check.rb to build a URL https://version.gitlab.com/check.svg?gitlab_info=[base64_encoded_version_hash]. It uses that URL as the src of an <img> element and loads the corresponding image. I don't know where the code for version.gitlab.com is but maybe its a different repo and we can assume that it simply decodes the base64, checks if that version is out of date or vulnerable and returns the corresponding .svg.

Would it be possible to do the proposal mentioned here https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/14381#note_19671323 @lbennett? Essentially change what is displayed based on whether the user is an admin or not.

@tauriedavis Looks like it :)

Awesome thanks! I will update the description.

removed ~19492 label

added frontend label

@JobV can we get this scheduled or moved into %Backlog ? :)

i'll put Accepting Merge Requests and ~"up-for-grabs" on it for now

added ~123454 ~131895 labels

changed milestone to %Backlog

mentioned in issue #25982 (closed)

removed ~123454 label

removed ~131895 label

mentioned in merge request !8355 (merged)

changed title from Remove update label from help to Change text for update label depending on user permissions

cc @sarrahvesselov and @tauriedavis for thoughts.

removed frontend label

Would it be possible to do the proposal mentioned here https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/14381#note_19671323 @lbennett? Essentially change what is displayed based on whether the user is an admin or not.

It looks like @lbennett said yes on this one. I think the solution is here and agreed upon, it just needs to happen @jschatz1. What's the holdup?

added UX ready label

Yes, UX has already signed off on this one. It was before we had the UX ready label, added it now.

moved to gitlab#4490

Hey!

GitLab is moving all development for both GitLab Community Edition and Enterprise Edition into a single codebase. The current gitlab-ce repository will become a read-only mirror, without any proprietary code. All development is moved to the current gitlab-ee repository, which we will rename to just gitlab in the coming weeks. As part of this migration, issues will be moved to the current gitlab-ee project.

If you have any questions about all of this, please ask them in our dedicated FAQ issue.

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/13855

You can also find more information here:

• https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/13304
• https://about.gitlab.com/2019/08/23/a-single-codebase-for-gitlab-community-and-enterprise-edition/

Frequently Asked Questions

For an up to date list of questions and answers, please take a look at https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/13855

What will we do with the repository names?

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/ will become https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab, and https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce will become https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-foss.

Why rename gitlab-ce to gitlab-foss?

Using "gitlab" and "gitlab-ce" would be confusing, so we decided to rename gitlab-ce to gitlab-foss to make the purpose of this FOSS repository more clear

I created a merge requests for CE, and this got closed. What do I need to do?

You will need to create a merge request at https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/. This link will eventually redirect to https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab.

How does the licensing work in this new setup?

Everything in the ee/ directory is proprietary. Everything else is free and open source software. If your merge request does not change anything in the ee/ directory, the process of contributing changes is the same as when using the gitlab-ce repository.

Will you accept merge requests on the gitlab-ce/gitlab-foss project after it has been renamed?

No. Merge requests submitted to this project will be closed automatically.

Will I still be able to view old issues and merge requests in gitlab-ce/gitlab-foss?

Yes.

How will this affect users of GitLab CE using Omnibus?

No changes will be necessary, as the packages built remain the same.

How will this affect users of GitLab CE that build from source?

Once the project has been renamed, you will need to change your Git remotes to use this new URL. GitLab will take care of redirecting Git operations so there is no hard deadline, but we recommend doing this as soon as the projects have been renamed.

Where can I see a timeline of the remaining steps?

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ee/issues/13304

Will community contributions submitted to the new "gitlab" repository be available in the new gitlab-foss repository?

Yes, these changes will be synced to gitlab-foss automatically, several times per day.

locked this issue

mentioned in issue gitlab#7329