New Upgrade UI in PersonaBar Needs a Rethink

[jeremy-farrance]

I am talking about the new process and UI for upgrading DNN versions. Recently a new tab appeared in PersonaBar, Servers, System Info, the Upgrades sub-tab. Screen clip 1 below.

References #6732 #6732

Problems Defined

1. The new "upgrades process" is not discoverable

Sometimes it takes a real interaction to understand the problem. This happened 3 days ago... I have a client that manages their own hosting, we design/develop stuff for their DNN sites. He said he would be doing upgrades to 10.02.02, I mentioned that he should try the NEW UPGRADES PROCESS. He was enthusiastic, but I neglected to tell him anything else.

• He was back to me via chat within 30 mins telling me he had 10.02.01 in front of him and didn't see anything new in the PB
• I told him PB/Settings, Servers, System Info
• After a few moments, he defended himself saying, "I thought everything under Info is read only, I never thought to look there."

2. The "Steps icon" action button is not a clear enough indication for "Proceed - Run/Apply this Upgrade Package"

• He was back again in 10 mins... he had uploaded DNN 10.02.02 Upgrade zip and could NOT figure out what to do next and specifically wanted to know what "the footprints icon was" - he said it had no tooltip and he was not confident enough to just click it
• there was more to this, but hopefully that highlights the initial problems

Misc Proposed Improvements for Discussion

1. If the Upgrades PB UI panel location stays under Servers/System Info (see clip 1), then using the same logic for the PB Logo getting the "UPDATES" CTA/button, have the UPGRADES subtab also get highlighted (e.g. background: var(--dnn-color-tertiary-light) or whatever is already established in DNN UI style guide). See Clip 2 below. In other words, no matter what path a user takes to get to PB System Info, the "UPGRADES" tab will be highlighted.

Note that this does not completely address the problem. We are still in an Info panel that has been long implied to be (mostly) read only (at least according to 2 people I know of, and yeah, one of them is me).

2. Replace the "Steps Icon" with a language based button. See Clip 4 below. I realize this means we have another translatable element, if avoiding that helps, then we just need a better (and more significant) icon for Apply (or Run or Process or Go or)... within DNN I am not currently aware of an icon that works well for this action, though MoveNext and Rt (Right) and Refresh are close (and a "step up" from the Steps icon) and they would need some "emphasis." If we were using a new icon, I'd probably suggest something like an up-right arrow icon.

Note that in Clip 4 I also removed the column "Can Install" since I needed the room and thought maybe this could be communicated more effectively by simply disabling the Apply button and changing its tooltip to read, "Cannot install this package... [reasons]"

3. Add an info box to the UPGRADES panel with a strong Title and Description and link on to the DNN Platform Suggested Upgrade Path in the DNN Docs.

4. [unfinished] After upload, in the grid, "REQ DNN VERS"... what is this? How is it calculated? In most cases I have noticed "10.2.0" in there, is that the default or fallback and in the future will show... what? If there is a way for the upgraded zip package to know the best or recommend previous or minimum version to be on... ??

5. Back to problem 1 again, another idea... since Upgrades are a significant part of managing/maintaining DNN instances, move UPGRADES from a subtab of System Info to the new, far right top-level PB/Settings/Servers. See Clip 5 below. This also helps discoverability (1) as well as the incongruity of being a set of tools+actions under and Info-grouping of panels.

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Clip 1. The PB UPGRADES UI Panel Location in DNN 10.01.?? thru 10.02.02

Clip 2. Idea: Basic example of solution idea 1 above, if updates are available, on System Info highlight the tab

Clip 3. UPGRADE Panel UI v10.02.02

Clip 4. Idea: Replace Steps Icon with Apply Button and Remove CAN column

Clip 5. Idea: Better? Location for the Upgrades Panel

[skarpik]

@jeremy-farrance - I'm glad that you posted this issue to GitHub. I really like the "Upgrades" feature. But there are a couple of minor changes that could make it really useful especially for DNN novices. Here are my thoughts (and they overlap partially with your comments):

1. Having the "Upgrades" tab become blue when there is an available upgrade is a great idea. I always notice the upgrade notice in the top of the PB. Having the design (i.e. color) match the PB blue notice. Maybe when there are no upgrades, it should not be invisible or grey-out (I'm not sure if that is necessary).
2. The feet icon for the upgrade is very confusing. The first time I used this facility, I said a silent prayer before clicking on the feet. I really don't like clicking on things that I don't understand. A blue "Apply" button is perfect.
3. I was really surprised that I had to upload the upgrade package from my computer. I thought somehow that the upgrade package would be available to use without any action by me or there would be a button to load the file. A nice idea might be to take inspiration from nvQuickSite and offer the ability to upgrade package directly from GitHub. Maybe two buttons - upload the package from your computer and upload from GitHub.

This is a very nice addition to DNN. With a couple of tweaks it could be really good. My thanks to whoever created this new feature.

[enfJoao]

I agree with the changes proposed, namely linking the initial update notice to the new upgrade feature panel and moving the upgrades from info to it's own tab.

As for new features, well, two major things could be implemented:

1. Listing the git available updates in the list, not just the ones available in the files
2. Mark the recommended update path with green version names (only one to simplify the process)
3. For each update available, link the git release page on the update name
4. For each update, four icons

• The first showing if the file exists on the server (gray or green), no action on click
• The second showing an icon to download the install file to the server directly (not the user pc)
• The third would be the current start update process (available if the file exists, else grayed)
• The last with the current delete function (available if the file exists, else grayed).

[mitchelsellers]

The auto connection and download is an item that will take consideration, especially for environments that do not have security context allowing for outbound communications and verification that the assets are not compromised etc. hitting the GitHub API may be possible given it is a public resource.

I question if this was an "opt in" feature rather than a default what the thoughts are.

[enfJoao]

A simple check if git is reachable should define a rule for showing or not the icons.
An alert could show "Automated downloads for git releases are only available if the API is reachable. Please check your CSP, server rules, etc, if you want to use these features".

For opt in, it should not be required since the process requires a user click action. And even then, a prompt could show "Do you want to comnect to the git API and download this file into DNN xx folder?".

[mitchelsellers]

Auto communication will fail many security checks so it will be something we have to balance. (The concept of phoning home is a big no-no for certain deployments) part of the reason you can opt-out for the update service. Maybe we could tie it to that.

[jeremy-farrance]

Quick note: replace "AVAILABLE UPGRADES" with "UPLOADED INSTALL PACKAGES" - its one of those things that is hard to realize until its pointed out. The current label implies some type of automatic list which is not the case. Thanks @skarpik for making this 💡 go off.

[mitchelsellers]

@jeremy-farrance I love this!