+1 from me as well. Just a side note: I feel like there is a high risk of tldr here. May be its just me. It may be would be good to put most of the details in a wiki page and just post a summarized version on the list ?
*Sid Kattoju* Cloud Software Architect | Professional Services c 514.466.0951 * <https://goo.gl/NYZ8KK>* On Fri, Sep 20, 2019 at 8:10 AM Rohit Yadav <rohit.ya...@shapeblue.com> wrote: > All, > > > > == Summary == > > > I have been working on a new, modern role-based UI for Cloudstack (project > Primate: https://github.com/shapeblue/primate) I demoed this for the > first time at CCCNA19 last week and it was very well received. It was > discussed, at length, as an item in the hackathon and the general consensus > there was that this could become Cloudstacks new UI. We discussed a plan to > achieve that and now I’m bringing that plan to the list for discussion. > > > > == Background == > > > The current CloudStack UI has grown technical debt over time and it has > become harder to extend, develop, maintain in the long run, it is also > difficult for new contributors to learn and get started. Since late 2018, I > started working on a side-project with the aim to create a modern > progressive and role-based declaratively-programmed UI for CloudStack, > called Primate. Before creating Primate, I set out to create a list of core > requirements of what would give us an extensible, modern UI that was easy > to develop now and in the future. These are the requirements I came up with: > > * designed from ground up to be a complete replacement for our > combined user/admin UI > * to respect all entities in cloudstack and not make assumptions on > use-cases of cloudstack > * data-driven and auto-generation of UI widgets and to be easy to > learn, develop, extend, customise and maintain. > * declarative programming > * support for API discovery and parameter completion like CloudMonkey > * support for custom roles > > > > I looked at existing Cloudstack UI projects but none of them fully > satisfied all these requirements and started Primate. > > > > == Project Primate == > > > For the implementation, I compared a couple of opensource JS and UI > frameworks and decided to use VueJS (https://vuejs.org<https://vuejs.org/>) > which is a JavaScript framework and AntD (https://ant.design< > https://ant.design/>) which is a UI design language with a well-defined > spec, styling guide, and an implementation-specific to VueJS. VueJS was > selected because among a few other JS frameworks I surveyed it was the > easiest (for me) to learn and get started. I also surveyed a few UI > frameworks and selected AntD because it came with a well-defined spec, > styling guide and VueJS specific implementation which gives several > re-usable components out of the box. > > > > During the development of Primate, I used my previous experience from > CloudMonkey and another PoC angular-based UI ProjectX, and it currently > supports: > > * role-based UI based on API autodiscovery > * auto-generated action/API forms with parameter completion > * declarative component-driven views > * modern programming methodologies (hot reloading, npm based > build/run/compile etc.) > * decoupled from core Cloudstack code > * dynamic translation (most/many of old translation files ported) > * includes dashboards, async job/API polling, all list views/tables > per the old UI > * browser history and url/route driven navigation > * support for mobiles/tables/desktop screens > * configuration driven UI customisation (of navigation, icons, APIs > etc) > > > > To get to this point, I’ve had some valuable help from Anurag and Sven et > al at EWerk. > The development strategy to support all APIs out of the box in a > data-driven way gives a functioning UI and scope to customise > views/components over time. Support to declaratively add actions on all > views and some action/customisation (ex. vm/zone deployment wizard) is in > progress. The work was recently discussed and demo-ed at CCCNA19, the > slides of my talk are here: > https://rohityadav.cloud/files/talks/cccna19-primate.pdf > > > > == Discussion == > > > > With this discussion thread, I want to propose the idea hatched in the > recent hackathon for Primate to become the next UI for CloudStack. I’d like > to seek everybody's thoughts, feedback, comments, and reviews on that idea. > > Obviously, part of any new UI project would mean that the existing UI > development would eventually get abandoned. In the hackathon we discussed a > potential plan to formally deprecate the old UI. I therefore think that > this is something that needs discussion here and a vote if its going to > happen. > > > > In summary, that plan is as follows (with proposed timeframes in > [brackets]) : > > * allow the community to download & experience the UI > * discuss and gather consensus around Primate [now] > * take a vote on whether to take this plan forward [next few weeks] > * create a new repository under Cloudstack and accept Primate > codebase, work on initial documentation with getting started, styling guide > etc (i.e. make this part of the cloudstack project) [after the vote, if > agreed] > * collaborate to get primate to be functionally on-par with current > CloudStack UI, gather feedback, issues, iterate development/testing etc. > [2-3 months before winter LTS release] > * release Primate with winter LTS 2019 release as a technical preview > and also give notice of deprecation plan for existing UI > * define a release approach (separate repo/releases with separate > rpm/deb repo, or use git subrepo/subtree/submodule with CloudStack > repository?) [Before winter LTS release?] > * optionally stop taking feature FRs in old UI and create upgrade > path/plan documentation from old UI to Primate > * Release Primate GA in summer LTS 2020 release as the new UI, but > still ship old UI with a final deprecation notice > * old UI reaches EOL in Winter lts 2020, old UI codebase is removed > from codebase (this gives one year period from winter LTS 2019 Primate > technical preview for community and users to discuss/comment/upgrade) > > > > So, the last release of the old UI would be in summer 2020 LTS. According > to our LTS schedule, this would be supported under LTS until summer 2022 > (but, with no new UI functionality after summer 2020) > > The repository is currently available here: > https://github.com/shapeblue/primate and has instructions on getting > started – I’d encourage everybody to look at the work to date. > > If anybody is keen to contribute in the meantime, I can receive > bugs/requests/feedback as new issues: > https://github.com/shapeblue/primate/issues > > Links: > > Git repository: https://github.com/shapeblue/primate > > Issues: https://github.com/shapeblue/primate/issues > > Screenshots: https://twitter.com/rhtyd/status/1171224978714288129 > > CCCNA19 talk slides: > https://rohityadav.cloud/files/talks/cccna19-primate.pdf > > > Thanks and regards. > > Regards, > > Rohit Yadav > > Software Architect, ShapeBlue > > https://www.shapeblue.com > > rohit.ya...@shapeblue.com > www.shapeblue.com > Amadeus House, Floral Street, London WC2E 9DPUK > @shapeblue > > > >
