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  1. Jenkins
  2. JENKINS-61224

"Monitors" terminology should not be used in GUI

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      After JENKINS-60920 (I guess?), the header bar shows <bell icon> monitors 2 and the tooltip shows

      bq . There are 2 active administrative monitors.

      We should not be using the bare term "monitor" in the GUI. This word in English has various meanings (video displays, bureaucratic police, ...) but none of them would be intuitive in this context. In some spots in the GUI like /configure we do use the phrase "administrative monitor" which is more tolerable, though something like "alert" or "notification" would be more conventional. (I think the Java API introduced AdministrativeMonitor to describe how the implementations are written—by monitoring some condition and conditionally displaying the result to administrators—but this does not well capture the user's perspective.)

      I would suggest just deleting the word from the toolbar. The bell icon suffices for people to understand that there are some alerts they can see by clicking on it.

          [JENKINS-61224] "Monitors" terminology should not be used in GUI

          I sort of agree with you.

          I think having a good, meaningful label would be better. On the other side, having a bad label is even worse. I'll be happy to create a patch to remove this if more people agree that it should be done.

          Félix Queiruga Balado added a comment - I sort of agree with you. I think having a good, meaningful label would be better. On the other side, having a bad label is even worse. I'll be happy to create a patch to remove this if more people agree that it should be done.

          Matt Sicker added a comment -

          Using the word "alert" instead of "monitor" might work. Or there might be some vocabulary that can be lifted from observability frameworks.

          Matt Sicker added a comment - Using the word "alert" instead of "monitor" might work. Or there might be some vocabulary that can be lifted from observability frameworks.

          Jeff Thompson added a comment -

          I've had the same concerns with naming on these things before. The API name isn't a good term for users, but it got picked up and used in UI a number of places. I think the best term is "alert".

          I don't have much of an opinion on Jesse's latter suggestion of removing the word entirely. I guess I would have a slight, soft preference for retaining text with better wording.

          Jeff Thompson added a comment - I've had the same concerns with naming on these things before. The API name isn't a good term for users, but it got picked up and used in UI a number of places. I think the best term is "alert". I don't have much of an opinion on Jesse's latter suggestion of removing the word entirely. I guess I would have a slight, soft preference for retaining text with better wording.

          Matt Sicker added a comment -

          Warnings could work, too. Or if someone can think of a good butler pun: I'd love that.

          Matt Sicker added a comment - Warnings could work, too. Or if someone can think of a good butler pun: I'd love that.

          Romen Rodriguez-Gil added a comment - - edited

          I'd agree with Jesse, we don't need to have text at all, just the bell and the number, as is common pattern in many other cases, such as GitHub.

          fqueiruga, are you OK if I assign this to myself as discussed in the UX SIG? I'll be happy to work on that so that I get more familiar with the Jenkins UI and can keep contributing to it.

          Edit: Just chatted with Félix and he is OK, so I'm assigning it to me

          Romen Rodriguez-Gil added a comment - - edited I'd agree with Jesse, we don't need to have text at all, just the bell and the number, as is common pattern in many other cases, such as GitHub. fqueiruga , are you OK if I assign this to myself as discussed in the UX SIG? I'll be happy to work on that so that I get more familiar with the Jenkins UI and can keep contributing to it. Edit: Just chatted with Félix and he is OK, so I'm assigning it to me

          Woot <3! Gracias Romen! Go go go ! \o/

          Baptiste Mathus added a comment - Woot <3! Gracias Romen! Go go go ! \o/

          Romen Rodriguez-Gil added a comment - PR created https://github.com/jenkinsci/jenkins/pull/4555

          Just FTR, noting here that the linked PR ended up including a color change in the monitor alert, both for the old UI and for the new. The "proposed changelog entries" were modified in the PR accordingly.

          Romen Rodriguez-Gil added a comment - Just FTR, noting here that the linked PR ended up including a color change in the monitor alert, both for the old UI and for the new. The "proposed changelog entries" were modified in the PR accordingly.

          I am removing the `lts-candidate` as the is too minor to qualify for LTS backport.

          Oliver Gondža added a comment - I am removing the `lts-candidate` as the is too minor to qualify for LTS backport.

            romenrg Romen Rodriguez-Gil
            jglick Jesse Glick
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              Created:
              Updated:
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