[jbosstools-dev] The list of uninstallable connectors at the top of Central catalog sucks

[Mickael Istria]

Hi all,

While I'm testing staged JBT 4.3.0.CR2a, I noticed that a user facing 
Central will see a catalog with a list of items that they cannot select, 
with no widget, nothing. Click "Select All" doesn't produce an obvious 
feedback so user isn't aware of the impact of "Select All".
It takes at least a few seconds to me, who developed most of the support 
for those uninstallable entries in Central catalog, to think about 
scrolling down to see usable content. I believe it's going to be much 
worse for new users, or for those who don't look at software page often.
Those entries hide some parts of JBoss Tools with real added-value 
(Hybrid Tools, OpenShift v3...).

Those useless uninstallable connectors are hiding the useful content, 
and unless one already knows or is curious enough to find installable 
connectors, it just make this install page seem useless. IMO, it's worse 
to have this poor UX in our product than to have some occasional 
questions on the user forums.
My immediate recommendation would be:
* Either to drop all those JBT-IS "not yet available" connector and face 
user questions on forums, or
* instead of a dozen of "not yet available" entries hiding the 
installable one, we should have a single "JBoss Tools integration Stack" 
entry telling that the content are not available yet.

On a longer-term approach, there are now way too many things in Central, 
either we should make it simpler, or fully revise it to have a more 
structured browser, which will ultimately look either like MarketPlace 
Client or the regular p2 install wizard with a tree (and some additional 
columns and some icons since it's the only real difference between 
central catalogs and a p2 site)

Cheers,
-- 
Mickael Istria
Eclipse developer at JBoss, by Red Hat <http://www.jboss.org/tools>
My blog <http://mickaelistria.wordpress.com> - My Tweets 
<http://twitter.com/mickaelistria>
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