Subject: New datatracker UI

From: Robert Sparks <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 16:49:52 -0500

All -

The upgrade to the datatracker UI mentioned in plenary at IETF 92 has 
just been released.

This effort has been underway for more than a year.

Lars Eggert began the effort, working intensively on porting the GUI to 
Bootstrap.

The work took  287 separate commits, and comprised changes to 1016 
different files.

The IETF Datatracker is now a responsive website which supports use on a 
much larger variety of devices, from small mobile devices to desktops.

The work relies heavily on the capabilities of  Bootstrap, and continues 
to use the Django<https://www.djangoproject.org/> framework which the 
datatracker has been built on since version 2.00. It also uses new icons 
from FontAwesome, functions from django-bootstrap3.

Additional page conversion work has been done by Ole Laursen, and final 
style tweaks, bug-fixes and adaptations were performed by Henrik Levkowetz.

There is more information about this release at 
http://tracker.tools.ietf.org/release/about

As before the best way to report any issues with the datatracker is to 
follow the "Report a Bug" link in the footer of each page.

Please join me in thanking Lars for this major effort!

RjS

---

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 18:02:31 -0400

On 4/13/15 5:49 PM, Robert Sparks wrote:
> ...
> Lars Eggert began the effort, working intensively on porting the GUI 
> to Bootstrap.
> ...
>
> Please join me in thanking Lars for this major effort
>

Kudos to Lars!

     Tony Hansen

---

From: "Joel M. Halpern" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 18:11:15 -0400

Very impressive.  Congratulations to Lars.
Yours,
Joel

---

From: Benson Schliesser <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 18:21:33 -0400

I agree - it looks much more modern, and more pleasant to look at. Thank 
you to everybody that made this happen!

But since nobody has complained yet (and IMHO complaining is a 
particular skill of the IETF...) please allow me to be the first: I'd 
like a more "compact" view of the WG document list. Perhaps my memory is 
tricking me, but I feel like I was able to see more in a single screen 
with the old style. I suppose I could try to submit code... But 
complaining is easier. ;)

Regardless, to be clear about my dominant feeling: Thanks to the team 
that did this, and everybody that makes Datatracker work!

Cheers,
-Benson

> Joel M. Halpern <mailto:[email-masked]>
> April 13, 2015 at 6:11 PM
> Tony Hansen <mailto:[email-masked]>
> April 13, 2015 at 6:02 PM
> Robert Sparks <mailto:[email-masked]>
> April 13, 2015 at 5:49 PM
> All -
>
> The IETF Datatracker is now a responsive website which supports use on 
> a much larger variety of devices, from small mobile devices to desktops.
>
> The work relies heavily on the capabilities of  Bootstrap, and 
> continues to use the Django framework which the datatracker has been 
> built on since version 2.00. It also uses new icons from FontAwesome, 
> functions from django-bootstrap3.
>
> Additional page conversion work has been done by Ole Laursen, and 
> final style tweaks, bug-fixes and adaptations were performed by Henrik 
> Levkowetz.
>

---

From: Kathleen Moriarty <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 19:05:16 -0400

Big thanks to Lars and team for this huge improvement to the interface.

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 13, 2015, at 6:21 PM, Benson Schliesser <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> I agree - it looks much more modern, and more pleasant to look at. Thank you to everybody that made this happen!
> 
> But since nobody has complained yet (and IMHO complaining is a particular skill of the IETF...) please allow me to be the first: I'd like a more "compact" view of the WG document list.

The default font is larger than the one previously used.  You can probably adjust this using your browser settings.  I like the larger default when looking at drafts.  I haven't tried playing with that as I like the size.

Kathleen 
> Perhaps my memory is tricking me, but I feel like I was able to see more in a single screen with the old style. I suppose I could try to submit code... But complaining is easier. ;)
> 
> Regardless, to be clear about my dominant feeling: Thanks to the team that did this, and everybody that makes Datatracker work!
> 
> Cheers,
> -Benson
> 
> 
>> The upgrade to the datatracker UI mentioned in plenary at IETF 92 has just been released.
>> 
>> Lars Eggert began the effort, working intensively on porting the GUI to Bootstrap.
>> 
>> The work took  287 separate commits, and comprised changes to 1016 different files.
>> 
>> The IETF Datatracker is now a responsive website which supports use on a much larger variety of devices, from small mobile devices to desktops.
>> 
>> The work relies heavily on the capabilities of  Bootstrap, and continues to use the Django framework which the datatracker has been built on since version 2.00. It also uses new icons from FontAwesome, functions from django-bootstrap3.
>> 
>> Additional page conversion work has been done by Ole Laursen, and final style tweaks, bug-fixes and adaptations were performed by Henrik Levkowetz.
>> 
>> There is more information about this release at http://tracker.tools.ietf.org/release/about
>> 
>> As before the best way to report any issues with the datatracker is to follow the "Report a Bug" link in the footer of each page.
>>

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 2015 11:12:28 +1200

On 14/04/2015 10:21, Benson Schliesser wrote:
> But since nobody has complained yet (and IMHO complaining is a particular skill of the IETF...) please allow me to be the first:
> I'd like a more "compact" view of the WG document list. Perhaps my memory is tricking me, but I feel like I was able to see more
> in a single screen with the old style. I suppose I could try to submit code... But complaining is easier. ;)

CTRL/- a couple of times helps.

Feature suggestion: delete the extra line with the page count, and
add a "Pages"column after "Date".

Kudos++.

   Brian

>> The work relies heavily on the capabilities of  Bootstrap, and continues to use the Django framework which the datatracker has
>> been built on since version 2.00. It also uses new icons from FontAwesome, functions from django-bootstrap3.
>>

---

From: Michael Richardson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 20:07:12 -0400

> This effort has been underway for more than a year.

It's really quite pretty, if it does jar a bit at first because it's so
different.  I'm sure I'll come to love it....

Thank you.

---

From: Joseph Lorenzo Hall <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2015 20:30:44 -0400

+1 very awesome

-- 
Joseph Lorenzo Hall
Chief Technologist
Center for Democracy & Technology
1634 I ST NW STE 1100
Washington DC 20006-4011
(p) 202-407-8825
(f) 202-637-0968
[email-masked]
PGP: https://josephhall.org/gpg-key
fingerprint: 3CA2 8D7B 9F6D DBD3 4B10  1607 5F86 6987 40A9 A871

---

From: Hector Santos <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 2015 13:24:17 -0400

Minor comment:

The site breaks down in certain spots when Javascript is disabled 
which is always off for me until I specifically white list the site. 
Disabling javascript also helps with speed, throughput.

The menu is lost when javascript is disabled.  It does say "Enable 
Javacript for full functionality."  Using CSS for the menu solves this 
problem.

Overall, retest site with Javascript disabled to find the problem 
points and to gracefully clean it up.

-- 
HLS

On 4/13/2015 6:21 PM, Benson Schliesser wrote:
> I agree - it looks much more modern, and more pleasant to look at.
> Thank you to everybody that made this happen!
>
> like a more "compact" view of the WG document list. Perhaps my memory
> is tricking me, but I feel like I was able to see more in a single
> screen with the old style. I suppose I could try to submit code... But
>> The IETF Datatracker is now a responsive website which supports use
>> on a much larger variety of devices, from small mobile devices to
>> desktops.
>>
>> built on since version 2.00. It also uses new icons from
>> FontAwesome, functions from django-bootstrap3.
>>
>> final style tweaks, bug-fixes and adaptations were performed by
>> Henrik Levkowetz.
>>
>> As before the best way to report any issues with the datatracker is
>> to follow the "Report a Bug" link in the footer of each page.
>>

---

From: t.p. <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 08:59:51 +0100

I find it worse than that.  Just over a year ago, Martin Rex said, about
an upgrade to a different IETF server,

"Using IE6 to test a web page is perfectly reasonable.

If it doesn't work in IE6, it uses more complex/esoteric features
than what is necessary and should be used in the first place.

The server obviously fails the golden IETF rule "be conservative
in what you send out" (as HTML) and the server ought to be fixed"

I have performed the test.  It fails, comprehensively.

Tom Petch

---

From: Leif Johansson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 11:14:17 +0200

> 18 apr 2015 kl. 09:59 skrev t.p. <[email-masked]>:
> 

...oh for the love of html5...

> than what is necessary and should be used in the first place.

I (and I'm sure I speak for anyone who has written code for the web in the last 5 odd years) object to using that criterion. It used to be ... practical, but this time is long past.

---

From: Ted Lemon <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 07:41:29 -0400

> than what is necessary and should be used in the first place.

I'm sure that we could have made a really awesome web site using ActiveX which would have worked fine in IE6.   Relying on IE6 or some other obsolete browser as a basis for testing whether a web page works essentially invalidates the work we do in updating and cleaning up specifications.   The idea that we should not use the technology that we design is abhorrent, if for no other reason than that if we do not deign to eat our own dogfood, it is unreasonable for us to ask others to do so.

---

From: "Eggert, Lars" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 13:10:28 +0000

> "Using IE6 to test a web page is perfectly reasonable.

IE6? The browser that was replaced in 2007, has less than 1% users and that even its vendor wants to get rid of? https://www.modern.ie/en-us/ie6countdown

Lars

---

From: Hector Santos <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 12:10:21 -0400

> than what is necessary and should be used in the first place.

I understand, and once upon a time that was very true, but I think by 
this point in browser history time, its closer to IE9 as a minimum for 
the windows world of end user support. That is why I go by for our 
intranet Web products (we supplied canned dynamic web pages) and I 
have to test all the browser out there.  Its was a difficult job.

I think a good way to lay this out is to have some web-support level 
terms such as:

   Web 1.0   Pure HTML/CSS, no Javascript, no client side offloading.
   Web 2.0   with Javascript, Ajax, Client side offloading, etc.
   Web 3.0   with HTML5, "Web Sockets"

The trend is to offload mode of the client side work to the end-user 
devices.  Well, trend has always been cyclic; centralized, 
decentralized, we are in a hybrid mode now, of centralization with 
smart offloaded fatter devices aka apps.  Most of the top browsers 
support HTML5, but javascript should be a given.   It would be nice 
(not as fancy) to keep Web 1.0 web site, but the IETF decision should 
be made if WEB 2.0 is the minimum device expectation for the IETF.

> in what you send out" (as HTML) and the server ought to be fixed"

Its hard to support all the browsers, especially all the devices. But 
its all possible of course.  It is expensive.  We made that move 
ourselves around 2006 from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0 before requiring 
Javascript where it was needed, otherwise it was optional.  I expect 
within a  year or so, more Web 3.0 technology to be used for our 
intranet package and expecting MOST of the interested end users 
(targeted customers) to be ready.  Testing will tell us. :)

> I have performed the test.  It fails, comprehensively.

Well, when simple Javascript-disabled testing is obviously missed, it 
says people working on it probably have all the latest gadgets, more 
current/modern hardware, speeds, etc, and they don't do full end-user 
testing and/or they presumed the interested end users will be ready 
for it as well with latest hardware and browsers, etc.   Its just a 
matter of testing.

So the question is, does IETF want to continue with WEB 1.0 or at 
least WEB 2.0 for now?  If WEB 1.0, then perhaps IE6 browsers should 
be included in the test suite.   IE6 does have some major issues with 
Javascript so, I would expect a IE9 level of support.

-- 
HLS

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 20:49:39 +0300

> On Apr 18, 2015, at 7:10 PM, Hector Santos <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> I understand, and once upon a time that was very true, but I think by this point in browser history time, its closer to IE9 as a minimum for the windows world of end user support. 

According to this, we should support at least IE8:

http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0

And for similar reasons Safari 7.1, and if we care about mobile, Safari 3.1 for iOS and Android browser 3.1.

Yoav

---

From: Leif Johansson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 19:55:25 +0200

> IE6? The browser that was replaced in 2007, has less than 1% users and that even its vendor wants to get rid of? https://www.modern.ie/en-us/ie6countdown

+10000000

---

From: Hector Santos <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 15:37:36 -0400

> http://marketshare.hitslink.com/browser-market-share.aspx?qprid=2&qpcustomd=0

+1 Good market information to have.

I recall, programming wise, IE9/IE8 was pretty compatible. 
Programming sites like W3schools.com show a 1.1% IE8 as of March, 2015:

http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_explorer.asp

Keep in mind that programmers visiting this WC3school site are 
probably part of their stats collection. So the IETF can also collect 
the stats to see what browsers most IETF participants use.

> And for similar reasons Safari 7.1, and if we care about mobile, Safari 3.1 for iOS and Android browser 3.1.

Its hard and costly to single source the development for all. But it 
has been done.

-- 
HLS

---

From: Larry Masinter <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 00:49:09 +0000

I think the discussion about “no JavaScript” in the Data Tracker got side-tracked by bringing up IE6.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hildebrand-html-rfc/

identifies requirements for Internet Drafts and RFCs, for general access and long-term preservation.

It notes:

   Any use of JavaScript in the HTML document will not negatively impact
   the ability to read the document.  Some consumers of the RFC series
   routinely disable JavaScript for security purposes.

If that guideline had been followedd

It notes other requirements such as accessibility, ability to regenerate from available data,
platforms to test, charsets and more.

Other HTML documents and interfaces in IETF’s web site should have similar guidelines
(including “don’t disable old URLs like ftp://ftp.ietf.org…”).

Perhaps draft-hildebrand-html-rfc would be a good starting point?

Larry
—
http://larry.masinter.net

---

From: joel jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 18 Apr 2015 22:49:48 -0700

> IE6? The browser that was replaced in 2007, has less than 1% users and that even its vendor wants to get rid of? https://www.modern.ie/en-us/ie6countdown

Has no tls 1.1  or 1.2 support... has sslv3 enabled by default, is
intensely vulnerable to attack.

---

From: Carsten Bormann <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 08:13:04 +0200

> Perhaps draft-hildebrand-html-rfc would be a good starting point?

For archival documents such as RFCs, yes.

For websites that we interact daily with to get our work done, no.

Mobile code is an essential part of the Web.  Where it actually helps to
make Web pages more productive, we shouldn't let normal use be slowed
down by some misguided attempt at purity.

(The usual considerations about accessibility, tool access/APIs, search
engine access etc., apply.  But we don't have to reinvent these
considerations; they have been well-understood since Ajax re-legitimized
JavaScript usage 10 years ago.)

Grüße, Carsten

---

From: t.p. <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 09:34:41 +0100

----- Original Message -----
From: "Larry Masinter" <[email-masked]>
To: "Hector Santos" <[email-masked]>; <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2015 1:49 AM

> Perhaps draft-hildebrand-html-rfc would be a good starting point?

I note that the title and Introduction of that I-D are specific to RFC,
no mention of I-D.  But even so, for me, I almost always use the text
version, not HTML, certainly with I-D where I want to edit
the text as I read it, as comments are made on it, as it changes with
revisions.  Theoretically feasible but too much of a pain with HTML.

Whereas the datatracker and other bits and pieces of the IETF nexus are
a website, where I search, link to others (IRTF, IANA ...) go into and
out of Charters, e-mail archives and so on.  A completely different
pattern of use where the functions of HTML are essential.

Tom Petch

---

From: t.p. <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 09:32:56 +0100

----- Original Message -----
From: "Hector Santos" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Sent: Saturday, April 18, 2015 5:10 PM
> Javascript so, I would expect a IE9 level of support.

Hector

Your analysis is much more professional than mine.  I was struck by the
comment in your initial post about Javascript.  I do enable it but
notice the impact on scrolling in return for which I see little or no
improvemeent in function.  Even IE8 is noticeably slower in paging down
and as to why someone thought it a good idea to put all the links to the
other bits of the IETF nexus (IANA, IAB, IRTF, ...) that I use so often,
20 page downs away (at least on
http://datatracker.ietf.org/wg/
which used to be my home page) well, I am clearly on a different
planet:-(  Ditto whoever thought it a good idea to take a away the
search function for I-Ds from that page.

What I often do is disable images since there are so many of them on
websites and they take so long to download, so another bugbear of mine
is when the replacement text is meaningless.  In the worst case, you get
the same text in place of forward, back, cancel and submit icons!. So
meaningful text for anchors is something I would regard as a
requirement.

In passing, the TLS list regularly carries figures, which I can never
find when I want to,  for the prevalence of such as XP, with its latest
level of IE8, and I seem to recall providers there saying that XP still
had to be supported, it had too many users to be discarded.  So I would
suggest IE8 still needs to be supported.

Tom Petch

---

From: "Eggert, Lars" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 13:05:19 +0000

On 2015-4-19, at 10:32, t.p. <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 
> Ditto whoever thought it a good idea to take a away the

There is an ID search field in the top right corner of every page.

Lars

---

From: Loa Andersson <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 15:56:24 +0200

Tom,

Yes it took me some frustrated moments before I found the search
function, but it is there and work very well :).

/Loa

-- 

Loa Andersson                        email: [email-masked]
Senior MPLS Expert                          [email-masked]
Huawei Technologies (consultant)     phone: +46 739 81 21 64

---

From: Sam Hartman <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 12:27:38 -0400

>>>>> "Larry" == Larry Masinter <[email-masked]> writes:

    Larry> I think the discussion about “no JavaScript” in the Data
    Larry> Tracker got side-tracked by bringing up IE6.

    Larry> https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-hildebrand-html-rfc/

    Larry> identifies requirements for Internet Drafts and RFCs, for
    Larry> general access and long-term preservation.

    Larry> It notes:

    Larry>    Any use of JavaScript in the HTML document will not
    Larry> negatively impact the ability to read the document.  Some
    Larry> consumers of the RFC series routinely disable JavaScript for
    Larry> security purposes.

Hi.
I understand the appeal of approaches like this.
It's desirable to support every browser, and desirable to support stable
interfaces, and desirable to support secure configurations.

However, it's also desirable to create a usable, responsive web site.
It's desirable to use current development techniques, to be able to use
modern off-the-shelf software, and to be able to minimize development
costs.  We're in the business of writing standards, not implementing
them.  Yes, there's a sense in which we should try and follow our
standards, doing things like supporting IPv6 and DNSsec for our
infrastructure services.  However, for the most part, I disagree with
the proposition that the IETF should have significantly different
requirements for its web presence than any professional organization
trying to serv its users.  In particular, infrastructure is a case where
we should generally trust the professionals we hire to do their jobs.
We should expect them to collect customer requirements from us, but we
should be careful not to overly constrain the methodology they use.  We
need not and should not come to community consensus on software
development practices or the sorts of requirements about technology use
you're discussing here.  In stead, I hope we come to community consensus
that we'll let the IAOC deal with that, and hopefully the IAOC will
delegate much of that to their contractors while overseeing the work
using reasonable industry standards.

With regard to the Javascript requirements you are proposing and related
similar requirements, I think there's a huge cost in terms of either
usability or development effort to what you're asking for.  A web 2.0
website designed with a backend RESTful web service and with all the UI
in Javascript can be much more responsive.  In many cases you won't need
to have a full page reload, you can save state more quickly, you can
more quickly update to reflect user input.
This sort of functionality is becoming what people expect in a quality
web application.

It kind of depends heavily on javascript.

In addition, it significantly influences how you design the app.  It is
very difficult to design that sort of backended-by-webservice app in a
way that falls back to anything sane without javascript.  You very
likely have to design the app twice, quite possibly in two different
languages with two different UI frameworks depending on what you are
doing.

Unlike the RFC series, the datatracker UI is online and does not produce
archival artifacts.  It's not actually
important that today's datatracker UI work with tomorrow's browsers
provided that we are willing to continue maintaining the datatracker UI
so that by the time tomorrow's browsers are released, it works with
them.  I'm not saying we shouldn't design for the future, simply that if
Javascript or AJAX were going away, we'd see it from enough of a
distance to react.  It's certainly not important to me that the browser
pages (and associated resources like Javascript) produced by today's
datatracker function or look good with software 20 years from now.

Some aspects of the datatracker UI may have longer-term impacts.  I'd
definitely like there to be stable URLs for ballots for documents as
well as for the datatracker information about the documents.
I think APIs including ATOM feeds about documents might want a stability
guarantee.
I definitely hope we forward migrate our data as we adapt our internal
schemas.

However, in my mind, that's a far cry from the sort of requirements
being discussed here.

---

From: t.p. <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 20:41:02 +0100

----- Original Message -----
From: "Loa Andersson" <[email-masked]>
To: "Eggert, Lars" <[email-masked]>; "t.p." <[email-masked]>
Cc: "ietf" <[email-masked]>
Sent: Sunday, April 19, 2015 2:56 PM

> function, but it is there and work very well :).

mmmmmmmmmmm  I am looking at the page in question, the /wg/ page, using
IE8, and I see no search function.  I have increased the window size to
have no scroll bar, and still no sign.  I have scrolled down (20 Page
Downs:-( and no sign of one anywhere, top, bottom, left, right, ....

Time to go to bed to see if my eyesight is any better tomorrow!

Tom Petch

---

From: joel jaeggli <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 19 Apr 2015 15:11:50 -0700

> Time to go to bed to see if my eyesight is any better tomorrow!

No amount of mousing around will disguise the fact that the toolbar
didn't render...