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From: Anthony DeBarros <[email protected]>
To: pgadmin-hackers <[email protected]>
Subject: The new workspace layout
Date: Fri, 7 Feb 2025 04:08:01 -0800
Message-ID: <CACJO+67nhBpEQrP6-Yq2G5_eg4tqN66kshmV1Pxb5bHDUNqbWg@mail.gmail.com> (raw)

Dear Hackers,

I have great respect for your efforts to continuously develop pgAdmin 4,
and it has certainly come a long way since version 1.0. Not to mention,
it’s free.  Thank you for all your hard work.

All that said, I think making the new Workspace layout the default in v 9.0
was a regression and not an improvement, and already I see issues[1]
raised[2] from users.

I use pgAdmin and DataGrip every day for writing queries, and I have a
fundamental issue with the new layout. Having the object explorer in a pane
to the left of the query editor is a standard setup, and rightly so — it’s
hard to remember names of tables and columns, and drag-and-drop makes life
easier. Having a layout that requires me to click another pane and
disappear the query itself, then click back, is too many steps.
Autocomplete doesn’t fill the need.

Yes, I understand I can switch to “Classic,” and I’ve done so. But I want
to be an advocate for newer users and others who are upgrading and won’t
really understand what’s going on, where in settings to change the layout,
etc.

A more gentle user experience for this type of change would have been to
have v 9.0 keep the “Classic” layout as the default and alert users upon
first launch that a new workspace layout was available — and explain where
in the settings to make the change. Small popups announcing new features
are a standard UX feature these days.

That way, people can move on from the familiar to the new and know that
they can switch back if they’d like. Trust me when I tell you that many,
many pgAdmin users are students and people new to SQL who need hand-holding
from time to time.

Thanks for listening,
Anthony

[1]
https://github.com/pgadmin-org/pgadmin4/issues/7708#issuecomment-2640296446
[2] https://github.com/pgadmin-org/pgadmin4/issues/8426

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