Redesign the Jenkins header

[janfaracik]

Hey there 👋

This PR redesigns the Jenkins header, bringing it a modern look and new functionality. This was demoed in the latest UX Sig as well as at the 2025 Jenkins Contributor Summit. The goal of this redesign is to simplify the header, whilst also introducing new functionality as well.

What's new?

• New theme, draws less attention to itself vs content on the page
• Breadcrumb bar has been merged with the header, providing roughly 40px in extra vertical real estate, when combined with the removed margin its close to 90px extra

• Top level actions now show in the header
  • For example, Manage Jenkins now appears in the header by default - making it accessible on every page
  • Plugins like Design Library and the infamous Beer plugin behave the same way
  • They can also feature badges - this is currently used to highlight administrative monitors on the Manage Jenkins action
  • These actions collapse into an overflow menu when there's not enough space for them
• The user account action now shows the users avatar
• Breadcrumbs now collapse rather than scroll if theres too many, you'll see an overflow menu when there are too many
• ➡️ Breadcrumbs no longer feature menus - this is something that can be restored based on user feedback in this thread, let me know if you use them and find them valuable - I personally find them rather fiddly but that could just be me
• For header developers - the header features spots to show additional information now, so for simpler changes you'll no longer need to replace the entire header

Additional screenshots

I've got a branch for Customizable header plugin in the works - it's quite fun:

What's left to do?

• Get thoughts on the changes - discuss away!
• Get tests passing
• Get ATH passing
• Get PCT passing
• Update Customizable Header Plugin to work with this

Testing done

• Breadcrumbs work, root actions appear as expected
• Sign in/sign out works
• High contrast mode works
• Breadcrumbs and actions collapse/appear on window resize
• Works with the updated Customisable Header plugin

Proposed changelog entries

• Redesign the Jenkins header

Developer changelog

• Root actions can now display badges in the header, as well as a jumplist of actions by implementing jumplist.jelly

Proposed upgrade guidelines

N/A

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Desired reviewers

@jenkinsci/sig-ux

Before the changes are marked as ready-for-merge:

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[janfaracik]

@jenkinsci/sig-ux @daniel-beck @MarkEWaite

Hey. Few questions for those of you who use the model links in the breadcrumbs, what are your common interactions with them like?

What functions do you commonly use?

Do you ever use the children dropdown?

How often do you access the 'Manage Jenkins' submenu?

[mawinter69]

I never use the separator dropdowns (the menus behind the >)
I sporadically use the the Dashboard dropdown to go to Manage Jenkins or select something from its submenu.
For me it would be no big loss if the dropdowns are no longer available.

I assume the audience that will look in this PR here is not representative enough to get a real guess how much this is used.

Potentially the dropdowns can be made a user specific setting with default to be disabled.

[timja]

Hey. Few questions for those of you who use the model links in the breadcrumbs, what are your common interactions with them like?

Could you post the header design on community.jenkins.io and ask about it there? (Probably add a tracking issue to sig-ux with key points?

[daniel-beck]

Would it be worth looking into making dropdown menu use a telemetry?

[github-actions]

Please take a moment and address the merge conflicts of your pull request. Thanks!

[janfaracik]

Would it be worth looking into making dropdown menu use a telemetry?

I think so - the more metrics the better.

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Screen.Recording.2025-02-22.at.11.35.03.mov

I've updated the PR so that breadcrumbs behave in a similar fashion to the root actions, where on hover their context menu will appear. I'm not personally a fan of the menus but I think it's a nice middle ground, it doesn't have the fiddly chevron but at the same time the menu items are very usable. The hitboxes are a lot larger as a result and you don't the breadcrumbs shifting to accommodate either.

Let me know your thoughts.

[timja]

it doesn't seem to be keyboard navigable? I wasn't able to open it with the keyboard anyway. Apart from that I think its a good compromise

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Also design library side bar seems broken?

[janfaracik]

it doesn't seem to be keyboard navigable?

I'll take a look 👍

Also design library side bar seems broken?

Yeah it is, just due to me using absolute positioning in it. I've got a branch to fix it up.

[scherler]

I see that you removed the sign up but I seem not be able to find a substitution

[timja]

Its on the sign-in page:

Header looks like:

Then you can sign up on the sign in page.

[scherler]

thanks for clarifying

[scherler]

Regarding the '2nd' dropdown, can we move it within the only one we have, like on the bottom or top? The base problem is that the menu can be huge depending on the plugins you have installed and are contributing to the sidebar.