display warning for latest IDE versions on the loading screen

[akosyakov]

For latest versions like VS Code Insiders and EAP of JB products we should display a warning at all phases of the loading screen and provide an action to switch to restart a workspace with a corresponding stable version of a selected product.

Designs

Preparing	Running

See design specs.

[akosyakov]

@gtsiolis we will need a design for it.

cc @loujaybee

[loujaybee]

In addition to this, I think we need to review our documentation and copy-text to ensure that the expectations are set with users properly. If we have this flag on the workspace loading, I think copy text such as "what does this mean" which links to docs about the insiders and explains how it works / user expectations would also be useful.

[loujaybee]

@gtsiolis we will need a design for it.

@akosyakov - It would be nice if designed, but I wouldn't necessarily wait a design on this one as we could do something simple, draft an approach / PR and tweak based on feedback from @gtsiolis et al. We can also implement this incrementally, there are various places we can show this information, just starting with the workspace loading screens etc would help

[akosyakov]

Agree, to be clear it should be the same for EAP of JB products in sense of docs.

[loujaybee]

Also, this relates to: #7026.

In future I think we should consider having less stable features more clearly documented, e.g. Chrome Canary is a separate product / download so it's very clear. Or with the JetBrains EAP version's/products marked very clearly as EAP.

[loujaybee]

Created a companion issue in website docs: https://github.com/gitpod-io/website/issues/1700

[akosyakov]

It would be nice if designed, but I wouldn't necessarily wait a design on this one as we could do something simple, draft an approach / PR and tweak based on feedback from @gtsiolis et al.

put in scheduled for IDE team as well

[jeanp413]

@mustard-mh you could work on this too

For latest versions like VS Code Insiders and EAP of JB products we should display a warning at all phases of the loading screen and provide an action to switch to restart a workspace with a corresponding stable version of a selected product.

[gtsiolis]

fyi: I've added the specs in the issue description.

[filiptronicek]

@gtsiolis do you think it would make sense to make this user-dismissible or rather to stuff it in every user's face all the time to make sure?

What about maybe a way for the user to minimize it to just a ⚠️ icon somewhere that would stay there forever, making (upon focus / click) a pop up / tooltip with this exact message possible?

[gtsiolis]

do you think it would make sense to make this user-dismissible or rather to stuff it in every user's face all the time to make sure?

I swayed between making this dismissible. Here're some thoughts on this:

1. It makes sense to not make it dismissible as the goal of this is to make users aware of a user preference that could be breaking the user experience.
2. Making this dismissible once could create an unessasary habbit of users wasting time on dismissing a modal that only exists for a few seconds until the workspace is up and running.
3. Making it dismissible forerever will cancel the goal of this to make users aware of the preference.
4. Last but not least, long term we could allow users to hold and change editor while the workspace is loading.

What about maybe a way for the user to minimize it to just ...

This could be interesting and useful long term. Also, currently thinking of making this more compact as @mustard-mh is working on this in #8783 since it can grab quite a lot of vertical space. For example, we could introduce a simpler or less verbose alert component variation without s background, etc. But we can certainly improve this in the next iteration.

BEFORE	AFTER (WIP)

Thanks for the feedback, @filiptronicek! 🙏