Hey all!
I’ll spend some time on this stream expanding upon the technical aspects of these design changes. We will also arrange a future date to have a dedicated stream for the technical aspects of them. In the meantime, I’ll answer a few questions here:
I’m hoping I’m misreading this but does this mean that AUI is dead?
AUI is not dead. AUI is still in heavy use in our Server products, and will likely be for many years still. AUI will continue to be maintained through FY19 at minimum.
What’s the deprecation period of AUI?
AUI doesn’t have a sunset date – it’s way too early for that. See my above answer.
Does this mean that there are now plans to migrate server products away from AUI and to an AtlasKit/React frontend?
Server product teams are exploring use of Atlaskit as their UI component library of choice when implementing new UI.
AUI will still be in use in the short- and medium-term.
When will this change be hitting the server products?
A complete migration to use of React and Atlaskit will be a multi-year journey across all the products. There will be multiple requirements and milestones along the way. Expect to see each product team start this journey at different times.
Each product will engage with its ecosystem at each stage of its journey.
What’s the rollout strategy?
A full description of the rollout strategy is best saved for a dedicated discussion. For the moment, some quick points:
- Initially, this direction should only apply to completely new features.
- Existing UI will remain as-is in the short-term.
- Timeframes for changing existing UI will vary from product to product.
- To reiterate, each product will engage with its ecosystem at each stage of its journey.
How is this expected to fit into P2?
It is possible to push React and Atlaskit in to a P2 plugin. While I don’t believe there is official Atlassian documentation on how to achieve this, several vendors within the community have posted and published how they have achieved this:
- Code Barrel explain how to use React + a few other technologies in a Server app: https://blog.codebarrel.io/developing-a-jira-add-on-like-its-2016-575b6f77b3b6
- EasyAgile explain a similar setup of theirs at AtlasCamp 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJlwjLSDVMM
- The code for the above demo: https://bitbucket.org/arijea/simultaneous (edited)
Over time, as each product team moves along this journey, we will publish more in the way of tooling and patterns to help.
Perhaps we should just be using AtlasKit to save ourselves the work of a migration later on if Atlassian moves Jira Server to AtlasKit?
Both AUI and Atlaskit are implementing the Atlassian Design Guidelines. Expect them to align in aesthetic and behaviour over time.
You can use either AUI or Atlaskit to build your product’s UI. The libraries have different consumption stories, but both are valid choices.
Will this change adversely affect my app?
As much as possible, we don’t want the core product team’s choice of component library to affect plugin vendors’ choices. This isn’t always the case given the way that Server products’ UI layers work today, but it is what we are aiming for.
As I mentioned in the previous answer, this will be a multi-year journey, with multiple requirements and milestones along the way. Doing what can be done to ensure apps are not adversely affected by the core product’s UI component library choice will be one.
Will any members of the server product teams be present too?
I will be on the call. Mostly, I will be re-iterating the points above, but I’ll be available to take further questions you may have.