Create custom walkthroughs for start page in Web IDE

Problem to solve

As @mle highlights in his concepts for the customizing the VS Code Web IDE, we have an opportunity to improve onboarding and surface documentation that can help you get familiar with the new features of the Web IDE.

Proposal

Document features related to the new Web IDE in a manner that helps people get up to speed with both working with VS Code and the custom extensions to the experience that we will add.

Details

Welcome to the new GitLab Web IDE

Explore the newest features of the new Web IDE beta, learn about what we're working on next, and share your experience with the team.

Tab 1

Give the new Web IDE a spin

We've made the Web IDE beta available to everyone by default because we think you will love the new features. Don't worry, if something is not working for you or you want to go back to how you used to do things, you can always switch back to the legacy Web IDE in your user preferences. The legacy Web IDE will be available until the new Web IDE is out of beta.

• Use legacy Web IDE

If we can actually expose the setting here in the form of a checkbox, that might be cool. But it also would require a page refresh to take effect. If we can't then maybe a screenshot of the user preference is probably sufficient.

Tab 2

Connect to a remote development environment

Realize the full potential of a web-based editor by connecting to a remote host and interacting with a live terminal right in the Web IDE. Our documentation [link] walks you through how to configure your environment and host it in a cloud provider of your choice. Once you have an environment running it's three easy steps to connect it to the Web IDE.

[Screenshot of live terminal output in the panel]

Tab 3

What's next for the Web IDE?

GitLab Workflow and third-party extensions. Personalization and customization. Search improvements. Check out our roadmap epic [link] for more details about what we're working on during the beta phase of the Web IDE.

[Screenshot of extensions loaded in the list]

Tab 4

Let us know what you think

We want to hear about your experience with the new Web IDE. Let us know how things are working, or not, in the feedback issue [link].