Announcing the OpenShift 4 Console Customization Contest!

OpenShift, like Kubernetes, is an extensible platform and one area that takes this statement to heart is the OpenShift Web Console. While a variety of customization and extension mechanisms are available for administrators to customize the console, it is the actual implementation that produces the most impact.

But, one of the fundamental questions for any user facing modification is the “why”. Why should this change be implemented? Who does it benefit? What value does it ultimately provide? The end user experience is key in the adoption of any product, and OpenShift is no different.

Customization comes in different forms

• Rebranding
• Custom notifications and links
• Customizing the developer experience

Often customers need to meet specific corporate or government requirements. The console provides a number of rebranding options including customization of the logo, product name, About page and Login page.

Customers frequently want to provide notifications to the users of their platform as well as allow users to link out to other UIs or web properties for ease of use. The ConsoleNotifications and ConsoleLinks CRDs help to accomplish this.

Many discussions around OpenShift are related to the cluster administrator and enabling management of the platform. Don’t forget about the developers! The developers are responsible for getting workloads onto the OpenShift platform. Cluster and project admins can work together to help customize the developer experience. Developer empathy can help turn a questionable experience into one that helps guide their developers towards default offerings and best practices through customization of the console!

And as we have seen with the OpenShift Commons, it is input and feedback from members (the end users, upstream projects, contributors, and enterprise organizations), that produce the greatest benefits for the community as a whole helping to drive innovation into each release.

To put this into practice, we are announcing the OpenShift 4 Console Competition Contest! Unleash your creative juices and showcase how you have customized the OpenShift Console using any of the supported customizations and extensions mechanisms and the reasoning behind these choices. Was it aesthetics? Was it a business reason? Did you just want to explore the various options available? The top submissions will not only receive prizes, but have the opportunity to have their work judged and featured on a future openshift.tv broadcast.

A Contest?

Yes! A contest! And you can get started right now! The OpenShift Console Customization Content was recently announced on an episode of Developer Experience Office Hours on openshift.tv and runs until November 29th 2020 at 11:59 PST. The full details surrounding the eligibility and conditions can be found here.

Submitting an Entry

Open collaboration has been key to the success of the OpenShift Commons program. Submissions to the OpenShift Console Customization Competition can be made by submitting a pull request against the openshift-web-console-customizations repository. Not only can you make a submission of your own,but you have the opportunity to see how others have enhanced the console for which you can look to implement within your own environment. The full set of steps necessary to complete the submission process can be found within the repository at this location.

Don’t forget to Register!

Voting & the Winner

Tune into the joint OpenShift Commons / Developer Experience Office Hours session on OpenShift.tv on December 1st at 11am EST and vote to determine the top 3 winners!

References

Customizing for the Developer

Customizing the web console in OpenShift Container Platform

Learn about OpenShift Commons