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I set up a GitLab self-hosted instance and its working fine, my problem right now is that I don't really understand how the frontend works. Mostly because I've been focusing on the backend and because I couldn't find documentation about it either. I wish to understand how I can comment out things I don't want to show for the user or in the overall design, change aspects and text, and overall have control of the frontend.

I'm running on Debian 9, the setup was made with Bitnami using Google VM. As far as I understand I have to manually change the files I want, but I really don't understand the structure of this type of frontend.

What language do I need to know here and where should I find the documentation, how to find the correct directory and files, etc.?

jonrsharpe
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syncastra
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    I doubt GitLab support you going and tinkering around in the UI code, at most I'd expect some general configuration like https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/user/admin_area/appearance.html. But you can see the technical overview here: https://docs.gitlab.com/ee/development/fe_guide/#overview – jonrsharpe May 19 '20 at 15:42

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While GitLab doesn't officially support any type of "custom frontend", what you can do is:

  1. Fork GitLab
  2. Use the GitLab Development Kit to implement your changes
  3. Run a Source Install of your fork

The frontend is mostly written in HAML (for the server-side bits) and Vue.js (for the client-side bits).

Note: Even an Omnibus install copies raw ruby and javascript files somewhere, and since they’re physically on the system, they can be manually manipulated and hotpatched, but that’s not really a sustainable way of introducing changes to the codebase.

matteeyah
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