[Meta] (improving) Personal notification/todo dashboard

Problem

Our current notification system is sub par. The better option at the moment is to use emails and manage your todo's via email. This means there is something wrong/missing inherently in our current implementation of this.

This issue is to discuss the various ways we can begin to improve our current situation in order to get users to use the integrated system, which should be on par or better than any 3rd party implementation as is stated by our goals.

• What is our notion of todo's?
  • Are assigned issues/mr's filtered todos? What about combining them? (per @cperessini )
• How can we best visualise them?
  • See for example octobox which kind of leans on a mix between google inbox and github notifications
  • or https://gitscout.com/
  • or https://www.realartists.com/
• What kind of I/O does our notification system have?
  • IN (types/caused by):
    • assigned
    • mentioned
    • directly addressed you
    • pipeline failed
    • subscribed label (only email???)
    • watched project
    • set you as an approver
    • more ??
  • OUT (how does it notify you):
    • todos
    • emails
• When are todo's signed as done?
  • mark done
  • create a comment on issue or merge request
  • more ??

Proposal

Perhaps we can tackle this the same way as with the navigation. Brainstorm, mockup, prototype and gitlab-ce~2024187 (cc: @sarahod)

• Create a column layout for todo's for consistent placement of key information
• Have separate column for notification type
• Starring todos
• Persistent todos (can you elaborate this @cperessini 😄 )
• Real time todo count everywhere
• Real time todo list
• Some kind of way to represent this kind of information:
• Filter on milestones for todo's
• Search for todo's (new filter search)
• Create a clearer way of managing the undone/done for todos.

Plan of action

This issue is the meta issue overlooking this effort. Each problem should be in its own issue and listed here.

Related issues

https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab-ce/issues/27111

CC/Call to actions

@victorwu @tauriedavis @cperessini @sarahod