I've started using the address bar to get to most things. I usually only need to get to /issues, /commits, /tree/master/filename

We do that a bit as well.

Now that I think about it maybe they just need an "awesome bar" for github; put in a sha, branch name, issue, tag, pull request, etc and it can auto-complete and take you there.

Also the network view could be really useful for managing projects if it were much faster and slightly better...

In general I just think that there are way too many similarly sized/colored buttons spread all over the place, so I never know where to look for what I need, and I can't ever quite tell where I am without much work.

I think the mental model of how to view and navigate the repo/network is not transparent or consistent. If they could nail that it would really help a ton.

Github devs: this is a sign that pretty though it may be, something is wrong.

I agree that this should spur the Github developers to re-consider their current design, but I see nothing wrong with the general concept of using URL:s for navigating, just as I prefer the Unix shell over GUI:s for many tasks.

Jakob Nielsen wrote about that over ten years ago: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990321.html - I think the gist of his article still holds true.

And I thought I was the only one.

It's awesome that the URL scheme is 'right' and I can easily use it to get to where I need. But that just means the UI/UX is severely lacking.

I do the same. Probably browsers should have some support for this stuff. What I mean is that if I always visit: foobar.com/verb/<something> and urls where it's clear that there is a fixed part and a variable one, maybe the browser could help you writing this stuff easily, so that you start typing "github commit" and something to just fill with the missing pieces appear.

I do this using firefox bookmarks/keywords using %s.

For example, I use the bookmark http://www.reddit.com/r/%s with the keyword rdr so that I can just type "rdr programming" into the location bar to go to http://www.reddit.com/r/programming. It has made my browsing a whole lot faster.

You can replace /tree/master/filename by just pressing "t" on a project's page. Learned that a week or two ago and it changed my life.

press '?' to get a list of available keyboard shorcuts

Just as there are "clean youtube" browser extensions and the like, the interwebs are in dire need of a "clean github" browser extension.

Stylish (or whatever the equivalent is for your favorite browser) is always an option until a better design comes along. For example, if you don't use the details boxes that much, you can apply something like

div#repo_details { opacity:0.3 !important; } ul.with-details-box { opacity:0.3 !important;}

to make those fade a bit and draw you eye toward the menu bars below them. You could event apply it your specific repo urls, so you could customize it depending on what you're working on.

Again, only a temporary hack, but better than nothing until a better universal design can be agreed upon and implemented.

Stylish: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/stylish/