Textpattern CMS support forum
You are not logged in. Register | Login | Help
- Topics: Active | Unanswered
Offline
Re: Cosmetic Surgery
Hey Mary;-)
Bump what?
What are you asking for? Maybe I missed something – me being ADD as hell;-)=
If it’s just general discussion I’d be honoured to babble a bit:
Design is built upon vision. If the vision is unclear, any further design work will be unclear.
To be frank, I feel fortunate Textpattern development was sped up when Dean finally decided to let go and delegate the development. But, I also feel Textpattern since then has become increasingly “geeky” and stuck in the mud, when it comes to usability. Usability-wise nothing has happened since Dean left the ship. Where did all the semantic obsessiveness of Textpattern development go? I miss Textpattern development going in the direction of less – ie. how can we make things cleaner, less confusing to look at and to use?
One example is in the plugin section, where the column with the links to the plugins documentation says “View” but it should rather say “Info” or “Help” or “Usage”… I’m not trying to trainspot here, there are many other examples I can come up with. Plugins that should be integrated to the core, because they make life better. And core stuff that should be removed. Let’s get rid of the categories in “Organise” and introduce inline category / tag creation where it is needed, f.e. in Article view. It works fantastically in Wordpress.
Right?
And since Textpattern is so beloved in designernes circles, where is the good, clever use of Ajax? A year back I’d never suspected Textpattern to be such a slow adopter of Ajax?
I told you I would babble. And as said, the vision builds the foundation for the graphic design and UI development – and as is now, Team Textpattern is fortunate to have great coders, but lacks great designers, and more importantly, a project manager… a visionary. Dean???
Who the fuck sets the record straight?
Textpattern.com reveals this strong vision:
A free, flexible, elegant, easy-to-use content management system for all kinds of websites, even weblogs.
When it comes to publishing on the internet, beginners and experts alike are met with a bothersome paradox: word processors and graphics applications allow anyone to do a pretty good job of managing text and images on a personal computer, but to make these available to the worldwide web – a seemingly similar environment of documents and destinations – ease of use vanishes behind sudden requirements for multilingual programming skills, proficiency in computer-based graphic design, and, ultimately, the patience of a saint.
…
Textpattern is a web application designed to help overcome these and other hurdles to publishing online, and to simplify the production of well-structured, standards-compliant web pages.
Where is that vision now, if I ask the developer-team? Is it still the same vision? I feel it is somewhere else. But no-one knows where, it seems. I feel that frontpage is left there because the content is long forgotten.
But ok, Dean is somewhere else. But then let’s hire Steve Jobs? Maybe we could make him acquire Textpattern, and let it replace horrible .Mac / iWeb symphonia en terrible masacrea?
(joke)
Bah – maybe I’m too theoretical. I just feel Textpattern should develop in the direction Dean intended it to – easy publishing of good content – a flexible power-engine for regular people and designers, etc.
If I can be of any help, I’d be glad to be of service. If the vision has changed from the above citation, since 2004, then hey, that’s quite ok, just be clear about it. Textpattern is cool, but could be soooo muschos grandes gigantes coooler. oooh la lahaa!
Last edited by raveoli (2006-09-24 03:47:30)
Offline
Re: Cosmetic Surgery
PS:
No I don’t like the new design. The menu is clunky and should not be centered in the context it is presented in. If you need an explanation why, don’t bother. Not to be mean, but it just shows, a great designer is needed, to do great design.
EDIT, but thank you for your dedication.
Last edited by raveoli (2006-09-24 03:56:56)
Offline
#52 2006-09-24 06:58:32
- zem
- Developer Emeritus
- From: Melbourne, Australia
- Registered: 2004-04-08
- Posts: 2,579
Re: Cosmetic Surgery
R,
You seem to have forgotten to include a patch.
If you see a problem with Textpattern — or any open source project — there are basically two things you can do:
1. Fix it; or
2. Write an email or forum post criticizing others for not fixing it.
No prizes for guessing which one solves the problem.
Alex
Offline
Re: Cosmetic Surgery
Mary schrieb:
<notextile>*bump*</notextile>
Hm, well… I have to admit that I don’t like this new version.
The colors and proportions…
Sorry to say that, Mary. I know it’s a hard work.
You will never be able to satisfy everybody, so take it just as one opinion :)
Offline
#54 2006-09-24 08:36:08
- lee
- Member
- From: Normandy, France
- Registered: 2004-06-17
- Posts: 831
Re: Cosmetic Surgery
Looks good to me Mary. I especially the Go menu on the left, is it really still needed at the bottom of the page though?
Offline
#55 2006-09-24 08:51:04
- Mary
- Sock Enthusiast
- Registered: 2004-06-27
- Posts: 6,236
Re: Cosmetic Surgery
Jon: It would be in the next major release of Txp, so no, not 4.0.4 (but maybe 4.1).
Lee: Yeah, it’s not there anymore (below the screencap fold where you can’t see that fact). The carver and the Txp version text is still there. I wanted to see if I could move it (the carver) elsewhere on the page, but can’t find a better spot. So, it’ll probably stay where it is.
Offline
#56 2006-09-24 08:54:26
- lee
- Member
- From: Normandy, France
- Registered: 2004-06-17
- Posts: 831
Re: Cosmetic Surgery
Any chance of it being available before the next major release in the form of a download/hack for those that want to take the risk?
Offline
#57 2006-09-24 13:52:17
- hazel
- Member
- From: Glastonbury, UK
- Registered: 2006-09-22
- Posts: 36
Re: Cosmetic Surgery
Hi everyone
I’ve been following this thread for a while, thought I’d chime in…
I set up a group on Flickr with the comps done so far, sorted by date. Just the ones I’m aware of, so feel free to add.
(I thought people could just tag them e.g. ‘txpadmin’+‘redesign’ and they’d show up in a search, but alas…NIPSA, so there they are in a group.
And, another group for collecting admin reference. With a few of my favorites (EE ala Mark Boulton, Symphony, Radiant) to get started.
Feel free to use or ignore, just scratching my own itch – to see the progression of ideas.
Offline
Re: Cosmetic Surgery
Though I’m at a disadvantage on colors and I’m still wrapping my head around CSS, all I can offer are usability suggestions.
What I like now about the admin area is that it’s simple, after using it for a while, I’m very fast at getting to where I want to go and creating an article is a breeze. So if Crockery will have a new admin, then I think it should make it easier to do the task at hand, with the minimal of clicks or keystrokes.
Looking at the new mockup, I can only suggest instead of a drop down for view, I would prefer toggle buttons. I like that with one click I can bounce between views now, I wouldn’t want to have to click the drop down arrow, select the view and click again.
We Love TXP . TXP Themes . TXP Tags . TXP Planet . TXP Make
Offline
#59 2006-09-25 03:28:58
- hazel
- Member
- From: Glastonbury, UK
- Registered: 2006-09-22
- Posts: 36
Re: Cosmetic Surgery
Yet another attempt from an unknown
Only the header/footer has changed, I think the main content area is headed in the right direction – with the legend/forms wrapping the controls.
I had to mark this up for a project, will change the colours for the customer, so this is the actual CSS not a comp – just a few tiny tweaks to the markup (lib) files needed ;)
Needs attention:- Position of user info (name, logout). Top right is the convention, but where to put that…
- …Drop down?
- Footer could be reduced to just a thin stripe along the bottom, compress the txp logo, version no. etc.
The CSS needs cleaning up & commenting but I could package this up if anyone’s interested.
Just a quick fix until we get that theme switcher :)
—-
Thanks for all the work done on this: everyone involved. In particular Mary and Philippe, who’s code I tweaked.
Last edited by hazel (2006-09-26 01:53:12)
Offline
Re: Cosmetic Surgery
zem wrote:
R, You seem to have forgotten to include a patch. If you see a problem with Textpattern — or any open source project — there are basically two things you can do: 1. Fix it; or 2. Write an email or forum post criticizing others for not fixing it. No prizes for guessing which one solves the problem.
Zem – you seem to miss my point in your defensive, arrogant, polically correct but nevertheless sarcastic tone… But, no harm done, I’ve seen that kind of reply from you to critics, from time to time, and now it almost makes me laugh.
Not everyone’s a coder. But, judging from the Textpattern vision on the frontpage of Textpattern.com, that is not needed to be a Textpattern user. How elitarian are you Zem? If I ain’t a coder, and able to fix my own .htaccess – I’m a moaning bitching unthankful ass, unless I shut up?
I’m free to express my opinion. I wrote a long, argumentative post, because I feel a lot for the future of Textpattern, and because I feel the basics of UI and graphic design, which is what I’m formally educated in, and can therefore contribute with, are not adhered to by the people involved in that area of Textpattern development. General design disciplines such as grids, color-theory, etc.
And, lastly, I actually did offer my help. See the last paragraph. But what I won’t do, is spend time on a design, if it’s not welcome / needed / whatever…
It seems the design will come from mary, whatever anyone else comes up with – so why should I work on it – ie. “include a patch” as you so eloquently put it?
EDIT / PS: Earlier in this discussion I’ve already pointed out I’d rather keep the existing admin UI, as I like it and find it rather acceptable. So, again, why should I “include a patch”… ?
Last edited by raveoli (2006-09-25 12:57:58)
Offline