Admin Facelift. Take 3

jameslomax · 2006-06-14 08:34:12

I agree on the option to change themes – some great fruit gum and candy designs here ;)

I think its important that txp becomes ‘softer’ and the GUI is less constrained by a coder’s discipline. I use txp because even though I don’t fully understand this I can see that it’s lean, mean, and efficient.

However txp is not just a code engine, or an information architecture package. On the contrary, using it necessarily involves workflow options – which can be more or less efficient – and real psychological factors that affect quality of work. Colour, together with shape, is a powerful influence on psychology. I think ‘elegant’ is a good design concept, for example in the debate about using icons or not. Not using them is probably more ‘elegant’. But ‘soft’ is also a good concept to consider.

Bring on the nice soft candy…..

mscwd · 2006-06-22 23:23:31

Are these new themes going to come as standard and applied as default in the new release?

I prefer the current simplistic layout rather than the newer ones…

tkn · 2006-06-25 04:05:01

I have to say that I also prefer the current styling better. All I want are the drop-downs on mouse-over, the name of the current blog somewhere at the top and a small thin line at the top in a different assignable color for another indication of which blog I am using…

jamiew · 2006-06-25 15:27:29

Loving this thread.

One request: how about making the color schemes customizable via Advanced Prefs? I always find myself customizing client’s txp color scheme in order to sync with the site (and so I know which site I’m editing!)

Ace of Dubs · 2006-06-26 16:58:10

Sorry guys, looks like I will have to go MIA on this project for a while as I have quite a few deadlines to meet. All your input has been taken into consideration though and I think we can come up with a viable solution for all. The biggest challenge right now is writing the semantic markup for thes pages…its proven to be a greater challenge than I anticipated!

As for the idea of customizeable color schemes, that would be doable, but you can kiss those rounded corners goodbye (Unless somebody here can code up an image generating program that will bang out those GIFs on the fly.)

Once the dust settles on this end, I will dive back into the code andpost some pages for yall to help me debug. As always, comments and feedback are more than welcome. :)

Nonsense · 2006-06-27 09:34:49

All the best to you Ace.
I hope to see some progress on the matter soon.

I’ll sign up for debugging if that’s any help (although there should be plenty of us).

hakjoon · 2006-06-27 13:05:14

Ace,

Have you looked at jQuery ? There is a plugin for it that will do rounded corners and jQuery itself is awesome for DOM ajax stuff, and smaller then prototype.

They’ll be square without Javascript but that seems like fairly graceful degradation if you ask me. Let me know if I can help.

TheEric · 2006-06-27 15:14:33

A javascript library, so that the interface can be prettier?

… I’de consider that bloat.

Last edited by TheEric (2006-06-27 15:17:01)

rloaderro · 2006-06-27 16:07:06

Ace of Dubs wrote:

Sorry guys, looks like I will have to go MIA on this project for a while as I have quite a few deadlines to meet. All your input has been taken into consideration though and I think we can come up with a viable solution for all. The biggest challenge right now is writing the semantic markup for thes pages…its proven to be a greater challenge than I anticipated!

I think maybe before we concentrate too much on details of the code, some thought should be put into the admin section on a broader, usable / functional level – maybe with wireframes even. That might also help with standardizing naming conventions in the CSS – which would carry over into any Javascript too and would help with the development of admin-side plugins, etc..

Some good sites for starters:

Of course if someone doesn’t lead the charge then nothing will probably ever get done :)

hakjoon · 2006-06-27 17:35:58

TheEric wrote:

A javascript library, so that the interface can be prettier?

… I’de consider that bloat.

well it’s only bloat if you only use it to do rounded corners.

But if you use same said library for drop downs, html, preview tab switching, show/hide advanced options, addEvent, ajax and it just happens to also do nice effects then it’s hardly bloat. I also don’t see how it’s anymore bloat then images to accomplish the same effect. The JS library at least has other uses while a images for sliding doors accomplish just that. Plus it would allow for a consistent JS library for plugin developers to tap into.

I don’t see most people complaining about ROR’s tight integration with prototype as bloat. And prototype is 38k vs jQuery’s 10k. But I’m talking beyond just an admin facelift now.

rloaderro · 2006-06-27 18:35:07

hakjoon wrote:

I don’t see most people complaining about ROR’s tight integration with prototype as bloat. And prototype is 38k vs jQuery’s 10k. But I’m talking beyond just an admin facelift now.

I haven’t personally used jQuery, but I am very impressed with the Moo libraries. They use a lite version of Prototype that is about 3k and the basic effects library is the same size. A simple <2k AJAX extension and a brilliant <4k DOM extension. Oh, and to give you an idea of how it all might look in action, they even have their own CMS too (user/pass = demo/demo)…

akokskis · 2006-06-27 18:54:11

I think that the biggest hurdle with everything JS related is the fact that there are still people out there who browse without JS on, either knowingly or not, and to make the TXP interface completely JS integrated would be a bad idea as it would alienate those people from using TXP. I’m not saying that anyone’s proposing this, but I think you all get my point.

rloaderro · 2006-06-27 19:50:56

akokskis wrote:

I think that the biggest hurdle with everything JS related is the fact that there are still people out there who browse without JS on, either knowingly or not, and to make the TXP interface completely JS integrated would be a bad idea as it would alienate those people from using TXP. I’m not saying that anyone’s proposing this, but I think you all get my point.

It wouldn’t alienate anyone from browsing a Textpattern-based site. It would require however that those who administer a Textpattern site do so with javascript turned on (and with a relatively modern browser). I don’t think that’s asking too much: Javascript = free; Textpattern = free; Browsers = free. Of course Javascript can also be degraded gracefully (if done well) – things won’t look / move so nice, but will function. Anyway, I think it is a big point to miss that we are not proposing anything that would affect the browsing patterns of the general public (what you choose to implement on your TXP site is up to you of course) but what would affect the 1 or 2 administrators of a TXP site shouldn’t be given too much weight when we are talking about the greater good of the community and evolution of the software.

hakjoon · 2006-06-27 19:53:06

rloaderro: The Moo stuff is really, really nice, and oh so small. Prototype, Moo.fx or jQuery, are all great and make javascript fun. jQuery just had the rounded corners thing which is why I used that (plus I think it’s pretty cool since it can do xPath style DOM queries). That MooCMS seems to have some similar ideas like sections.

Ako: I agree but I think there is a difference between the public face of a site and the admin interface. Either way it should all degrade in a functional manner.

As a plugin developer I just like the idea of TXP having sort of a default JS library. So everyone doesn’t have to spin their own or consolidate how to have multiple plugins all using multiple versions of protoype, or moo.fx because they needed an ajax library or something.

I didn’t mean to hijack this thread to talk about JS libraries. I just thought it was a degradable solution for rounded corners without tons of images, that could also have other uses.

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#91 2006-06-14 08:34:12

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#92 2006-06-22 23:23:31

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#93 2006-06-25 04:05:01

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#94 2006-06-25 15:27:29

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#95 2006-06-26 16:58:10

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#96 2006-06-27 09:34:49

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#97 2006-06-27 13:05:14

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#98 2006-06-27 15:14:33

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#99 2006-06-27 16:07:06

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#100 2006-06-27 17:35:58

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#101 2006-06-27 18:35:07

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#102 2006-06-27 18:54:11

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#103 2006-06-27 19:50:56

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#104 2006-06-27 19:53:06

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

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