Admin Facelift. Take 3

TheEric · 2006-11-03 17:14:34

Why is everyone concentrating on looks, alone? Wouldn’t it be a better idea to markup the admin screens so that they can be styled with a mere change of the CSS sheets?. I personally don’t care for any of the designs I’ve seen, but would greatly appreciate being able to change the CSS to suit my own, individual, preferences.

Logoleptic · 2006-11-03 19:27:13

Eric, I think that the change in markup is considered a given for these designs. At least I hope so. Otherwise, we are indeed putting the cart before the horse.

hazel · 2006-11-03 21:17:22

nice work jdykast, all makes perfect sense now you see it.

I still think the custom fields need integrating into the main flow, but obviously not pushing ‘publish’ right off the page.

Radiant gives each custom field its own tab. I know, more tabs, that’s all we need.
Still, it works quite well in practice, and saves a lot of space. Look:

——-

jdykast · 2006-11-04 15:40:40

Is there just one custom field in the Radiant screen shot – “sidebar”? It seems like it might make sense to group a custom fields tab with an excerpt tab. Both items suppliment the main article.

I love the variety of looks that have been put forth and a lot of time has been put into the redesign. At this point, and this addresses Eric’s point, I think identifying the items and actions that belong with one another is the priority. Once the “architecture” is in place then the markup should come pretty easily, followed by the visual design.

It would be interesting to see how people would group the items on the write page if they just wrote them out.

jakob · 2006-11-04 21:10:11

I think Radius is a good deal simpler than txp so it has less options to fit in there, but no question, it is clean and clear. Jason, if you click on the (+)-sign to the right of the tabs you can add new page elements and call them what you will, e.g. in this case it’s called sidebar, but it could just as well be called “teaser”, “abstract”, “address” or “whathaveyou”. They all have a textarea as input;I’m not sure if you can set it up for any other kinds of options.

Fully agree about getting a framework up that can be CSS’d to whatever people want and like.

jdykast · 2006-11-04 21:30:47

I thought that was the case but I wanted to be sure since I have never used Radiant.

Maybe something like this…

marco · 2006-11-05 00:52:12

Ace, your mockups look great! How do you create them? I mean, what tool do you use to draw them?

Ace of Dubs · 2006-11-07 20:03:38

TheEric wrote:

Why is everyone concentrating on looks, alone?

I know this thread has gotten ridiculously long and it’s easy to miss a few details, but if you read a bit more (especially the last 4 pages) you will see that we are not really stressing the look at this point, rather we are working on restructuring the admin for ease of use and efficiency. So if anything about the admin has bothered you (aside from aesthetics) feel free to contribute your thoughts here.

TheEric wrote:

Wouldn’t it be a better idea to markup the admin screens so that they can be styled with a mere change of the CSS sheets?

That is exactly what’s going right now. Mary is putting together a more compliant admin and I have already created a xhtml-strict validating template with the necessary CSS hooks for styling. The basic aim for this thread has shifted from revamping the look to improving the functionality and also making it easier for people to style the admin however they see fit. You can read more info on this in the Soapbox thread

@ Hazel

Some very interesting ideas with your latest mockup. I like the subtle grouping of fields with that pale yellow background. Overall it is feeling abit more cohesive. My only critique would be to echo hakjoon in saying that most folks like to have a visual indication of prev/next article (and you also left out recent articles there.)

The other thing I am not so sure about is the custom fields. I think they definitely belong on the left side and should always be visible. Having said that, I also think that they should only show up when they are called for. I covered this in my plugin request thread for custom fields on steroids . With assignable custom fields, we would eliminate the need to hide them because they would only show up in places where they are actually needed. Apparently, Yura is already working on this in plugin form.. and as cool as that is, I feel this idea would work best inside the core because it encourages a cleaner, less confusing workflow. Clients have enough to digest getting their heads around how TXP works,.. why present them with fields that dont even need to be there in the first place?

marco wrote

Ace, your mockups look great! How do you create them? I mean, what tool do you use to draw them?

Thanks dude!

Personally I eat, breath and sleep Illustrator for the brunt of my work. No other software executes ideas for me quite as fast. It’s not the easiest program to learn, but once you get your head around it, master all the keyboard shortcuts, pathfinders and filters, you will be flying!

@ All

I just got served a huge project and will be crazed for the next few weeks. As soon as I get a chance I will post another update on that html template. In the meantime, keep adding your comments/observations here as I find them quite inspiring :)

hazel · 2006-11-23 16:48:29

Ace, u still around? You know everyones waiting right? ;-)

Hope we can get this thing kick started again.

In other news, I’ve been looking at 3 CMS that we could learn stuff from:

Helipad
OK not strictly a CMS, but its really intuitive and liquid! Coming back to to txp’s layout after this feels constricting.

sNews
Sans bells, sans whistles. It’s nothing special, but I like the simplicity of the markup.

Simplelog
The tagging system is a treat. Go rails!

Ace of Dubs · 2006-11-24 02:19:30

So much to do! This time of year is always insane

Will try and jump back on this in the next week

Danw · 2006-12-04 14:42:44

I just wanted to say that I haven’t looked at this thread for ages, and was stunned when I popped in for a look. Fantastic looking work guys, very professional. Looking forward to a release, and keep up the good work.

NickT · 2006-12-12 02:44:01

I’ve just read through all 20 pages of this thread, and must say that I’m really impressed with the designs that have been shown so far — let’s hope that we can get one in the next major release :)

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#181 2006-11-03 17:14:34

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#182 2006-11-03 19:27:13

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#183 2006-11-03 21:17:22

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#184 2006-11-04 15:40:40

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#185 2006-11-04 21:10:11

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#186 2006-11-04 21:30:47

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#187 2006-11-05 00:52:12

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#188 2006-11-07 20:03:38

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#189 2006-11-23 16:48:29

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#190 2006-11-24 02:19:30

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#191 2006-12-04 14:42:44

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

#192 2006-12-12 02:44:01

Re: Admin Facelift. Take 3

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