UI needs rework badly

maratnugmanov · 2013-02-25 07:15:16

I discovered textpattern about couple of days ago, and here’s my thought (in order of appearance):
“Wow, that is the tool I’ve searched. It has all I need – lightweight, fast and simple”
“Let’s see… that’s really simple, gotta run my site on this stuff for sure!”
“No wysiwyg post editor… well, I definitely can live without it, the textile will do just right. But my wife’s work will be a bit complicated.”
“No direct image upload on composing page… but what about the community add-ons – they definitely covered that… textpattern.net…”
“Well that a bunch of plugins here! That’s what I call ‘the community’, let’s see… here’s one! Damn, it’s too old, not working… then that one – that’s not 100% of my needs, but at least it works”
“Nope, that’s not what I need… ok, who needs uploading an image and working with their relative names anyway – I’ll just upload my portfolio projects with more than 12 pics at every work I submit… my wife definitely won’t be able though.”
“I’m tired – and only one work is done, nooo…”

Seriously, why there’s no some basic functionality like attaching images directly to post, why should I load images in the image tab? It ok when you design your site. But every blog post becomes work – is it right?

Why no basic drag and drop support?

Why should I upload images by one? (!!!)

I repeat – this is basic functionality, I’m not asking about video embedding and anything else, but the images are basic these days, and they were basic 5 years ago – it won’t change in he near future. I’m so disappointed – the cms is very good, but it lacks things that any other cms gained years ago!

Last edited by maratnugmanov (2013-02-25 07:34:02)

Bloke · 2013-02-25 09:25:14

Hi and welcome.

Believe me all the above points are valid and we know about them. Free time is our enemy but please step up to the plate and help out whenever you can as it’ll improve things for all of us.

In order of appearance:

wysiwyg editors are hit and miss. If we include one, a better one will come out the week after. Some work really well, others don’t. We feel it’s better to offer the simplest tool out of the box and allow plugin authors to augment it if they want as that keeps the core lightweight. There are a couple of plugins out there for this functionality and they work if that’s your kind of thing. Note that if you don’t think Textile will fit the bill then in the forthcoming 4.6.0 there is support for replacing the markup system with any other off-the-shelf system (e.g. Markdown, etc).
Image upload on Write panel: planned, just never got round to it. See point 5.
Textpattern.org is an utter mess. I started work some years ago on fixing it with a new site and a new vision. Project just stalled for many reasons and it seems like I’m constantly apologising for its horribleness. I keep getting dragged in too many different directions to focus on it.
Images using IDs: yeah, it was a design decision taken back when Textpattern launched and it’s tough to undo now. It’s not that bad. You can still just FTP the files up and use them directly if you really want to bypass the database and preserve the filenames; then you could retool the “article image” field or use a custom field to act as article image (the glz_custom_fields plugin allows you to change the custom field text boxes for other things like select lists). Regardless, from an SEO perspective we’ve been round the loop and it doesn’t make much difference as long as the meta data is sound.
Drag and drop support: we never had a library that supported it built in. Now we do (jQuery UI) so from 4.6.0 onwards we (or plugin authors) will be able to offer this functionality.
One image at a time: a pain sometimes. But other times not so because there needs to be a mechanism for also entering the meta data per image and the interface gets clunky to do that if you’ve selected 12 images. There’s no really slick way to do it that’s beneficial to most use cases so we’re opening up the API to help out from 4.6.0. But if you have a workflow idea on how to improve things, then present it and we’ll either do it in core if it’s applicable to many use cases, or someone will write a plugin to do it if it’s a more specialist workflow.

What some regard as basic functionality — for example, contact forms are sometimes regarded “basic” — many, many other people don’t use them so we’ve not made them part of the core. Comments too; and that built-in commenting quagmire is begging to be unpicked one day when we get time / inclination.

Bottom line is that we’re doing what we can for our user base, balancing “must have” functionality with “nice to have” stuff while trying to keep the platform quick, airy and lightweight. We know we can’t please everyone because then we would have a behemoth system that tries to be all things to all people and it bloats the code for little real-world gain (why have a massive CMS that 80% of users only use 20% of the functionality, building it all into the core “just in case”?). But if we find people who passionately believe Textpattern has potential to solve their publishing needs then we encourage them to get stuck in and offer improvement ideas.

We respond very well to carefully crafted ideas that are widely applicable to our intended site designer audience: sometimes a feature request is implemented within hours of it being raised. Please help us improve things and maybe Textpattern can become everything you need in a CMS.

Last edited by Bloke (2013-02-25 09:31:51)

philwareham · 2013-02-25 09:46:13

OK, submit the code patch and we’ll incorporate it into the next release ;)

Seriously though, we are well aware of the bad UX for adding inline images, and it’s targeted for improvement.

Edit: oh, Stef already replied.

Last edited by philwareham (2013-02-25 09:47:00)

Gocom · 2013-02-25 10:47:44

Yup. Textpattern is not perfect. Far from it.

^{I call them beauty marks, but that’s just what the ugly say}

Last edited by Gocom (2013-02-25 10:49:05)

maratnugmanov · 2013-02-25 11:21:48

Firstly I apologies for such negative topic title – it doesn’t reflect my relations with Textpattern UI – there are some good points in it.
As for Textile – this one is a great tool – I just meant that there’s no really simple way to insert images in the posts. It’s like you have great text tool but with non-user-friendly image handling. I don’t like WYSIWYG, actually I ignore them where I can, but almost every WYSIWYG is paired with image drag’n‘drop mechanics. The alternative for Textile can be <img1>, <img2> etc, in order of image attachment to the post. I mean really short codes for it with the simpliest html markup on them (only img src and alt attributes).

I’m not a programmer – I know only html and css and can install custom jquery, or write some basic js commands . But I can propose some UI enhancements for all of us to discuss. Again – I just can’t implement them myself – I’m an architect, graphic designer but not programmer at all. I fell myself useless :(

Offtopic – have you seen hive theme on lasest Chrome stable release? The navigation is always <select> for me, that’s strange. Tried to resize window – no luck – it’s always <select>. Maybe it’s just me – then I can live with it – “Remora” is ok for me too.

Offtopic2 – I’ve searched forum about internalisation of Textile – all code is based on textile’s php hacks. But language files contain definition for some lanquage quotes (that’s only what I need right now, for the other stuff Textile is OK), I can’t define «russian doublequotes» and ‘singlequotes’ without a hack.

Last edited by maratnugmanov (2013-02-25 11:27:05)

Bloke · 2013-02-25 12:05:49

maratnugmanov wrote:

I mean really short codes for it with the simpliest html markup on them (only img src and alt attributes).

You could look at my smd_macro plugin which allows you to create your own virtual Textpattern tags to simplify entry of content. It’s not drag n drop :-( but you could maybe pair it with QuickTags — never tried.

I can propose some UI enhancements for all of us to discuss.

Brilliant, thanks. Take a look at Phil’s site for the latest design patterns we’re using in 4.6.0 (he can supply you the best URL to use, I can’t keep up with the amount of work he’s doing!) and if you want to have a sneak peek at what’s going on for 4.6.0, grab a nightly.

[Textile] I can’t define «russian doublequotes» and ‘singlequotes’ without a hack.

Sadly not in versions before 2.5. The latest version (bundled with Textpattern 4.6.0), however, does allow you to call a setSymbol() method to override the built-in English glyphs. Not sure of the best way to actually do that yet — in core, via a plugin, etc. I’d favour a callback in Textpattern_Textile_Parser to allow plugins to hook into the Textile engine and call setSymbol() themselves whenever Textile is used. That’d make it a snap for a 3-line plugin to configure the parser for your needs, or a more elaborate plugin to enable you to customise it via some UI. But that’s a development discussion we need to have at some point. HashtagAddedToTheList

Last edited by Bloke (2013-02-25 12:09:49)

uli · 2013-02-25 13:07:39

And now for your wife’s workflow :)

There are two plugins that work really well as a combo for uploading and selecting images from the Write panel: bot_image_upload and abl_droploader.

Edit: Just saw that the abl download page is in German: the download link is in the right sidebar, the one with the version number.

Edit 2: Oh, then there also was the WYSIWYG Editor issue for your wife: hak_tinymce.

Last edited by uli (2013-02-25 13:27:03)

maratnugmanov · 2013-02-25 13:09:23

About UI collaborative redesign – what about myBalsamiq? Here’s their requirements for Open Source Projects free use:

The project is licensed under a license approved by the Open Source Initiative.
The project is alive and well and you can prove it (with an ohloh.net page for instance or some press mentions).
Your open source project has a publicly accessible website.
The project source code is available for download.
http://support.balsamiq.com/customer/portal/articles/105924#oss
(textile says that he’s afraid he can’t do that url trick)

At first I wanted to do some mockups in my standard tools, but myBalsamiq is looking promising now. It is also appreciates collaborative work, so I think that if core developers won’t mind to try it, we will roll-out some cool stuff :)

P.S. Balsamiq uses adobe air, don’t know about web version though.

P.P.S. Just tried MockingBird – here’s what it can do LINK TO IMAGE – a quick sample of admin panel (But Balsamiq looks more polished to me (+1). And there’s a possibility that it can be free for this project (+10)). I’ve installed latest nightly and there’s 2 clicks in admin panel to get to the right place. If one tab can opened right after the click on admin panel that would be better. Also tabs are more preferred by me because it requiers less screen scrolling – any tab is near to you.

To uli: Thanks, but I’ve tried both of the plugins, maybe I did something wrong, will take a deeper look later. Or their functionality is still not the kind I look.

Last edited by maratnugmanov (2013-02-25 13:33:12)

gour · 2013-02-25 13:38:12

Bloke wrote:

wysiwyg editors are hit and miss.

I’m happy not having to deal with those crappy editors and having textile is one of the reasons why I may decide to use Bitbucket for hosting my projects. :-)

Textpattern.org is an utter mess. I started work some years ago on fixing it with a new site and a new vision. Project just stalled for many reasons and it seems like I’m constantly apologising for its horribleness.

Yeah, I’d like to see it improved and wonder what new users as myself can do to help?

Drag and drop support: we never had a library that supported it built in. Now we do (jQuery UI) so from 4.6.0 onwards we (or plugin authors) will be able to offer this functionality.

That will be nice, although I do not miss it.

One image at a time: a pain sometimes.

bot_image_upload and abl_droploader works nice here. Not much more to be asked for.

Please help us improve things and maybe Textpattern can become everything you need in a CMS.

I believe that every CMS has something special and it’s not easy to find one which is tailored for everybody. The author of this thread wrote:

It has all I need – lightweight, fast and simple…But my wife’s work will be a bit complicated.

So, not easy to please everyone. :-)

Last edited by gour (2013-02-25 14:58:17)

maratnugmanov · 2013-02-25 13:45:40

Plugins are not here to stay – they can die easily, while the core update chances are significally higher. I know that devs won’t fit all the features in the package, but there’s always tradeoff – some functionality can be thrown out, while what should be included but it’s not – will be so.

My language skills are not great – my native is russian.

Last edited by maratnugmanov (2013-02-25 13:53:00)

Gocom · 2013-02-25 14:03:36

Bloke wrote:

I’d favour a callback in Textpattern_Textile_Parser to allow plugins to hook into the Textile engine and call setSymbol() themselves whenever Textile is used.

You wouldn’t be able access Textile’s internal methods from a callback. The stuff is instanced opposed to static, and as should be. Unless, you are suggesting that we expose $this to callback handlers — you are not, right? I do hope you did not, because that’s doesn’t sound very good idea.

Anyways, you will be able to change the original configuration by extending Textile and the Textfilter class. Small example:

/**
 * Extends Textile to use duck-foot quote style.
 */

class abc_Textile_Parser extends Textpattern_Textile_Parser
{
	public function __construct()
	{
		parent::__construct();
		$this->setSymbol('quote_single_open', '&#8249;');
		$this->setSymbol('quote_single_close', '&#8250;');
		$this->setSymbol('quote_double_open', '&#171;');
		$this->setSymbol('quote_double_close', '&#187;');
	}
}

/**
 * Creates a new Textfilter that uses the extended Textile class.
 */

class abc_Textile_Textfilter extends Textpattern_Textfilter_Textile
{
	public function __construct()
	{
		Textpattern_Textfilter_Base::__construct('abc_Textile_Textfilter', gTxt('abc_textile_textfilter'));
		$this->textile = new abc_Textile_Parser();
		$this->version = $this->textile->getVersion();
	}
}

new abc_Textile_Textfilter();

Last edited by Gocom (2013-02-25 14:06:42)

Gocom · 2013-02-25 14:14:59

maratnugmanov wrote:

Plugins are not here to stay – they can die easily, while the core update chances are significally higher. I know that devs won’t fit all the features in the package, but there’s always tradeoff – some functionality can be thrown out, while what should be included but it’s not – will be so.

Well, take it as a good or the bad, the thing is Textpattern’s bread and butter are those plugins. We don’t necessarily build features, but a lean base platform. Our goals do not include to merge every plugin to the core, or make plugins unwanted or needed by implementing niche features. We want to compliment plugins, and make making plugins worthwhile.

Textpattern is more of so a tool for developers, and those that want to build websites using those plugins, host their own internal apps and use that template language it sports. It’s not the best out of box experience, it doesn’t have swappable themes, widgets, 1 click-install-and-forget feature set or anything of that sort.

Will Textpattern be WordPress someday? No. Tumbler replacement? No. Have ton of out-of-box features? No. Have complicated, superb fine cut admin theme that looks super freaking cool, but allows very little customization? No.

Last edited by Gocom (2013-02-25 14:18:56)

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#1 2013-02-25 07:15:16

UI needs rework badly

#2 2013-02-25 09:25:14

Re: UI needs rework badly

#3 2013-02-25 09:46:13

Re: UI needs rework badly

#4 2013-02-25 10:47:44

Re: UI needs rework badly

#5 2013-02-25 11:21:48

Re: UI needs rework badly

#6 2013-02-25 12:05:49

Re: UI needs rework badly

#7 2013-02-25 13:07:39

Re: UI needs rework badly

#8 2013-02-25 13:09:23

Re: UI needs rework badly

#9 2013-02-25 13:38:12

Re: UI needs rework badly

#10 2013-02-25 13:45:40

Re: UI needs rework badly

#11 2013-02-25 14:03:36

Re: UI needs rework badly

#12 2013-02-25 14:14:59

Re: UI needs rework badly

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