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Re: UI needs rework badly
Els wrote:
maratnugmanov wrote:
I just need a fast and simple image insertion in the posts.
Forget your wariness regarding plugins and have a look at smd_macro. I’ve used it a lot to simplify a variety of actions for clients.
Wow, cool one. Can embed responsive youtube videos with only a _9wad9awe_-like key :)
Last edited by maratnugmanov (2013-02-25 19:25:15)
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Re: UI needs rework badly
Bloke wrote:
- 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.
The plugins directory is a real mess for sure. When i first started using TxP i would try to find useful plugins therein but more often than not left without finding what i needed. I don’t know enough about them to know which to designate to the trash heap. but it does need major culling.
A related issue is that so many plugins are now being served from the the developers personal websites. This makes it very difficult to find what re avery useful plugins. There may be plenty of valid reasons for this decentralization of plugins, but it would be nice if there was a central registry of plugins.
…. texted postive
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Re: UI needs rework badly
Bloke wrote:
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.
The (in-progress) 4.6 design patterns can be found here
I can say that I won’t be in favour of a major UI redesign – we are taking iterative steps to improve the current UI gradually and as far as I’m concerned that’s the way it’s going to continue. There are flaws in the current workflow which we are well aware of but we have good ideas of how these can be fixed without drastically rebuilding the UI again.
That being said, feel free to suggest (and demonstrate) improvements where you see fit.
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Re: UI needs rework badly
philwareham wrote:
I can say that I won’t be in favour of a major UI redesign – we are taking iterative steps to improve the current UI gradually and as far as I’m concerned that’s the way it’s going to continue. There are flaws in the current workflow which we are well aware of but we have good ideas of how these can be fixed without drastically rebuilding the UI again.
Good. Major redesigns basically require a fork if you don’t want to piss or lose a lot of people. And if that were the case, you’d just want to reopen Xpattern. But count me in the crowd who does think some gradual changes need made, beginning with the workflow issues most understood already; including unlimited, modifiable custom fields (and the UI considerations around that). I’m really, really looking forward to those, and can imagine how powerful they will be with structuring content inside of body fields with smd_macros. :)
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Re: UI needs rework badly
I proposed tabs inside admin tab instead of rolling out lists – that’s no way can be called a major redesign.
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Re: UI needs rework badly
Not going to happen, sorry. Tabs are a UX regression for a number of reasons:
- Tabs don’t work as a concept on small screen devices, especially since we can never guarantee of how many regions will be on the page anyway (plugins can add their own regions to the write screen, for example).
- By moving to a different tab, you are hiding a lot of UI away needlessly. By using slide out regions you keep all the UI in one place. I have a 24” monitor for example so why would I then want to hide huge regions of it inside another tab?
- Tabs are an accessibility nightmare for those with assistive technologies – you would have to use WAI-ARIA extensively on a screen reader to try and let those users what region they currently have active, and how they navigate back to another tab region. Here’s what you’d need to do to try to make tabs accessible
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Re: UI needs rework badly
Tabs don’t work as a concept on small screen devices, especially since we can never guarantee of how many regions will be on the page anyway (plugins can add their own regions to the write screen, for example).
I meant this kind of tabs – no form here, can be styled as needed.
By moving to a different tab, you are hiding a lot of UI away needlessly. By using slide out regions you keep all the UI in one place. I have a 24” monitor for example so why would I then want to hide huge regions of it inside another tab?
I don’t have 24” for example – scroll_mode:infinite :)
But again, this is a question of priority – the panel and the cms itself is targeted mostly for professionals, not for typical user (read as typical client)
Tabs are an accessibility nightmare for those with assistive technologies – you would have to use WAI-ARIA extensively on a screen reader to try and let those users what region they currently have active, and how they navigate back to another tab region. Here’s what you’d need to do to try to make tabs accessible
I didn’t dig that question too far – no screen reader users to help me. But typically I’m trying to implement as much assistive features as I can.
Last edited by maratnugmanov (2013-02-26 18:06:17)
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Re: UI needs rework badly
philwareham wrote: The (in-progress) 4.6 design patterns can be found here
Wow… Excellent work. really excellent. Wish I’d seen this before I started hacking hive to support my own suite of wine plugins.
I’m confused, this looks a lot like Zurb Foundation, but not… what frameworks are being used?
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Re: UI needs rework badly
I’ve cherry-picked ideas from both Bootstrap and Foundation, but it’s our own bespoke framework plus jQuery UI. Still needs some work but its shaping up quite nicely.
It’s still a no on the tabs, for all the reasons I outlined in my previous post. I’m fully aware of Zurb Foundation, and its very good for websites, for web apps it’s not such a good choice.
jQuery UI was built from the ground up to be WAI-ARIA compliant whereas its non-existent in Foundation. We will however be providing a tab UI widget in 4.6 as an option for plugin developers so you could utilise that I guess if you want to build your own admin side with tabs.
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Re: UI needs rework badly
Just wondering where to begin on refreshing my plugins UI to match hive… might have to start over… when do you suppose you’ll be done with the major UI overhaul we’re seeing in 4.6ish?
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Re: UI needs rework badly
So why Hive has always <select> menu for me in latest stable Chrome? Clean 4.5.4 install. Reinstall didn’t help.
Last edited by maratnugmanov (2013-02-26 20:02:07)
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Re: UI needs rework badly
Well, we’ve got a new search widget to be landed in the next few days then it’s on to discussing the modal panels I think, and a visual of a grid view for the images page to see if it can feasibly be achieved.
Most of the CSS work is bedded in now so you should be able to start building your plugins using that design patterns doc as a basis. I need to work on the Classic/Remora ones a bit but they’ll take Hive as their lead.
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