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#16 2005-08-13 04:36:08
- jeffkono
- New Member
- Registered: 2004-05-26
- Posts: 7
Re: Txp Admin Facelift
> mary wrote:
>I don’t like the sideways text either. What if we simply changed the text’s orientation, like
>
>T
>E
>X
>T
>
>? And increase the text size (only these three tabs have the text within the image itself)?
I’ve always been told vertically oriented text is harder to read than text turned sideways, because the vertical orientation breaks the normal flow of reading, one character after another (in western languages, at least). Thus, our brain has to read T, then E, then X and finally T, and wrap it together to recognize TEXT. With “normal” text, the interpretation is faster, because the string of characters is recognized as a whole word, even if it’s turned sideways.
And with the whole localization/i18n effort for Txp, wouldn’t it be more adequate to have actual text instead of images, so these tabs can be localized too? Which would mean, of course, the tabs going horizontal.
Just my 2c. And a half.
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Re: Txp Admin Facelift
The existing admin interface is one of the main reasons I use TXP in the first place. Changing the look on an individual basis is okay, but I’d be against a release-wide redesign.
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#18 2005-08-15 18:16:39
- andjules
- Member
- From: toronto
- Registered: 2004-10-20
- Posts: 44
Re: Txp Admin Facelift
my 2¢:
but I’d be against a release-wide redesign
I’d be against an ill-conceived, noisy or overly-slick update, but while the current one is good, there is room for some improvement of usability
although tables should be avoided, I think they are still appropriate for some forms and for layout
I think so too, but i am a fan of using smart CSS to control the tables – which in the end might allow for eliminating the offending space
I’m even less a fan of vertically sequence letters, so i’d stick with the text rotation on the vertical tabs, but just use the best pixel font you can find
have you seen this one ?
I like it too, although subtly it the second level navigation is not as clearly connected (visually) to the top level active tab
as to the quickpik solution, great for experts; beginners tend to have trouble with dynamic pop menus (although the straight-down variant is the easies) – I’d recommend having a simpler choice for lower-privilege contributors…
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#19 2005-08-15 22:49:58
- Mary
- Sock Enthusiast
- Registered: 2004-06-27
- Posts: 6,236
Re: Txp Admin Facelift
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Re: Txp Admin Facelift
That’s an improvement Mary (once I worked out the little symbols in place of the tabs!).
On a related note, but not to do with your re-design – is there any reason why the new, built in drop-down list (top right) doesn’t open a window long enough use without scrolling?
I would have thought even low-res screens would have the space, and having to scroll for the lower items removes most of the advantage of the drop down over the tabs…
Cheers
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Re: Txp Admin Facelift
That looks much better Mary. I happen to use Philippe’s re-style. Really like the colours but if your new design were to become standard I would use it instead.
Stuart
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Telling the Truth is Revolutionary.
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Re: Txp Admin Facelift
I think these look nice, but I still like the current design best. The orginal look is small, unobtrusive, functional. Most of these new ones are kind of like “Mac OS goes to PowerPoint” or something.
As far as changes in the official release, my advice is: treat the TXP interface like a founding document and tread carefully :)
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Re: Txp Admin Facelift
i like your version very much mary, seems to be much easier to find your way around it.
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#24 2005-08-16 14:32:47
- EddieG5
- Member
- From: Georgia
- Registered: 2004-03-03
- Posts: 96
Re: Txp Admin Facelift
I think they are nice also and love having options … but I think the original is still the best for the default. It is elegant, simple and the first thing that attracted me to TXP.
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Re: Txp Admin Facelift
The grey tabs are certainly less heavy. I still have a problem with that double tab row. Conceptually I mean. Both rows carry the same visual ‘weight’, and it doesn’t translate well the parent-child relationship between top and bottom row.
That is partly why I split the two rows in my own restyling. And I was thinking to change the background colour of the top row to more grey as well. after looking at it on some Windows monitors recently – where the blue hue is more pronounced.
The 3 icons are problematic in my eyes. The curent visual aspect of that part of the interface works rather wel in my eyes. I know about the localisation problem with this. Adding a ‘title’ attribute (that can be translated) to each image would help here.
Where is that emoji for a solar powered submarine when you need it ?
Sand space – admin theme for Textpattern
phiw13 on Codeberg
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#26 2005-08-16 19:05:07
- Mary
- Sock Enthusiast
- Registered: 2004-06-27
- Posts: 6,236
Re: Txp Admin Facelift
“I know about the localisation problem with this. Adding a ‘title’ attribute (that can be translated) to each image would help here.”
I dunno, I know I have hated that in the past with other programs (with English being my first and only language, and using programs written for something else), and I think I’d still hate it now if I were in the other position: if I wanted to look at French text, image or otherwise, I’d use the French translation, I shouldn’t have to “hover”.
As I said, the icons are subject to major revision, its just finding icons that are as universal as possible. The alternative is flat text. Maybe “little” side tabs (with correct text orientation) would work – is there any language where “text”, “html” and “preview” would be a very long word?
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Re: Txp Admin Facelift
I like the Aug. 15 verision of Mary’s much better, but I am still in agreement with phiw13 that it would be nice to have the “child” tabs in a different visual format.
It would distinguish the major “sections” in the backend from the immediately available “actions”.
After enduring years of Art School, mild mannered Owen Waring noticed some unusual changes… the constant bombardment of criticism, it seems, had altered his DNA. Half pixel pusher, half programmer, he had become…. THE BIZARTIST
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#28 2005-08-16 23:02:31
- Mary
- Sock Enthusiast
- Registered: 2004-06-27
- Posts: 6,236
Re: Txp Admin Facelift
“actions” – that’s a good descriptor. :)
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Re: Txp Admin Facelift
> mary wrote:
I dunno, I know I have hated that in the past with other programs (with English being my first and only language, and using programs written for something else), and I think I’d still hate it now if I were in the other position: if I wanted to look at French text, image or otherwise, I’d use the French translation, I shouldn’t have to “hover”.
You know, the Japanese kids (and so much kids) just love it, having snippets of information put in English instead of Japanese. I’ve done two projects recently, where the main nav for the site uses English. One advantage was that we could use quite short words – 4-5 characters, whereas the Japanese words would have been quite long – 8-10 characters.
This wouldn’t be much of a problem for those 3 items in TXP: 4 to 6 characters.
As I said, the icons are subject to major revision, its just finding icons that are as universal as possible. The alternative is flat text. Maybe “little” side tabs (with correct text orientation) would work – is there any language where “text”, “html” and “preview” would be a very long word?
The latest (aug 16) rev is already more in line with te concept: ‘little tabs’. One idea would be having a light grey border going down the height of the text-area, and having the littel tabs butting on it. (Just thinking out loud here, with the default form styling in Firefox, this will give a neat effect. Other browsers have different form styling – including my own copy of Firefox – and already have a border on the right side of the textarea.
Where is that emoji for a solar powered submarine when you need it ?
Sand space – admin theme for Textpattern
phiw13 on Codeberg
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#30 2005-08-17 02:48:47
- andjules
- Member
- From: toronto
- Registered: 2004-10-20
- Posts: 44
Re: Txp Admin Facelift
looking good.
the first two icons work for me…
not sure what might work better for a ‘preview’ metaphor… a computer monitor? thinking out loud
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