I've been having a fun adventure with this tonight, powered by https://github.com/mjsarfatti/nestedSortable/tree/2.0alpha
It's not done yet, of course, but it's definitely coming together and I think it's more useful for managing boards and whatnot. There are other areas in our ACP that already use jQuery UI for drag 'n' drop to reorder them (news, custom profiles, member group badges) so going one step further isn't really a big deal for us. Might be a direction to explore here too.
The only area I'm not sure about yet is a11y, but I can't really believe that the previous setup was really any better from that point of view. Having all the board names and a plethora of icons was confusing for anyone who could see, I can only imagine how confusing it would be if you just got bombarded with "Before <board name>", "After <board name>" "Child of <board name>" for every board... Though it would have been possible, just very time consuming, to manage with the keyboard.
Well a11y isn't just blind peeps. Some sighted users have to do it all via keyboard too. Making pages like board management quick and easy with a keyboard is going to be difficult. I suppose you could use header tags (h3, etc) to enable a screen reader to jump between categories, just as one example.
You should (I think) also be able to do some nifty js that would line up the ducks on one click and then send them flying with a second. So it'd effectively be "click and it drops itself" if you know what I mean. That could even be faster and more convenient for sighted mouse users. There ya go. Coding project #245281.
Cool!
That's one of the area I was thinking when talking about jQuery UI in the other topic! O:-)
And also Smiley.
@Antechinus: Which takes us basically back to what SMF does, which is confusing. In fact if I remember the whole 'lining everything up' is actually something SMF does - if you move a given parent, all its children move too, which seems to me to be what you're talking about, no?
The whole problem comes back to anything that involves reorganisation - because anything that requires any amount of reorganisation is going to truly suck for anyone with a11y issues, the board index worst of all precisely because it is so complex and nested. It might be fine in cases where you only half a dozen boards but anything with more than that, and there really isn't any good UI that doesn't involve drag and drop.
I also don't want to constrain the majority for the sake of a minority, even if it is an important one. I didn't remove the original page, so it wouldn't be that hard to provide some interface to pulling that back up for moving rather than removing it. I dunno on that one.
I get where you're coming from - but for most people the a11y problem is visual impairment, rather than motor impairment. I just don't see how you could sanely do rearrangement in a way that would suit either situation without it being a huge ball-ache. (Even SMF's non-fancy point and shoot variety)
I recently had to re-organize a "forum" with more than 100 boards (it's not really a forum and there is a (sort of) reason for all these boards ;)) and it's not been a nice experience... lol
Not quite. What I meant was that since drag an drop isn't feasible without being able to see where you're doing it, the blind guy's equivalent fallback would be something where you can set where you want it to go first, then find the *** you want to go there, then click that and it goes. It'd still be a major PITA, but probably less of one.
Which is how the current board move thing works, yes? You click the move button for that board, then click where you want it to go and it moves...
Hmm. Good point. :D
Ok, they're gently caress.
That's the thing... if there were a sane method I'd consider it.
Interestingly, IPB actually has drag 'n' drop not just for these things but damn near everything in the admin panel. As in you can rearrange the admin panel options in a given page to suit yourself. I dread to think how that is from an a11y POV.
Yeah that sort of thing gets silly. Think of all the calls to the db user settings for every page load. ::)
Is writing numbers easier for visually impaired people?
I am exploring the idea of simply using numbers for moving boards, something I used in block placement in TP. It would be faster to move something: add a new number inbetween 10 and 20 to board c - and it lands between board a(10) and b(20). Upon saving it recalculates so you get 10,20,30.. on each board again. Less flexible than drag'n'drop but perhaps easier to work with than SMF's point and click as you can change many numbers in one swoop.
Yup, that worked rather well in the old TP, once it was understood. Perhaps something similar for a11y, but using 01, 02, 03 etc rather than 10, 20, 30 etc. I think the former would be more intuitive to use.
I'd note it's what vBulletin and some others use but it always seems so kludgy to me - it might work well for visually impaired users but once you go beyond a few boards it sucks if you want to move anything (speaking as someone who runs vB and XenForo)
Yeah but as a fallback a11y option it probably makes sense. Not that I think many blind peeps will be digging into admin that deeply (it'd be a bit rude to make them do it if a sighted admin was available) but you never know.
I think drag & drop for ordering of most things within the admin would be the best way to go.
Maybe group the boardnames better so you see all/most boards. Then maybe apply a dropdown list next to each board with links to move before/after/under each board in same category,and just move to top place of another category(to limit the number of places in the dropdown list)
Much like editing a single board, but for all. That combined with a easy numbering scheme I feel would be interesting to work with.
Drag'n drop for all admin sections I would surely hate lol.
In the admin for boards, make categories collapsed by default. Drag & drop categories to the location you want. To move boards within a category, expand that category, and move boards around. If you have a board in "Category A" that you want to move to "Category B", expand "Category A" so that you can see your board. Then, drag & drop the board into "Category B". Then expand Category B to arrange the order of the boards via drag & drop.
This would be ideal for mobile devices, because in a mobile device expanding or having all boards showing may not be ideal, or fit on screen. In addition, there should be a button to click(arrange) that turns drag & drop on/off, which makes it easier for mobile/touch devices.
What areas would be a problem for you?
Spuds did this.