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Core Features - the UI

I know you guys have been doing some work around this, but I gotta ask... why keep it around?

I get the necessity of having things that can be enabled and disabled, but why bundle it all into a single page that most people never think to look for? Why not decentralise it?

I moved each of the settings into its own area, so for example Paid Subscriptions always shows in the menu, and the 'enabled' option is the first option on the page (and if disabled, it's the ONLY option on the page). I personally find that keeps the logic cleaner (since all behaviour is tied together in the same place) and neatens up the UI experience (since people don't have to go to a separate page to find something)

The best one is Report Generation. The sum total of what that option does is hide a menu item. There's no ongoing performance saving to be made out of turning it off. Might as well ditch the page, personally.

It seemed to go down with with users :)

(Mind you, I also refitted the admin page to have a nice shiny OS X like menu instead of the front page that was there...)

Re: Core Features - the UI

Reply #1

 emanuele frequently uses it as shortcut... O:-) lol
Bugs creator.
Features destroyer.
Template killer.

Re: Core Features - the UI

Reply #2

I'll say I'm less annoyed at that page since Ema Ajax-ified it, so at least now it acts sensibly.

Past that, the layout of the ACP needs a refresh ... I'm often bewildered at where to find things and when I finally do what I'm looking for I can kind of see why it was probably inserted there.   To me some items are just not grouped sensibly at a top level, so for example if you go to adjust your security settings you will end up in several different areas, same for server settings, and so on

Maybe if every existing action was looked at and new groupings created a better UI could come out ... I'm just not sure where to start!

Re: Core Features - the UI

Reply #3

It's still a WIP but here's what I did. You can see that there are some duplicated items where I'm replacing the old one with a new one. It's all built from the menu code so it will always be in sync.

Re: Core Features - the UI

Reply #4

Quote from: Arantor – It's still a WIP but here's what I did. You can see that there are some duplicated items where I'm replacing the old one with a new one. It's all built from the menu code so it will always be in sync.
Snazzy!

Re: Core Features - the UI

Reply #5

That looks very nice ! ... gives me some ideas  :D  ... I like the way you grouped things at top level tasks

Do all of those icons take you directly to an existing page or do some of them open a sub control panel? 

 

Re: Core Features - the UI

Reply #6

All of those take you to the main page for each area, each icon reflects the same as the menu item that you'd go to - if you want a submenu item, you'd have to use the menu, or go to the main page first.

For example, if you want Admin > Member Options > Profile Fields (which is where custom profile fields went), you'd have to either click on Member Options, or use the menu, as the first page of member options is more generic options.