3.5 alpha is out...go ahead and try it out!

Monday 04 October 2004 6:06:27 am - 14 replies

14 replies

Author	Message
K259	Monday 04 October 2004 6:17:51 am I guess this version is really really fast ;) Gonna test it tonight.
Paul Forsyth	Monday 04 October 2004 7:46:05 am I tried out http://admindevel.ezpublish.no and i've a few comments. It feels too 'heavy'. The dark colours used for title bars and buttons is too dominant for my liking, i have to look too closely to read the title. The on/off navigation buttons at the centre of the screen appears to be a different design to the rest of the page, and its not intuitive what these buttons do. Their height is too small to be easily seen. These plus the fact that most of the buttons are greyed out make the buttons very hard to see. Would offering alternative stylesheets help? I am not referring just to changing colours but in position, widths, heights, and also whether some elements should be hidden or not. I think that my clients would have a hard time switching from the 3.4 interface to 3.5. Can the 3.4 interface be made available too? Paul
Alex Jones	Monday 04 October 2004 8:35:22 am I too have looked through the admin interface and agree 100% with Paul. <b>Overall Layout</b> The deign is much too busy, in large part due to the way that information blocks can be toggle on and off (which is a great idea). <b>View Controls</b> I am defining the buttons that control whether or not information is toggled <i>View Controls</i> (Preview, Translations, Locations etc.). Please let me know if there is a better term. I think these would make more sense on the right side where the <i>Current User</i> and <i>Bookmark</i> controls are located. These controls are in dire need of a label. <b>User Information</b> With the exception of the <i>Logout</i> link, I don't see any real value to listing the <i>User Information</i> block on every page of the admin area. A user will not change their personal information and passwords very often, so I think it is justifiable to remove the links from every page, and let them access it from the <i>My Account</i> section <b>Content Structure</b> I love the dynamic tree navigation! Thanks for implementing it! The Small Medium and Large are very helpful as well, though it isn't immediately obvious as to what it does. <b>Content View Screen</b> I really like the inclusion of the results count (10, 25, 50), and the view type (List, Thumbnail, Detailed) in the <i>Sub Items</i> box. I think it would prove helpful to move the drop down controls for creating new objects and the sort order above the child objects. <b>Hidden Functionality</b> I know this isn't fully implemented, but I just want to say thanks for adding this, as it will save us a lot of time. :D The eZ Systems team has really done a great job. Thank you! Alex [ bald_technologist on the IRC channel (irc.freenode.net): #eZpublish ] <i>When in doubt, clear the cache.</i>
kenneth kvalvik	Monday 04 October 2004 9:33:51 am The install script does not work on my server. When I try to <b>finetune</b> I get this error message: <i>1. Insufficient directory permissions eZ publish cannot write to some important directories, without this the setup cannot finish and parts of eZ publish will fail. The affected directories are: settings settings/siteaccess/admin design</i> But there is no directory called <b>settings settings/siteacess/admin design></b> - and I gather it shouldn't either... If I continue the setup wizard it all works ok, except that when I finish it, it just starts the wizard over again if I try to go to the user or admin site. I use a server that has open_basedir, which the wizard tells me can be a problem. It has to be said - I don't really know what I'm doing at all. But that's what the wizard is supposed to help me with, isn't it? Kenneth :-)
Georg Franz	Monday 04 October 2004 9:51:33 am Hi, the new design is really a big improvement! I like especially the menu and the "toggle buttons". Of course, it's an alpha release and there is a lot of work to do. But as far I can see: Well done! Kind regards, Georg. Best wishes, Georg. -- http://www.schicksal.com Horoskop website which uses eZ Publish since 2004
Eirik Alfstad Johansen	Monday 04 October 2004 11:24:43 am Hi guys, Before I start my rant of things I would like so see changed, I would like to say: "Great work!". The new admin interface will make eZP a much more attractive product to all our clients. Now, onto the constructive critisism, in no particular order. First of all, I agree with everything Paul said regarding the design, meaning that I find it a little too dark and "heavy" (though a great improvement to the old admin interface - color not considered). I would first and foremost like to see white replace grey as the main background color and lighter shade of blue (more similar to the exisiting admin interface colors). Furthermore I agree with everyting Alex said (and I do mean _everything_) except perhaps for one point regarding the placement of the drop down controls for creating new objects. I have argued earlier that this should be at the bottom of the list because what it does is append items to a list, and people are used to adding list items to the bottom. That being said, now that I see it there, I'm not so sure. It would be great to hear other opinions about this. Then, onto my own thoughts. On of the usability issues I've mentioned since I first got into using eZP is the lack of labels and help texts in the admin interface to better explain what the different functions do, and I'm sad to see that this hasn't improved one bit. As of now, one has to "click to learn" several functions. The functions that I feel would benefit most from some labels are: The drop down list to create new objects - It should have som text preceeding it explaining that you are about to "Create a new item of the type:". "Small/Medium/Large" links in the left column - It's not evident what these do, especially not in the demo where clicking them doesn't seem to make any difference. In general I think it should be possible to tie eZP closer together with the documentation, linking to the relevant sections in the documentation in each module view. I noticed that you're using the label "items" for objects and "types" for classes. Is this a change that you will follow through on? I'm happy to see that sorting has been taken out of the object edit view and into relation with the list which is much more inuitive. Regarding the "View controls": It does not make sense that they are grey when a section is not viewed. Normally, buttons are greyed out when they can not be clicked. Furthermore, I think "Details" would be a much better description for the button currently labeled "Information". Also, when I toogle these views on and off, the left column grows bigger in width. Is this the IE 6.0 bug you're referring to? The "Trash" menu item in the left menu should have a trash can icon associated with it. It looks amateurish that the icons have a different background color than the background they're placed upon. This applies to the icons used in headings of the node preview sections, as well as the icons in the "Setup" section. I'm happy to finally see the design related functions under one tab, though dissapointed to see that no effort has been made to improve the UI of editing templates (except for switching places for the "all templates" and "most popular" templates list ). Oh well, I guess some things have to be left for v. 3.6. :) I see that the "Edit" column label has been dropped in the list of children nodes. This seems like a design decision in order for the column to be narrower, but I don't think it's a good one as it's hard to make out that the Edit buttons display a pencil (and then, in turn, understand that this means "Edit"). When clicking an item in the left column menu that includes children, I think the sub tree structure should expand to display the child elements in addition to displaying the element in full view, as this is how MS Explorer behaves (at least the XP version). It's not until I click the icons in the left menu that I discover the pop up menu. And that's just because I was looking for it. Why not mention that it exists using a label? And finally; what's with the move to Arial? It's good enough for your logo, but not the body text of your application? :) Thanks for listening! Sincerely, Eirik Alfstad Johansen http://www.netmaking.no/
Stian Lindhom	Monday 04 October 2004 12:31:44 pm I LOVE the new look of the admin interface. Clean, professional and easy on the eyes. On my 3.5 alpha install I didn't get the "white content frames" like on http://www.ez.no/var/ezno/storage/images-versioned/222550/2-eng-GB/admin_edit_content2_large.png / http://admindevel.ezpublish.no/, but that's perhaps just a problem on my side since I didn't do a "clean" install? I like the idea of having non-editable content on a light greyish background and input fields on white background, it makes the interface even more intuitive and userfriendly. As for the navigation menu, wow, how could I live without it! :) It's also nice that the menu and other options are unavailable when editing content, maybe the users won't create "drafts" everywhere now... Regards, Stian B. Lindhom
Frederik Holljen	Tuesday 05 October 2004 1:10:53 am First of all; thanks for all your input. Here are a few comments on some of the things that have been brought up here: >It feels too 'heavy'. The dark colours used for title bars and buttons is >too dominant for my liking, i have to look too closely to read the title. Design is of course a very subjective and difficult matter to get absolutely right. Still we are open to suggestions and toning down the colors a bit may be a good idea. However, I'd like you to try the new design every now and then and see what you think after a few days. > The on/off navigation buttons at the centre of the screen appears to be a > different design to the rest of the page, and its not intuitive what these > buttons do. Their height is too small to be easily seen These buttons are probably the most troublesome part of the new interface. A small discussion about the options: a) Either the left or right toolbar. The right toolbar is currently reserved for personal items that do not change regardless of which admin page your are viewing. Putting the "view toggle" buttons here doesn't make sense. On the right side we have the menu which controls the navigation of the current tab. This is a more natural place to put the "view toggle" buttons. However, putting the controls on the top takes valuable space from the treemenu. Putting it on the bottom makes it incredibly hard to reach if the treemenu is large. b) On the top of the page. This is the most natural place to have the toggles since they basically only change the view you are currently at. However, making the toggles very prominent steals focus from the part that you are really interested in; the content. This is why the toggles are so laid back and without a label. I agree that the design of the toggles could be better (and yes, "Information" should be renamed to "Details") and this is something that we are going to have a look at. > I think it would prove helpful to move the drop down controls for > creating new objects and the sort order above the child objects. The new object controls are in the children list because they affect exactly that: the list of children of that node. The other "windows" are only concerned with the node or object itself and we feel that it would be wrong to put these controls there as they don't really fit in. > On of the usability issues I've mentioned since I first got into > usingeZP is the lack of labels and help texts in the admin interface > to better explain what the different functions do, and I'm sad to see > that this hasn't improved one bit. As of now, one has to "click to > learn" several functions. This is not entirely true. We have added "mouseover" help for most of the controls in the content part. Hold your mouse over any of the controls and you get an explonation of what it does. We will add mouseover help for the other parts as well (especially setup is important) We have experimented with more labels and the problem is that they tend to clutter up the interface and actually makes it much more difficult to find what you need once you are used to the interface. This being said, we are planning to improve the documentation of the admin interface and make it possible to easily jump to the documentation if needed. > I noticed that you're using the label "items" for objects and "types" > for classes. Is this a change that you will follow through on? Yes, but only in the parts of the administration interface where it makes sense. Users without a technical background have no knowledge of the terms node, object or class and we wanted to use words that feels more natural for these users. However, we will continue to use node, object and class in the parts for advanced users that know how eZ publish works. > It looks amateurish that the icons have a different background color > than the background they're placed upon. This applies to the icons used > in headings of the node preview sections, as well as the icons in the > "Setup" section. This is an IE issue (it doesn't support transparancy in png files). We will convert the files to gif when we are done. > I'm happy to finally see the design related functions under one tab, > though dissapointed to see that no effort has been made to improve the > UI of editing templates This is a huge undertaking in itself slated for 3.6. > When clicking an item in the left column menu that includes children, I > think the sub tree structure should expand to display the child elements > in addition to displaying the element in full view, as this is how MS > Explorer behaves (at least the XP version). Planned but not implemented yet. > It's not until I click the icons in the left menu that I discover the > pop up menu. And that's just because I was looking for it. Why not > mention that it exists using a label? Where would you put that label? Actually there are more menus. Try the icon in the preview "window", the bookmark icons or the icons in the sub items list. Would you like labels for all of them? Regards, Frederik
Paul Forsyth	Tuesday 05 October 2004 2:21:22 am Just a quickie reply. Now javascript is being used a little more it could be used to fix issues such as ie rendering and better labels. This site has created a fantastic way of showing more information in labels: http://www.walterzorn.com/tooltip/tooltip_e.htm And if you want to fix ie rendering try this out: 1. In IE, bookmark the favelet found at this site, the PNG link. http://dean.edwards.name/IE7/favelet.html 2. Goto the ez admin with the problem image. 3. Click the bookmarked favlet. Its that easy. Note that the javascript will fix lots of other ie issues at the same time... The code in the favelet can of course be included in the site itself so users automatically get this... paul
Eirik Alfstad Johansen	Tuesday 05 October 2004 4:32:23 am Hi Fredrik, <quote>However, putting the controls on the top takes valuable space from the treemenu. Putting it on the bottom makes it incredibly hard to reach if the treemenu is large.</quote> I don't think it would matter much if it the view controls were a little harder to reach due to a large tree menu. After all, toggling the different views on and off is probably done only a few times during a session. <quote>Where would you put that label? Actually there are more menus. Try the icon in the preview "window", the bookmark icons or the icons in the sub items list. Would you like labels for all of them?</quote> Yes, I would like labels for all of them. How else are people supposed to know they exist? Regarding the onMouseOver labels, my experience is that only advanced users expect and find these. If you are going to use popup-labels (onMouseOver or otherwise) it should be evident that the element you are hovering over contains such a label. How about implementing small help buttons about the size of the edit buttons (the ones including the pencil)? The buttons could include a question mark, be placed in the upper, right corner of a section, and display helpful advice when hovered over or clicked. This space is also available for most sections. Sincerely, Eirik Alfstad Johansen http://www.netmaking.no/
Alex Jones	Tuesday 05 October 2004 7:36:34 am >> I think it would prove helpful to move the drop down controls for >> creating new objects and the sort order above the child objects. > The new object controls are in the children list because they affect > exactly that: the list of children of that node. The other "windows" > are only concerned with the node or object itself and we feel that it > would be wrong to put these controls there as they don't really fit in. I think there is a bit of miscommunication. I am not suggesting that the items should be moved to a separate window. I think they should remain in the <i>Sub Items</i> window, but should be placed between the row that controls how many items are displayed, and how the column heading row (<i>Name, Type etc.</i>). I say this because creating new objects is a key part of the content management system, especially on active sites. Forcing the editor to scroll to the bottom every time a new object is to be added will noticeably slow the editor's progress. > The right toolbar is currently reserved for personal items that do > not change regardless of which admin page your are viewing. Putting > the "view toggle" buttons here doesn't make sense. While I understand that this area is reserved, I don't agree that it is logical to not put the controls there. The current layout utilizes visual containers, so I do not think it would be confusing for the user to see a new container displaying these controls above the one that is already there (<i>Current user</i>). I'm sure you have had a lot of internal discussions regarding the overall layout and general grid for the interface, so I won't continue to argue the point. ;) <b>Labels & Mouseover Tooltips</b> I don't think relying on tooltips is enough for this product. We as developers might be happy to have them, but many of our users will not know that they can hover for a moment or two to discover the purpose of a link or button. It just isn't obvious enough. Sacrificing labels for the sake of design is not good. Paul's suggestion of the expanded Mouseover's is a good one. I would also recommend looking at http://www.kryogenix.org/code/browser/nicetitle/ Again, I want to stress that 3.5 is an <b>immense improvement</b> over previous versions, and I really appreciate all of the hard work you have put into it's development. Thanks again! Alex [ bald_technologist on the IRC channel (irc.freenode.net): #eZpublish ] <i>When in doubt, clear the cache.</i>
Paul Borgermans	Tuesday 05 October 2004 12:09:26 pm I agree with Alex on the position of the bar for creating new items ... and the mouseover: the help text should display almost immediately. -paul eZ Publish, eZ Find, Solr expert consulting and training http://twitter.com/paulborgermans
Thomas Johannessen	Sunday 19 December 2004 5:46:38 pm when will the 3.5 be available for use?? .thomas www.taon.no
Eirik Alfstad Johansen	Sunday 19 December 2004 10:53:04 pm Hi Thomas, According to this newsletter, it will be out tomorrow, or on Wednesday morning: http://ez.no/community/news/community_newsletter_17_12_2004 Sincerely, Eirik Alfstad Johansen http://www.netmaking.no/

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