Forums / Suggestions / GUI improvements - phase 1

GUI improvements - phase 1

Author Message

Balazs Halasy

Thursday 26 February 2004 12:09:12 am

Hi,

We've started a planning process related to user interface issues of the web based administration interface. The first thing (or collection of things) that will be addressed is the process of content navigation, creation and alteration. These operations are strongly connected to each other and we're determined to make them better. The improvement process itself might involve the change of overall look & feel, number of clicks, visualization concepts, etc. Again, the goal is to make the navigation, creation and edit-process *as easy and as well arranged as possible*. Improving the GUI will definetively take some time, so please - do not expect miracles within the next release.

Coming up with a good user interface is a painstaking and time consuming task; not to mention that we're pretty much limited by the gnarled GUI solutions (input forms, buttons, etc.) currently present in HTML. However, our mission is make the best out of it, make it as user friendly as possible. In order to do this, we need input from the community. What can we do in order to make eZ publish more friendlier for end users who simply wish to publish information? All kinds of suggestions and ideas (related to the operations mentioned above) are welcome!

Balazs

Francis Nart

Thursday 26 February 2004 12:22:51 am

hi,

to me, a great improvement would be to hide sections to users who shouldn't have access to sme parts of the administration interface. For example, hide the shop section in a news site, hide the users, setup...sections to non adminitsrators users.
Plus, we noticed that the "preview" button doesn't give the user access to the "real website preview" (or maybe we missed something !) so why don't you delete it ?

Francis.

Balazs Halasy

Thursday 26 February 2004 12:52:53 am

Hello again,

In future versions: stuff that a user doesn't need (or shouldn't use) will probably be hidden, yes. How this will be solved hasn't been discussed yet, but I think we all agree that it should be possible to hide/simplify parts of the admin interface.

Please keep in mind that we're trying to start up a discussion with suggestions that are closely related to the publishing process (with GUI in mind); again -> this is about navigation, content creation and alteration. What can we do to make this part of the system more smooth for the end user?

Balazs

Alex Jones

Thursday 26 February 2004 7:24:53 am

Here is some of the feedback that I have heard from our editors regarding the content creation process. Please note, all of this feedback applies to version 3.1, as we do not currently have a later version in production.

<b>1. Adding a Location/Copying Confusion</b>
When copying a folder, or adding a location to a folder, the editor expects that everything within that folder will also show up under the new version, which is not the case.

<b>2. Class Attribute Ordering</b>
As I, and others have mentioned in the past the use of up and down arrows for changing the order of class attributes is extremely unfriendly and takes far too much time. Again, I recommend using the priority box method to sort these attributes.

<b>3. Add/Remove Multiple Locations</b>
We would like to have the ability to add or remove multiple locations for an item at the same time. At the moment, we have to add a location and wait for the system to process it, then click on the add button again, navigate to another location and wait for it to process... It would be nice to just choose 'Add Locations' and be able to select multiple locations with check boxes.

It would also be nice to be able to remove more than one location at a time.

Thanks for giving us this thread to provide feedback on the interface.

Alex

Alex
[ bald_technologist on the IRC channel (irc.freenode.net): #eZpublish ]

<i>When in doubt, clear the cache.</i>

Dariusz Wlodarczyk

Thursday 26 February 2004 8:45:37 am

Multiple moving and copying of content will be nice to.
Something like symbolic links to content elements in content locations (i want see in new location all subcontent when i add second location to folder).

Badr Chentouf

Friday 27 February 2004 6:44:15 am

One of things to do is to hide functions when the current user can not use them.
The tabs 'shop', 'setup' and 'users' are concerned.

What I did : (on ez 3.3.3) :

1 /I added in index.php, line 578
----------------------------------
//to know if user has access to shop, setup
include_once( "kernel/classes/datatypes/ezuser/ezuser.php" );
$currentUser =& eZUser::currentUser();
$tempTable = $currentUser->hasAccessTo( 'shop', 'orderlist' );
if ( $tempTable[ 'accessWord' ] == 'yes' ) { $hasAccessToShop= 'true'; } else { $hasAccessToShop= 'false'; }
$tempTable = $currentUser->hasAccessTo( 'setup', 'menu' );
if ( $tempTable[ 'accessWord' ] == 'yes' ) { $hasAccessToSetup= 'true'; } else { $hasAccessToSetup= 'false'; }

2/ I added in index.php, line 744
----------------------------------
//to know if user has access to shop, setup
$tpl->setVariable( 'hasAccessToShop', $hasAccessToShop );
$tpl->setVariable( 'hasAccessToSetup', $hasAccessToSetup );

then you can use the two new values $hasAccessToShop and $hasAccessToSetup in design/admin/templates/pagelayout.tpl, like following :

{switch match=$hasAccessToSetup}
{case match='true'}
//
//show Setup tab
//
{/case}
{case}
{/case}
{/switch}

<b>but, for the tab 'users', what is the exact right to check ? </b>

Fraser Hore

Saturday 20 March 2004 7:47:54 am

Have you tried MS Sharepoint. It is pretty easy and intuitive for non-technical users. I also had a brief look at Paperthin's Common Spot and it looks pretty good. Also the wizard approach from the setup is pretty good. Maybe you could create wizards guide the user through the process of creating and altering content.

Alexandre Cunha

Monday 22 March 2004 6:39:16 pm

See what i thing about GUI improvements:
http://ez.no/community/forum/suggestions/administration_interface_and_gui_improvements

<b>Sugested priorities for next version (3.3.4) - phase 1 </b>
1 - Dinamic menu
2 - Multiple move
3 - Copy folder (everything within that folder)
4 - Multiple Copy

axel

http://AlexandreCunha.com