[Template Manager] MODxGreen

Quote from: rthrash at May 24, 2006, 09:21 AM

chris#,

Any chance you want to take a stab at helping us get rid of the frames sooner than we originally intended.

Please see my PM on this.

--Chris out...

.

banzai,

Excellent work!!! I love the green interface!

Quote from: RussLipton at Feb 22, 2006, 07:16 AM

For beginners like me, a few points:

1. Don’t delete the existing Manager folder. These are additional files uploaded into the current Manager folder.

2. Open the Manager and select Administrator.

3. Select Miscellaneous Settings.

4. Choose ModX Green from the Manager Theme option.

5. Save.

Thanks Russ, it took me long time to find.
Heres a little clearer: Administrator Tab > System Configuration Sub Tab > (Then to the right frame) Miscalaneous Tab

Excellent stuff chaps! This style is streets ahead of the XP scheme.

Some initial suggestions:

• Less green, more neutral grey
• Standard page links lighter in tone to contrast more with black text
• Many Icons are better, but some (such as the bin) could do with improving/replacing

Perhaps I’ll post some potential icons if nobody minds? My brother’s into icons so I’ll get him on it as well.

Quote from: ImpelGD at Sep 05, 2006, 05:18 PM

Perhaps I’ll post some potential icons if nobody minds? My brother’s into icons so I’ll get him on it as well.

Go man go!

Good luck.

zi

While I appreciate the good work in the template manager from a technical point of view, the choice of colors is not a very good one.

A good design for the template manager should not have a very strong or heavy colour scheme by itself. The user interface is not content by itself. The user should be able to concentrate on his own content and should not be distracted by the colors in the manager.

Let me give you an example: The text colors currently used in the manager are black, white, grey, orange, dark red, bright red, blue and more... this is way too much for a design heavy internet site, let alone an utility application. The green bars will not fit nicely with 99.9% of all sites you will ever edit with the manager. It does not even match with the modxcms.com site.

I understand the need for the MODx branding colours in the manager. May I humbly suggest the following:

You could put a header on the top of the page with the MODx logo in exactly the MODx colours (not slightly different). Then the rest of the page could be only neutral grey, black and white. The green bars are replaced by grey ones. Most of the interface text should also be grey. (You already saw it one million times.) Important text is black. Color text should only be used for extremely important messages and alerts.

Have a look at what other very good interface designers do: In the Safari webbrowser browser tabs and bookmarks are grey (you already know them). Only the current url is black text (its the one thing you are currently working with). Most user interface elements are shades of grey (dont mess with the content)....

Quote from: waso at Sep 14, 2006, 11:28 AM

While I appreciate the good work in the template manager from a technical point of view, the choice of colors is not a very good one.

A good design for the template manager should not have a very strong or heavy colour scheme by itself. The user interface is not content by itself. The user should be able to concentrate on his own content and should not be distracted by the colors in the manager.

I’ve only tried to meet all suggestion in this thread , what you say is very intersting, but not for all ( some likes black, some likes green, some likes grey ... )

Let me give you an example: The text colors currently used in the manager are black, white, grey, orange, dark red, bright red, blue and more... this is way too much for a design heavy internet site, let alone an utility application. The green bars will not fit nicely with 99.9% of all sites you will ever edit with the manager. It does not even match with the modxcms.com site.

text are black, white, orange, red, blue..... in the document tree for published, unpublished, deleted...... documents .

I understand the need for the MODx branding colours in the manager. May I humbly suggest the following:

You could put a header on the top of the page with the MODx logo in exactly the MODx colours (not slightly different). Then the rest of the page could be only neutral grey, black and white. The green bars are replaced by grey ones. Most of the interface text should also be grey. (You already saw it one million times.) Important text is black. Color text should only be used for extremely important messages and alerts.

MODx green doesn’t use MODx branding colours (of forum), there is a more black/green theme called MODxBlack (somewhere in the forum) and if you like grey, you can find in the forum an old thread with a Grey manager (the first alternative modx manager template made from an other user years ago)......if you like red you can choose MODx Red ....

Or better, you can create your own template using MODx or MODx manager templates

We have changed the manager system (in 0.9.5) to allow users to customize the manager style not to use only green or blue manager

Have a look at what other very good interface designers do: In the Safari webbrowser browser tabs and bookmarks are grey (you already know them). Only the current url is black text (its the one thing you are currently working with). Most user interface elements are shades of grey (dont mess with the content)....

In my personal opinion i don’t like too much grey in user inteface


Welcome and thanks for all your good suggestion

FWIW, I completely agree that the current beta and previous manager themes are too "in your face". To my eye, they draw too much attention away from the content and primary actions.

Quote from: banzai at Sep 14, 2006, 12:11 PM

I’ve only tried to meet all suggestion in this thread  , what you say is very intersting, but not for all  ( some likes black, some likes green, some likes grey ... )

Please dont get me wrong. I appreciate your good work . But I am not talking about likes and dislikes. In my opinion good user interface design makes important information stand out. It makes important content easy to read and it makes redundant info step back. Look at this for instance:

Title: Home
Long Title: Welcome to MODx

The text on the left is repeated on every page. After a few hours of using MODx you know it by heart. The important info is on the right. So this is usually a better presentation:

Title: Home
Long Title: Welcome to MODx

text are black, white, orange, red, blue..... in the document tree for published, unpublished, deleted...... documents .

This is actually good use of colors. Maybe there should be a combination of colors styles and icons, because it is not very easy to understand the logic in it only from the colors.

Something in the lines of this:

Published: Black
Unpublished: Grey
Deleted: Grey, Strikethrough
Show in menu: Checkmark
... etc.

:)

Some background in this discussion is probably in order, and a generous amount of praise as well! Banzai did an amazing job just getting the interface down to a single style sheet and set of images in the first place. This means the manager is effectively now skinable and I definitely prefer the work he’s done over the original. But as waso points out, there’s lots of things we can improve upon still and I’m a big fan of letting the interface recede behind the content.