A loose list of ideas for backend improvement in Revo

I have started to seriously make the transition from EVO to REVO. I like the overal look and feel of the new backend. Here is a list of things that Im missing or that have room for improvement from my point of view.

Regards,

pepebe

P.S. I’ll add other ideas to this post whenever something new comes up. Feel free to add other ideas or good advice on how to solve some of the problems mentioned.
P.P.S. This ia not a rant, just some feedback from me and my clients.
P.P.P.S Green items have been posted at bugs.modx.com as possible improvements for future versions of MODX Revo (2.0.8+). I’ll add more of the in the following days.

Enhance backend functionality for developers

• Add an "open new tab/window" button to the navigation bar. Edit: Add the option to use ctrl+click on a resource to open it in a new tab/window. I believe most of us are working in multiple windows at once.
• Change the title attribute of the manager to display something like "MODx | Add name of currently active ressource, module or ...". Example: "MODx | Homepage" or "MODx | New Template Variable". This makes working in multiple tabs MUCH more comfortable.Already resolved by Shaun "the amazing" McCormick for Revolution-2.1.0-rc-2:)
  
• Safe the current document on ctrl+S. You can do that in google Mail...Also resolved for Revolution-2.1.0-rc-2
• Add even more shortcuts

The resouce tree

• Highlight the document you are currenty editing/viewing in the resource tree (change background or text color). Resolved for Revolution-2.1.0-rc-2

• The document tree seems to have his own free will, sometimes automagiacally switching from the resource tree to elements and back (I believe especially when you are working in multiple windows). There might be a reason for this behaviour, but until now I couldn’t understand it.

The MODx browser

• This is mostly for the context of choosing images. It would be great if the browser could automatically open a specific folder.
• 
  [list]
  [li]Scenario number one: You have already chosen an image, but you want to switch it for another one. Opening the browsers should automatically open the folder where the old image was situated. Right now the situation is a bit confusing. Sometimes the browser is doing that. Sometimes not.
• Scenario number two: Attach a TV to a template with a specific path as default value. If you open the browser in a document with said TV that path will be shown.

[/li]
[/list]

Duplicating documents

• If you duplicate a document, offer to automaticaly open said document. Use a checkbox or whatever to prevent that. Catches two birds with one stone...
• It would be a great thing to have a option to create a dozen or so documents automatically. The duplicate document dialog box could ask for a document name and then append numbers behind. That is mostly useful for developers, but I can imagine situations where this would be useful for mortals (editors) too.
• Talking abolut duplication. Is there an easy way to have documents that can’t be edited but duplicated by editors?

Template Variables

• I would be great for usability to add links to TV descriptions. Right now they are automatically removed. I wouldn’t mind if I had to use target="_blank" to them so they open in a new windw or tab. Much better would be an overlay ajaxloading the content of another page on click. Suddenly there would be room for a readable helptext, screenshots or even an instruction video.
• We need a colorpicker (http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php?topic=59277). Bruno17 already did that. There are still some minor layout issues but it works. How can we get that into "extras"?

Backend color scheme
I don’t have solid proof for that, but I noticed that most clients are confused by the colors used in the standard backend. They are neither consistently used nor wisely choosen.

• The active tab is white in the resource browser (left), gray in the document area (right). Inactive tabs are either white or green?
• Green seems to be the prefered color to look for active contents. Imagine you have a TV tab with two categories. You’ll have one that is active(gray) and another one that is inactive (green). I have noticed that most of my clients get VERY confused in this situation. This might be less important as soon as you have three categories, but that doesn’t make things better...
• The babel language tab is using the same color scheme (might be an effect of the manager template or choosen for consistency). This is VERY confusing editors. Which language am I editing right now? The gray one, or the grren one? Which button do I have to click to switch the language? Again this is less of a problem as soon as you have three languages, but with only two your are in for trouble.

Update:
Enhance the resources Tree
(http://modxcms.com/forums/index.php/topic,58768.msg335571.html#msg335571)

• Add a template_# class to each document where # is the id of the documents template (template_1). All you now have to do is to tweak the manager css to give some visual feedback which template is used for any document.

Update:
Loading manager pages
Just a thought. I believe it was a good idea to get rid of those frames. But what I really don’t like is the way the ressources tree has to load whenever I click on a ressource to view/edit it. How about using a click to trigger an ajax event loading the new document into the right area? This is basically whats happens if you are using the quick edit option anyway...

These really should be filed as separate feature requests in our bugtracker: http://bugs.modx.com/

Otherwise they have a high chance of getting buried in the forums.

P.S. There is a save shortcut: CTRL+ALT+S.

P.P.S. Image/File TVs with specific file paths are available in 2.1.

Quote from: splittingred at Apr 02, 2011, 05:34 PM

These really should be filed as separate feature requests in our bugtracker: http://bugs.modx.com/

Otherwise they have a high chance of getting buried in the forums.

If that’s the official way to do that. Sure.

Just noticed that the login form has been fixed. Good. I still can’t remember my password, so I have used the "forget your login" link and filled in what I believe to be my username or email address. Im a bit mad about form design, so here is what I think:

1. The labels and the link are a bit misleading.

We have two inputfields:
"Forgot your Login? - Enter Username"
"Forgot your username? - Enter Email"

and the submit button is labeled:
"reset password".

In my opinion that’s a bit confusing. Why should I ask for a new password if I just can’t remember my user name?

"Forgot your password? - Enter your username or email"
"Forgot your username? - Enter Email"

Give a more descriptive label to the submit button:
"Send me a mail" or even "Go for it" would be better...


Also it would be nice to get any kind of feedback after hitting the submit button. Something like "Hi pepebe, we will send you soon a new password" or "Sorry pepebe, we never met before, try again..." would be great.

P.S. There is a save shortcut: CTRL+ALT+S.

Great! I love shortcuts. Did I miss that in the manual?

P.P.S. Image/File TVs with specific file paths are available in 2.1.

Thats good news!

Quote from: pepebe at Apr 02, 2011, 12:34 PM

Loading manager pages
Just a thought. I believe it was a good idea to get rid of those frames. But what I really don’t like is the way the ressources tree has to load whenever I click on a ressource to view/edit it. How about using a click to trigger an ajax event loading the new document into the right area? This is basically whats happens if you are using the quick edit option anyway...

+1
It’s really frustrating when you try to expand an element and open the document instead.

I would like to propose an addition to the manager layout. The context menu, while useful are quite buggy, first it ad a non natural click on elements, second, the event is not catched properly most of the times, which make the browser native context menu to open on top of ext context menu.

What would be cool is to add a space reserved for buttons between the tree and the edit panel area that are updated on click with the actual buttons (like the gallery compoent image preview - sliding buttons).

Combined with highlighting the current element, it could greatly improve the manager usability.

I’d love to have a system setting that let me use Ctrl-S to save. Because it works in all my editors, I’m constantly using it to try to save in the Manager. Using Ctrl-Alt-S would make things worse because I’d be using it my code editors (and doing who knows what).

I know Ctrl-S has been preempted by browsers for saving web pages, but that was before there were web apps and it was a bad idea, IMHO.

Quote from: BobRay at Apr 02, 2011, 09:20 PM

I’m constantly using it to try to save in the Manager.

You are dead right there. If I would earn a buck everytime I do that I would be the richest man in the world...

Just a quick wrapup.

Splittingred has already resolved some of the proposed ideas. Among other things that means CTRL+S to save resources!!! For more closed topics, have look at the top post.

Regarding the suggestion to use a ajax event to load the content area (see http://bugs.modx.com/issues/4274):

Just a thought. I believe it was a good idea to get rid of those frames. But what I really don’t like is the way the ressources tree has to reload whenever I click on a ressource to view/edit it.
How about using a click to trigger an ajax event loading the new document into the right area? This is basically whats happens if you are using the quick edit option anyway...

He posted the following:

This would cause problems in a lot of browsers:

Most browsers don’t like it when you run JS scripts that are inserted via AJAX; this poses a problem as most all pages have JS scripts
Form Customization wouldn’t work without a complete DOM refresh of the main content area; as much of FC rules are done PHP-side
Complex TVs that do a lot of JS work would have issues
Memory management would become an issue

It hurts to say it, but he is right.

What we need now are some good ideas...

Regards,

pepebe

Quote from: pepebe at Apr 04, 2011, 08:06 PM

Splittingred has already resolved some of the proposed ideas. Among other things that means CTRL+S to save resources!!!

Yes!!!!

Some really awesome stuff. You guys rock!

Pepebe, I could have written most of this list myself - you have hit a number of the top points that are bothering me.

Quote from: pepebe at Apr 02, 2011, 12:34 PM

Add an "open new tab/window" button to the navigation bar. Edit: Add the option to use ctrl+click on a resource to open it in a new tab/window. I believe most of us are working in multiple windows at once.

I couldn’t agree more - also, I would like to be able to open the Elements or Resources tab in this way, and have it stay open in a separate tab - I think the reason it exhibits a "free will of its own" in this regard has to do with the multiple-tab issue.