The new manager - looking for best practice solutions

modx Powered,

I was certainly not suggesting you were building a camp as your design and overview has inspired the team tremendously. I know we can’t wait to see your HTML/CSS template.

That being said, funnily enough there is a grid for jQuery i found here for those who are wanting to build their own jQuery alternative: http://www.trirand.com/jqgrid/jqgrid.html that I found over in another thread.

Cheers,

Jay

[off topic but possibly pertinent] I would like to see a rebuild of the Evolution manager with jQuery (or ExtJS to keep the two branches uniform). My preference is always going to be jQuery since it was the only library that I was able to understand and get into even without wanting to be. I dabbled with prototype first, but as cool as it was it did not click, but jQuery was easy enough that I overlooked my previous aversion to JS and took an interest.

I have never tried using ExtJS so I have no opinion if it is easy or not.

Are their plans for a UI rebuild for Evo’s Manager?

Evo Manager is not tied to any technology restrictions at the present. Might be interesting to try jQuery for it, but the initial release will likely be very similar to what’s currently in 0963. Both Revo/Evo beyond their initial releases are open for discussion.

There are no current plans for a rebuild of the Evo manager (although a skin/theme update) will make it into 1.0. That doesn’t mean there couldn’t be more ajaxy fun in Evolution with jQuery vs. Mootools but it is not a priority for sure.

I am not a JS guy at all but from whay I’ve seen the jQuery is mainly an actions and effects library but ExtJS was wholly developed as a web application UI system. These are very different purposes.

Revolution’s manager is decoupled from the Core as it is a context. There have been musings of decoupling the Manager theme from the 096x branch but just that--having it in the assets folder could be nice for custom manager templates and upgrades.

If someone wanted to submit patches away at it or submit prototypes go for it.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2009/01/19/12-useful-techniques-for-good-user-interface-design-in-web-applications/ - nice list of useful UI techniques, which considerably would improve revo backend.

hi,

I’ve made a start on the CSS/html for the proposed admin, files can be seen at http://www.sandersdesign.net/modx-admin/HTMLPage-mini.htm.

I haven’t as yet not checked for cross browser support and files will need quite a lot of additional work but it give a good idea on colour and style, at current I’ve only checked on Chrome (1.0.154.43) and Firefox (3.0.5).

Thought I’d pop it on the forum for some initial feedback

Looks good. The footer needs some work

Instead of talking about dark or bright colors you should better focus on usability. There are a lot of things in the new manager, that look like somebody cared too much about web2.0 trends and js effects.

- The Resouces/Elements/Files buttons should all be on top of the sidebar (as tabs), the buttons change their place all the time and are too far away at the bottom. The slide-effect doesn’t work properly anyway.

- The input-fields are way too big. There might be places where big inputs are great, but definitely not in a cms-backend. The fact, that parts of the manager have normal font-size and parts have big fonts shows a lack of concept imo. Just because huge forms are trendy doesn’t mean you have to use them everywhere.

- Basic things like setting the startpage should be easyer to find. Why do I have to search three pages of options before I can set my startpage?

- The tooltips everywhere are great, but still it would be good to choose labels that give you an idea of what they’re for. I dont’t want to hover every label to find out what it is about. And these "?"s everywhere look a bit weird.

- Generally the manager looks too much like it’s designed for geeks. There must be a very much easyer manager for normal people who just want to manage content. And that doesn’t mean making big input fields, but choosing titles and labels that normal people can understand and putting the everyday-functions in the foreground.

and sorry for my bad english. I hope you get my points and it helps to make the manager better.

Quote from: Bleda at Jan 21, 2009, 05:11 AM

Instead of talking about dark or bright colors you should better focus on usability. There are a lot of things in the new manager, that look like somebody cared too much about web2.0 trends and js effects.

I agree somewhat with your statement except that usability is a result of an application’s sum total UI design. It’s not just where you put buttons and how they react to actions but what color they are, what visual cues users are given, contrast, proximity and whitespace that lead to more usable applications. Visual design is an immensely powerful aspect of UX that can make or break an application. Too small fonts can make an application look too techy, too large, not powerful enough for the power dev set. Subjective reaction to the overall design is equally important. Based on your post alone you have demonstrated how true that is.
Quote from: Bleda at Jan 21, 2009, 05:11 AM

- The Resouces/Elements/Files buttons should all be on top of the sidebar (as tabs), the buttons change their place all the time and are too far away at the bottom. The slide-effect doesn’t work properly anyway.

Can you present a mockup of how you see this working?
Quote from: Bleda at Jan 21, 2009, 05:11 AM

- The input-fields are way too big. There might be places where big inputs are great, but definitely not in a cms-backend. The fact, that parts of the manager have normal font-size and parts have big fonts shows a lack of concept imo. Just because huge forms are trendy doesn’t mean you have to use them everywhere.

This is something not to be hung up on here and will be addressed as we move toward beta. I doubt there will be any inconsistency between main label text and the inputs once we are ready to go beta.

Quote from: Bleda at Jan 21, 2009, 05:11 AM

- Basic things like setting the startpage should be easyer to find. Why do I have to search three pages of options before I can set my startpage?

This should be a feature request. A great action addition would be to have this as a context menu item in the resources sot hat you can "Set as startpage" and it could be only available for Admin Managers. Another solution might be a first run config screen at the dashboard.
Quote from: Bleda at Jan 21, 2009, 05:11 AM

- The tooltips everywhere are great, but still it would be good to choose labels that give you an idea of what they’re for. I dont’t want to hover every label to find out what it is about. And these "?"s everywhere look a bit weird.

I agree. But this is a constant compromise between developer, designer and end users. There are some pretty big concepts in some of the terms used in MODx and there sometimes is no simple word for it. In addition sometimes idiomatic terms in one language don’t translate well to other languages.
Quote from: Bleda at Jan 21, 2009, 05:11 AM

- Generally the manager looks too much like it’s designed for geeks. There must be a very much easyer manager for normal people who just want to manage content. And that doesn’t mean making big input fields, but choosing titles and labels that normal people can understand and putting the everyday-functions in the foreground.

This is a matter of end user testing but you are right some common functions and workflow streamlining will be necessary. As I mentioned, the UI in any form at this time is a means to an end. To provide all the functional actions in the interface to move toward beta. I know that there will be streamlining, and workflow enhancements as the actions get locked and working 100%.

One final note, it has been stated in this thread a number of times that the manager is but a Context and as such will be able to be themed, modified and customized and packaged for your particular client, application, workflows. MODx has always strived to be a Content Managment Framework first and foremost. Revolution’s packaging system will allow you to bundle installs and you can have your very own special install of MODx to use the way you want.

Thanks again for your thoughtful analysis and I look forward to hearing more from you.

thanks for your comments smashingred.

Of course I see that this is a alpha version but i thought It can’t be bad to remember the people of that issues.

To clarify my first point:
If you switch between these three sidebars, you have to move your mouse a lot because the buttons are sometimes at the top and sometimes at the bottom. Moving up and down that far all the time isn’t very confortable ad because your cursor will be in de top regions most of the time it would be great if all the three buttons were always on top of the sidebar just like the tabs in the content-area. This would save space and be more comfortable.

like this:

Resources | Elements | Files

• Page 1
• Page 2
• etc.

And it’s great, that the manager will be a context that can be replaced by an other manager. So maybe a solution would be to provide two managers: one for devs and one for authors. That’s a lot of additional work tough. I think it would be better to have a single manager that is customizable based on admin roles. You could split up the functionality of the manager in a authoring and a developing section or something like that. Authors don’t need to see anything about template editing or system settings. You could just hide some of the menus and trees. And you could do "advanced options"-pages for page editing and this stuff.

these are just ideas. May them help the team to develop a great solution for all of us.

Ah and about the big input fiels: I don’t want you to style it like typo3. Thats too much of the contrary.