Help Create the Best Content Management Experience

Quote from: Lammikko at Mar 25, 2013, 11:23 AM

About TVs and their role: I would like to remove nearly all of the current default resource fields (description, longtext, summary, content etc.) and replace them with TVs.

I do this using form customisation, I hide everything and then build all content fields with tvs.

/agree 100%

Quote from: sottwell at Mar 25, 2013, 06:34 AM

One thing that has irritated me from the very beginning is how Template Variables are tied to templates, when they really have nothing to do with templates at all. They are custom resource fields. What I would love to see is categories for resources, and Template Variables being tied to resource categories. No more need for a dozen templates just to organize TVs!

I think there should be something like formtemplates (something like formtabs in MIGX)
A formtemplate defines which fields (TVs) have to be in which order on that form

Each Template could have assigned one or more formtemplates.
Each Formtemplate could be assigned to one or more Templates.

When the user selects a new Template and there are more than one formtemplates for that template,
there should be a dropdown from where to choose the correct formtemplate or make it depending on other settings which formtemplate to select in this or that situation.
A formtemplate could perhaps also be assigned to one or more resource-categories and be selected depending on the selected resource-category.

Again, if there would be a Resource-Category-Tree, where nodes could be also Categories for custom-table-resources, the same formtemplates could be used to manage custom-table-stuff.

Consider a petshop. You want to have some TVs that apply to all Pets, then some TVs that apply to Dogs, some to Cats, some to Birds, some to Fish. With the existing system, all resources, pets or not, that use that template have to have all TVs, or else have five templates, so four of them can have the Pets + Dogs TVs, etc. If resources had categories, and a resource could be assigned to more than one category, you could have a Pets category with its associated TVs, and a Dogs, Cats, etc categories, each with their own associated TVs. Then you could assign a resource to Pets and Dogs, and get both sets of TVs. Other resources using the same template wouldn't be bothered with any of that.

Quote from: sottwell at Mar 25, 2013, 06:22 PM

Consider a petshop. You want to have some TVs that apply to all Pets, then some TVs that apply to Dogs, some to Cats, some to Birds, some to Fish. With the existing system, all resources, pets or not, that use that template have to have all TVs, or else have five templates, so four of them can have the Pets + Dogs TVs, etc. If resources had categories, and a resource could be assigned to more than one category, you could have a Pets category with its associated TVs, and a Dogs, Cats, etc categories, each with their own associated TVs. Then you could assign a resource to Pets and Dogs, and get both sets of TVs. Other resources using the same template wouldn't be bothered with any of that.

So I am editor using the backend, I create a page in the main menu, I want a 3 columns layout with a slideshow, if the tv's are not tied to the template how to I get the appropriate fields ?

It wouldn't make any difference at all. Select the "three-column" category, and have the fields available.

Maybe have a way for an admin to "group" categories, so an editor would only need to select the "three-column-pets-dogs" or the "two-column-pets-fish" category group.

ok, I am with you now, as long as the user still has to only select one 'layout' option, your proposal sounds very good.

Actually, it might be easier to leave TVs as they are, but have resource categories and the ability in Form Customization to control fields, including TVs, by resource category.

Thanks for this thread Jay, i really hope some designer will come up with wireframes/mockups of alternative parts of the manager (like Dustin did some times ago).

On my side what disturbs me most is the constant back & forth in the manager (to new "pages" or having a lot of in-intuitive right clicks/modals).
So i made some PoC (YouTube) on Cron Manager UI, with "friendlier" grid edition (no more double click on grid cells), and making use of ExtJS CardLayout to prevent "page" changes.

I'm always open to feedback & crits ;-)

great work Romain! would love to see this style of editing with migx.