Admin Menu 2.0

[Michael Heilemann]

Please bear with me. I know the menu has been discussed countless times, and I know we're trying to lock the design down to get some stability.

But the recent titlebar discussion ( http://groups.google.com/group/habari-dev/browse_thread/thread/2cf90b8512c6134b) raised some valid points. Thus, in the interest of meeting these as well as the craving for a more coherent set of design elements, I think I might have found a pretty good middle ground:

http://flickr.com/photos/heilemann/sets/72157603732413209/

This dispenses with the need for a separate title bar, functions as a hierarchical breadcrumb trail and effectively replaces and improves upon the existing menu, allowing you to jump into the menu structure.

Hovering a section of the menu immediately drops down a list with the sibling items, allowing you to quickly dig down into the structure:

http://flickr.com/photos/heilemann/2197528731/in/set-72157603732413209/

And because every breadcrumb is a menu of its own siblings, it'll be even faster to access items in the same section or sub-section you're already in, rather than having to access the parent and then finding your way down:

http://flickr.com/photos/heilemann/2198317130/in/set-72157603732413209/

Thoughts?

[Michael Bishop]

I sincerely appreciate the effort, but I must say I'm not enamored
with the flyout menus. I thought the goal was to simply the menus,
not overly complicate them.

I also thought the consensus was moving towards a single options page,
not multiple pages.

Perhaps a second look will soften my view...

~miklb

On Jan 16, 4:12 pm, "Michael Heilemann" <heilem...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Please bear with me. I know the menu has been discussed countless times, and
> I know we're trying to lock the design down to get some stability.
>

> But the recent titlebar discussion (http://groups.google.com/group/habari-dev/browse_thread/thread/2cf90b...)

[Michael Heilemann]

I personally think this _is_ simplified. It just looks more
complicated because you can't interact with it.

Please keep the options page discussion in the other thread.

[Michael Bishop]

On Jan 16, 4:29 pm, Michael Heilemann <heilem...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Please keep the options page discussion in the other thread.

This relates to the menu, in that there are multiple "pages", vs a
single options page, thus the lack of the need for the deep hierarchal
menu.

But I'll be glad to discuss it where ever you'd like.

~miklb

[Michael C. Harris]

It might just be my kacky mouse skills, but I find I have a tendency
to fall off nested menus like this.

/me considers an admin hotkey plugin.

--
Michael C. Harris, School of CS&IT, RMIT University
http://twofishcreative.com/michael/blog

[Michael Heilemann]

It might just be my kacky mouse skills, but I find I have a tendency
to fall off nested menus like this.

Yeah, so do I. But mostly if they're done poorly. Most cascading menus in web design are pure CSS, thus disappearing the moment the cursors skids even a pixel off course. But if you build in a timeout, which keeps the menu open for a comfortable period of time after you skid off, you won't even notice.

Its either that, or represent the hierarchy in a single list, which is just as viable, even if the list can get a bit long.