Project Radiant UI anyone interested and wants to work together taking the radiant UI to a new level?
rubybox
Coming from the php world I did many opensource CMS systems and
developed a Wordpress CMS solution with custom interface for the
customers I run on behalf of my
Small digital agency firm. Ive taken my experience with other CMS
admin interfaces and starting playing around with the radiant CSS
files.
With this Ive come to the conclusion I need to overwrite the default
views ( if possible ) to create the UI experience Im looking for.
I have been very interested in changing the current UI and decided to
start a UI project.
This project will be opensource and a contribution back to the
community.
Some goals:
# Improving the usability of Radiant with a set of configuration
options ( fairly simple )
# Adding a WYSIWYG editor to radiant, and other simple extensions that
improve the usability
# Do a mayor redesign on the UI to improve the way it works for non
technical users
# Hiding/ disable certain parts for end users in the current UI
# Gather suggestions for the core team to use radiant as multisite and
detect the current problem areas in that, so this can be improved
This will be a longer term personal project available to all and I
hope I can make some people enthousiastic just like with the e-
commerce extension.
I will soon publish a git repo with some mockups on the UI design I
have in mind. If anyone is interested in this please let me know, I
would love to work together with others on this, also people that know
radiant very good ( Ive also been studying the sources today and
reading all wiki pages to get a better understanding but.. have to
admit im still a ruby newbie ;p ) So contribution is essential to make
bigger steps on this.
To get an idea, Im porting portions of Moveabletype's interface over
to Radiant.
For now graphic and UI ideas, but with some help hopefully we can
figure out how to overwrite the radiant backend views and create a
seperate directory to create an "admin theme"
The github with some ideas I will post tomorrow here, please let me
know if you have some ideas on this and would like to work together on
this.
banane
seriously dislike that flow.
What John's achieved here with Radiant is a very simple setup, so I'm
interested in how you envision it getting simpler.
My interest in going forward with Radiant is to work on the
Wordpress->Radiant migration too Jim started. Otherwise, I don't see a
lot of issues with the UI. Also- are you referring to Edge, or 8 UI?
Anna
rubybox
follow possible directory structure for radiant
which seems a must have to have a flexible way to manage layouts
( currently a application I use community engine has something like
this )
For admin:
/public/themes/admin/javascripts
/public/themes/admin/stylesheets
/public/themes/admin/views ( the admin views we could override here )
For frontend themes:
/public/themes/frontendtheme1j/javascripts
/public/themes/frontendtheme1/stylesheets
/public/themes/frontendtheme1/layouts
/public/themes/frontendtheme1/snippets
I know there are some developments on theming, etc but they all don't
supply above possible solution ( at least could not find anything like
above yet )
Perhaps with some small adjustments we could make above possible.
Perhaps the views have to be in /app/views/themes/ not sure. Basically
above is how
things work in wordpress and other php CMS systems. As said, I dont
have the coding skills yet to create this idea which is frustrating,
but at least there is a
great community over here to share these thoughts with.
Is there a fast way to get above or something similar so I can start
working on the new UI?
I would love to hear from the Radiant Community. Hope to make a
appreciated contribution
banane
CSS files in public/javascripts/admin and public/stylesheets/admin -
back up one directory and that's the place for non-admin styles. The
user can create styles in the interface itself, instead of using a
file on the file system.
One thing a lot of new folks don't get right off- when you install
Radiant, you have the entire file structure at your disposal to
customize. You can over-ride the default CSS/JS, basically, if you
want. You can also do that to the admin theme. Also, Radiant comes
with 3-4 canned themes right off.
Maybe get your feet wet a bit more with the app before proposing a UI
overhall? John- who designed the first go-around, has a template set
for the new version (I believe it's on github under his user). You
might want to mock up stuff, too.
I'm not quite sure you're frustrated with, with the UI. Not to say
Radiant is perfect at all- I have my own set of grievances, ha!
Anna
> --
> Radiant CMS Dev Mailing List
> Post: radiant...@googlegroups.com
> Unsubscribe: radiantcms-de...@googlegroups.com
> Group Site: http://groups.google.com/group/radiantcms-dev/
rubybox
I don't want to clone another UI but build on the existing one,
Also did not mention to say the current is bad, its very nice and
simplistic,
But as I did many UI's feel this could be improved,
Also would like to change some screens like the login page like adding
a lost password link
Perhaps those customizations are not interesting to anyone else but
me, in that case
this topic can just be ignored, Just wanted to see if anyone is
interested in this
and thought It could be a nice way to give back to the community.
rubybox
May I state that "adding a wysiwyg editor to radiant " would be just
documenting how to achieve that
and if needed to some work on extensions that are great but currently
not compatible
On Mar 10, 12:35 am, banane <ban...@gmail.com> wrote:
rubybox
Which is in no way my goal, I also don't want to discredit anyones
work or say I can do it better or that the current
UI is not nice or something, I have full respect to anyone involved
Radiant and making this opensource, just to make clear.
its just that I feel it can be improved, and would love to work on
that (since there is no admin theme alternative yet it could be a nice
addition)
On Mar 10, 12:41 am, banane <ban...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well if I understand what you're asking- there's a set of admin JS and
> CSS files in public/javascripts/admin and public/stylesheets/admin -
> back up one directory and that's the place for non-admin styles. The
> user can create styles in the interface itself, instead of using a
> file on the file system.
>
> One thing a lot of new folks don't get right off- when you install
> Radiant, you have the entire file structure at your disposal to
> customize. You can over-ride the default CSS/JS, basically, if you
> want. You can also do that to the admin theme. Also, Radiant comes
> with 3-4 canned themes right off.
Thanks but changing the templates in the admin section which saves it
to the database isen't really working ideally for me, I tried this.
Some arguments why a file based addition to the template system (for
admin and frontend )would be a must have:
# Easy sharing of themes with other people just like wordpress, making
radiant more wide acceptable as a CMS
# Easy change of themes with your favorite editor like textmate
working faster than in the admin textfield or copy/pasting from editor
to radiant admin all the time
# Sharing portions of themes fast and easily between different themes
# For the admin theming, being able to easily overwrite the default
radiant views and keep it maintainable on updates of radiant.
>
> Maybe get your feet wet a bit more with the app before proposing a UI
> overhall? John- who designed the first go-around, has a template set
> for the new version (I believe it's on github under his user). You
> might want to mock up stuff, too.
I would like to make an alternative build on my personal experience
with many CMS systems true the years.
This could but doesent have to, be an alternative to anyone
interested, it could even be only used by some, its all up
>
> I'm not quite sure you're frustrated with, with the UI. Not to say
> Radiant is perfect at all- I have my own set of grievances, ha!
>
> Anna
Not frustrated like it, but personally would like some changes like
mentioned above.
John Long
As banane said, there is an open call for help working on the Radiant
UI. You can read about it on the blog here:
http://wiseheartdesign.com/articles/2010/02/17/open-source-design-help-needed/
If you'd like to help, I'm certainly willing to bring you up to speed.
E-mail me off list and we can setup a time to chat about this over
skype.
--
John Long
http://wiseheartdesign.com
http://recursivecreative.com
rubybox
Seems like an idea, I contact you tomorow and play around with the
serve prototype project.
Although I feel there are some changes I personally like but would not
get mayor applause
Ofcourse I also want to contribute to this project, Actually forgotten
totally about this, when I first
ran into Radiant about a 1,5 month ago I did found your request for
help on the UI.
Jordan
On Mar 10, 1:50 am, John Long <johnwlong2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> RubyBox,
>
> As banane said, there is an open call for help working on the Radiant
> UI. You can read about it on the blog here:
>
> http://wiseheartdesign.com/articles/2010/02/17/open-source-design-hel...
>
> If you'd like to help, I'm certainly willing to bring you up to speed.
> E-mail me off list and we can setup a time to chat about this over
> skype.
>
> --
> John Longhttp://wiseheartdesign.comhttp://recursivecreative.com
Jim Gay
Some of the things you're talking about may already be found:
http://github.com/radiant/radiant/issues
http://ext.radiantcms.org/
For editing content via files, checkout these:
http://ext.radiantcms.org/extensions/14-file-based-layout
http://ext.radiantcms.org/extensions/61-import-export
http://ext.radiantcms.org/extensions/148-file-system-resources
http://ext.radiantcms.org/extensions/67-file-system
If you want to override default views, just create the same files in
an extension. Radiant loads extension views over the default ones, so
if you want to change the rails layout file, just create an extension
with your changes in app/views/layouts/application.html.haml
The github issues list is probably a great place to start to see some
of the discussion about desired features, and a great place to add
more.
-Jim
--
Jim Gay
http://www.saturnflyer.com
rubybox
I got it, created an extension and could overwrite the default views.
Great!
The file extensions I diden't found yet, Ive looked at each of them
but they don't really supply a solid solution
by itself and don't work together with multisite. Im afraid my coding
talents are not skilled enough to code this solution myself although I
kinda need it.
Would anyone here be interested in picking up that idea and creating
an extension for it? If this nog be the case I could try to hack
together a basic extension described on above
and then maybe some more talented coders would like to take a look at
it and make it "production ready"
Thanks for all the feedback!
On Mar 10, 4:51 am, Jim Gay <j...@saturnflyer.com> wrote:
> Jordan,
>
> Some of the things you're talking about may already be found:http://github.com/radiant/radiant/issueshttp://ext.radiantcms.org/
>
> For editing content via files, checkout these:http://ext.radiantcms.org/extensions/14-file-based-layouthttp://ext.radiantcms.org/extensions/61-import-exporthttp://ext.radiantcms.org/extensions/148-file-system-resourceshttp://ext.radiantcms.org/extensions/67-file-system