Future of ModelAdmin

[Jeremy Shipman]

Hello SS developers,

I'm wondering what the future of ModelAdmin is? Could someone point me
to where this has been mentioned before, if it has been?

ModelAdmin is a great addition to SiverStripe. I also want to suggest
a few further improvements:

Perform actions on result sets, with an automatically scaffolded list.
It would be handy to be able to provide a way to perform actions on
result sets. This might be basic actions like:
- Updating fields for each dataobject
- Delete these members (with confirmation of course)
- performing custom actions

member tasks
- Adding members to a group
- Sending an email

The use of these actions could be controlled with permissions,
probably just taken from the allowed actions array.

Searching for NULL data
This is handy for finding incomplete DataObjects, such as a member
with no email.


Saving searches / result sets?
Result sets could be saved for later use, or for use in other parts of
the system.



I think that these further improvements could help put more power in
the hands of the content manager. The features could be made optional,
or off by default if thats an unwise idea.

Let me know what you think, or if you know if this kind of stuff is
going to be developed in future.

[Nicolaas Thiemen Francken - Sunny Side Up]

Hi Jeremy

Cool ideas! I think the first thing, before we do anything else, is
to make it look fantastic and make it super-user-friendly. ModelAdmin
is not a tool for developers, it is for end-users. They want to see
something pretty that they can use without having to study a manual.

Think about PHP MyAdmin. It is pretty powerful and easy to use for
most of us, but not for people outside the industry.

I like the idea of having something super basic that looks fantastic
and is really fast. WITH the ability to add modules that add the
awesome functionality you mention.

Some of the things I would like to add to modeladmin are:

* right-hand-pane provides suggestions for things to do when opening
(probably easy to do with theme-ing
* nicer way to present two or more dataobjects managed (not using the tabs)
* ability to manage custom dataobjectsets (this might be an option already????)
* previous and next button (or similar) when editing data so that you
can go to the prev and next object after a search (rather than back
and forth to the next)

Having said all that, it sounds you would like to see some specific
stuff around members. This would be better placed in the security
section?

Nicolaas

[Jeremy Shipman]

Another idea I've had is to be able to automatically narrow down all
searches by some criteria. Eg only ever show products that are books,
or only show members that are in a certian group.
Also, it would be great to show a default result set, without needing
to press 'search'.
It would be great to be able to make a custom selection from a result
set, and have an area that provides actions like the "with selected"
drop down in phpmyadmin.

Yeah those are good addition ideas, and yes I agree this isn't a tool
for developers. PHPmyadmin does have a lot of features that would
confuse the average user. My suggestions are meant to give more
control to end users to do things. But developers should be able to
customize for them.

In regards to the right-hand pane that provides suggestions & SS
usability in general: I wonder if SS could provide a framework for
providing inline help? I have a few projects that it would be useful
for, but don't really know whats the best way to introduce it.

Yeah some of my ideas applied specifically to members, and the
Security section definitely needs some attention. I think it should be
renamed "Members" (with groups and security being subsections of it)
and should include some of this functionality I'm currently achieving
with ModelAdmin. That stuff is for another discussion though.

cheers,
Jeremy

On Dec 7, 2:46 pm, Nicolaas Thiemen Francken - Sunny Side Up

[Ingo Schommer]

Hey Jeremy,

All good ideas, looking forward to some patches ;)
Keep in mind that nearly all ModelAdmin JS and markup
has changed in the current trunk (which will eventually become 2.5),
so everything CMS/ModelAdmin related will need to be developed
with an eye on those changes.

On 7/12/2009, at 3:25 PM, Jeremy Shipman wrote:

Another idea I've had is to be able to automatically narrow down all

searches by some criteria.

This will be made much easier with the new ORM that Sam is building
at the moment - you'd be able to pass in a DataList with predefined search
criteria. Thats all 2.5 talk, but nevertheless relevant to any improvements.

Also, it would be great to show a default result set, without needing

to press 'search'.

http://open.silverstripe.org/ticket/3119 - I think thats a good short-term
enhancement that provides a lot of value.

Yeah some of my ideas applied specifically to members, and the

Security section definitely needs some attention. I think it should be

renamed "Members" (with groups and security being subsections of it)

and should include some of this functionality I'm currently achieving

with ModelAdmin. That stuff is for another discussion though.

I'm just working on that (again, trunk stuff) - we'll have a member-centric
view (regardless of groups), which enables you to delete a member
permanently from the system, and add them to multiple groups at once.
We've also got Member/Group CSV import/export planned, alongside
their group relations and permissions.

Ingo

-------

Ingo Schommer | Senior Developer

SilverStripe

http://silverstripe.com

Phone: +64 4 978 7330 ext 42

Skype: chillu23

[Dan | Rye Designs]

Well I'm ready for 2.5 then :)  I was building a ModelAdmin interface trying to accomplish a workflow (BMS) sort of app with a dashboard.  I was quickly finding ModelAdmin was too limiting, some of these improvements would make it a more viable option.  I was also interested in the dashboard project Mo has been working on (except last I checked it was GPL).  Anyway, my main comment is that the ability to present two or more dataobjects managed (without tabs) is very appealing.  In fact all 4 points raised by Nicolaas are items that I could make use of.

Nicolaas wrote:
* right-hand-pane provides suggestions for things to do when opening
(probably easy to do with theme-ing
* nicer way to present two or more dataobjects managed (not using the tabs)
* ability to manage custom dataobjectsets (this might be an option already????)
* previous and next button (or similar) when editing data so that you
can go to the prev and next object after a search (rather than back

and forth to the next)

At this point I am afraid much if not all I do for this current project will be scraped and redone when 2.5 is available.  I am hoping to have contributed to 2.5, so I can maybe learn a bit from my mistakes on this current project.

Great Ideas!

-Dan

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