Global Plan on Improving Admin Interfaces

[Dmitry A.]

Hello everyone,


I believe it's time to start the discussion on global plan for
improving Admin Interfaces.

So far we had some talks here and there about things that can and
should be done, but there was no single place for it - this would be
it.

Our goal is to fully review all opinions on things that are good and
most importantly NOT so good in current Admin Interfaces, then come up
with ideas how to improve, then create complete plan, screens
prototypes and finally create multiple tasks that will address all
ideas.

Below I am going to list all previous discussions on related topic:


1. Ideas, how we could convert all grids to ajax with less effort
(already has a task #438 )

http://groups.google.com/group/in-portal-dev/browse_thread/thread/599866d3bef95d5a


2. Draggable Tables for Admin Interfaces (discussion ended as Change
needed in Grid Pagination controls)

http://groups.google.com/group/in-portal-dev/browse_thread/thread/6d9a942de3693087


3. Making a better interface for multilingual field usability (already
has a task #851 )

http://groups.google.com/group/in-portal-design/browse_thread/thread/b8547a2fcd4cc0a1


This will be a long discussion, but let's try to make as productive as
possible!


Cheers!

DA.

[Phil -- wbtc.fr --]

thanks to resume it here, I'd add

4- Ability to group custom fields

5- better CKe integration (actually needs a lot of loads for every editing, back and forth in content mode)

2010/10/28 Dmitry A. <dand...@gmail.com>

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[Magic]

Hi! I read all previous posts in (1, 2, 3), but its much all about
programming :) I understand the main trends and can start making
sketches. I have a free weekend, so i can start working on this.
Please provide me a link to admin panel with user & password. Proposal
for ajax, draggable tables and multilingual interface are great. As i
mentioned before, i don't understand programming, so its all on you
guys, can help only with eye candy web 2.0 design.

[Magic]

And my thoughts about improving admin interface. I think would be
great if we can make some custom things for it, like example, user can
make some change to visual look of admin panel, like corporate colors,
possibility to put company logo, etc. In another words its like a
custom branding admin panel page for client.

[Dmitry Andrejev]

Hi Alex,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts with us!

Actually we already have full support for customizing Admin Colors and Logo and some other things. Additionally, website Admin users can choose to select a Simpler Admin Interfaces which hides half of the Advanced sections/menus/input fields and makes life easier for NOT-power users.

Yes, you don't have to worry about Programming part at all - it's all on us.

I suggest we start with deciding on what needs to be done first out of what we have already put on this list, fully discuss (all of us - programmers, users, designers) it and then you can start doing the drafts based on our decisions - basically once we have set the exact goal, will this work for you? 

Thanks.

DA

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Best regards,

Dmitry A.

[Ilya Bernshteyn]

As a start, I don't think there's much more to it than doing some web 2.0 redesigns like Alex proposed... trying to put together a massive plan for this seems a little discouraging, i.e. how we didn't come up with anything for 6 days from the original post. I was actually kind of curious to see Alex's first sketches. That would probably get our thinking going more than anything. We can always include those in the discussions if we want. Just my thought on this.

- Ilya

[Phil -- wbtc.fr --]

Ilya, "web 2.0 redesigns": maybe the thing we need the most, actual interface have many  powerfull functions, but my thought is admin appearance is not reflecting this.

2010/11/2 Ilya Bernshteyn <ily...@gmail.com>

[Dmitry A.]

Hi guys,

I've been recently looking through the different Javascript libraries on the web trying to see what we can use for the Grids and other components to make our Interfaces more attractive and more flexible.

I think I have found quote a bit of solution - DOJO Javascript library. Looks like it's more advanced then JQuery and already has quite a few nice controls created. Take a look here:

1. Data Grids: http://dojotoolkit.org/grids-charts

2. Menu, selectors and other controls: http://dojotoolkit.org/widgets

Current version is 1.5, but there is a 1.6 Beta1 out with many fixes (specifically for Grids as I found out)

Download page - http://download.dojotoolkit.org/

In other words, it's pretty impressive what it can do so we should consider switching to it? what about JQuery integration and then we would need to update and learn quote a bit.

I'd like to see what others think about it.

DA

[Dmitry A.]

Hi Alex,

Did you ever worked with DOJO? Anything we know about their API or ability to customize the Grids and other elements.

Even though their grid is quite nice we still should customize it to full fit what we need correct?

DA

[Phil -- wbtc.fr --]

I never heard about DOJO, but it looks really nice, and I bet they had the jQuery experience to help them making a smaller/better code...

2011/1/24 Dmitry A. <dand...@gmail.com>

DA

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[Dmitry A.]

As a matter of fact - DOJO was before JQuery

DA

[Phil -- wbtc.fr --]

ah... I'm not good enough at js coding to be able to say which one is better, but I like their clean approach

2011/1/24 Dmitry A. <dand...@gmail.com>

As a matter of fact - DOJO was before JQuery

DA

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[Alexander Obuhovich]

I never actually used one of that interface libraries, except jQuery UI.

If someone could look on them form:

• usability ease
• customization

view points then it will be very good. There are a lot of them actually. We even could mix up multiple libraries to get desired effects.

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Best Regards,

http://www.in-portal.com
http://www.alex-time.com

[Dmitry A.]

Guys,

You all going to like this - pre-made Administration Templates!

Have a look and let's post here what we like - http://themeforest.net/category/site-templates/admin-templates

I it might be a lot of work to adapt, but if we choose the right thing and make the wise choices + hard work - we can have very amazing results!

DA

[Phil -- wbtc.fr --]

Hi Dmitry,

very intestesting link ! Admin theme -and change to it- if a feature of many softwares now...

I we could have one like http://themeforest.net/item/admin-control-panel-pro-simple-professional/136769 it'd be a dramatic change !

2011/2/9 Dmitry A. <dand...@gmail.com>

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[Dmitry A.]

Hi Phil,

Yes, I like your and bunch of others too! :)

At some point we need to find the most flexible and matching for In-Portal, but keep in mind we still would need to add tons of stuff there if we want to preserve functionality that we have now.

DA