2.5 to 3.0 Update - What to do with the admin template?

[Michael Babker]

I think this is an important item to discuss and implement as we look at potential updates from 2.5 to 3.0.  How should we handle the admin side template?  I think our update SQL should handle installing both new Bootstrap based templates to ease the work needed in making the move.  The question here is about changing the template in use in the backend to Isis (the new admin template) during the update.

On one hand, we shouldn't be changing a user's selected template for an application, ever.  On the other hand, with the work done in the supporting classes (component layouts, HTML helpers, etc.), Isis may be the only admin template that is fully usable on 3.0 come release (and I know work's been done for Hathor to make it work with the new markup, and it does in a lot of places, but there are still some places that are missing support).

So, what should we do?  Leave the admin template set as is and highly encourage the user to switch to Isis to be able to use the backend or do we make the change for them?

[elin]

I've been thinking that when people upgrade/migrate to a version of 3 that we need to give some more extensive information about what is going on and what their options are than we do when they are upgrade within  a major version.  I'm not sure how that works but I think it needs to happen.

An unmodified Blue Stork  is going to scare people.  But there  are also strong arguments for not changing.  

1. We will ship Hathor also and if you notice we have done some bootstrapping of it that doesn't lose accessibility and also changed to the blue default, but still we high contrast mode available. We'll need to have Hathor until Isis and the boostrap framework in general meet accessibility standards. So in fact for a significant group of users until that happens Isis, like bootstrap, is not a viable option and in no way would we want to switch them to a template that they literally cannot use.  If you do see places where Hathor isn't working we need to try to fix all of those in the alpha period. Andy has been in conversation with the Bootstrap team about these issues and  anticipates a lot of progress before 3.1 and possibly before 3.0 even.

2. Also, we know that some extensions are just not going to work with the narrower and responsive Isis layout and won't be ready with the submenu work that they need to do.  We need to think about how to manage that. Again we can warn people to always check on the extensions first and suggest they switch to Hathor if they need to for this reason.

3.Other people have spent time and money creating customized and branded administrators and it would really be an unpleasant surprise to them to have that all change. Who knows some template developers may have already even planned for this an be ready with their own upgrades.

So maybe we need some kind of second button to let people switch? 

Elin

[Michael Babker]

Using the update script's postflight method, we can render a message to users if need be saying whatever we need to tell them.  So, that is a possible approach.

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[Niels Braczek]

Am 17.08.2012 03:00, schrieb Michael Babker:

> Using the update script's postflight method, we can render a message to
> users if need be saying whatever we need to tell them. So, that is a
> possible approach.

+1

Regards,
Niels

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[Nick Savov]

Hi Michael, et al.,

Neither of those options is best (I know everyone knows that), so I'd like
to step up and get Bluestork ready for 3.0. That way users that upgrade
from 2.5 to 3.0 will be upgraded with their default template selected and
can switch to Isis if desired.

To be completely honest, I have no clue how I'm going to get this done, so
if anyone would like to help out in whatever capacity you are able, please
contact me privately (you can see my email in this reply).

My guess is that the new core layouts contain Bootstrap markup and that
Bluestork needs to use the new markup instead.

Kind regards,
Nick

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[bill richardson]

Bluestork should be deleted --- expecting the bug squad to try to maintain three admin templates is unacceptable. In the past just trying to keep Hathor up to date caused major headaches , as it was often overlooked when new features added / changes made.
Adding bootstrap / jquery is the ONLY major change that has been added to the 3 series ( at the moment anyway ) - so why would anyone want to try it out unless Bluestork is gone and Isis is the new default admin template.
Now is the time to make changes, as this is expected when a new major version released and we do need to make " Mobile first "  a priority.

Regards
Bill

[Nikolai Plath]

+1
even more because it is broken right now and the time to fix it should be implemented in the new template.

Regards,
Nikolai

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[Rouven Weßling]

I agree, if there's interest from the community to maintain it can happen as an extensions.

Best regards

Rouven

[Nick Savov]

Hi guys,

Thanks for your feedback!

Someone mentioned the following:
[quote]Adding bootstrap / jquery is the ONLY major change that has been

added to the 3 series ( at the moment anyway ) - so why would anyone want
to try it out unless Bluestork is gone and Isis is the new default admin

template.[/quote]
That argument could actually be used against removing bluestork.

If bootstrap and jquery is the only major change that has been added, why
are we forcing people to switch?

Also, isn't Isis that much better that people would naturally want to
swtich on their own? If it isn't, why would be forcing the switch?

Furthermore, why are we breaking all front-end templates (not just core
front-end templates, but rather all front-end templates) if that's the
only major change?

To top it all off, the Joomla Community has been told that Bootstrap and
jQuery are going to be optional. So why are we breaking all compatibility
for 2.5 templates (not just core ones) for two new optional things?

Seems like those two things should have been new additions in a backward
compatible manner, rather than breaking everything and then saying unless
we remove the old, people will never make the switch.

Kind regards,
Nick

p.s. By the way, you guys should really make your intentions clear earlier
in the process, for example:
https://groups.google.com/d/msg/joomla-dev-cms/YGZOqDyc3i4/sWi_nNp0c6YJ

Waiting a month before Joomla 3 to state that you think Bluestork should
be removed is too close to the launch date. This is especially true when
up until now, we've needed someone to volunteer to get it to work and then
when we finally do get someone to volunteer, that's when you state that
you think it should be removed.

p.s.s We already had a good hearty and productive conversation on the JBS
Skype Chat about all this, but just wanted to make this publicly available
for others that are following along in this mailinglist.

[Matt Thomas]

+1

Best,

Matt Thomas

Founder betweenbrain™

Lead Developer Construct Template Development Framework

Phone: 203.632.9322
Twitter: @betweenbrain

Github: https://github.com/betweenbrain

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[Nick Savov]

Are there any strong *objections* to completely removing Bluestork in 3.0?
If not, we could remove Bluestork (as this appears to be what most on here
want) and make the switch to Isis for upgraders from 2.5 to 3.0.

Kind regards,
Nick

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[elin]

Removing bluestork from the distribution does not mean we would remove it from people's sites. As mentioned above the ideal is that we point out to people that they can and probably should switch but we shouldn't force it.  None of us know the circumstances of each of the millions of sites in question or how much customization has been done or what their training materials look like. it could well be worth it to some people to make Blue stork work.

Elin

[Michael Babker]

And that's why we need to come to a consensus.  Depending on how those templates were designed, there's a chance that we will leave the admin unusable for those folks.  The only guaranteed way to ensure the admin is usable post-update is to force switch to Isis or get Bluestork working (which means keeping it around for the 3 series, and there's already been enough grumbling about having 3 admin templates to maintain).  In the present state, you can't effectively navigate in Bluestork to the Template Manager and set Isis as default (the grid icon isn't present and the radio button in the style edit view is overlapped).  Unless we have a button in our postflight notice to make the switch, you effectively make the admin unusable.  To me, this is a larger issue than the site display being changed and most likely broken.

From: elin <elin....@gmail.com>
Reply-To: <joomla-...@googlegroups.com>

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[Nick Savov]

Elin, good point. It would still be there even if we decide to remove it
from the 3.0 repo.

@all
Wouldn't it be simple to check if Bluestork is set as the default, then
force the switch? If Bluestork is not set as the default, leave the
default as it is.

Alternatively, Bluestork could be updated (simply for the 2.5 to 3.0
users), but not maintained thereafter. That, it seems, would meet
everyone's wants and desires, but would be a lot of work for very little
reward.

Kind regards,
Nick

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[Matt Thomas]

Hi Folks,

As much as I'd like to see the new Bootstrap admin templates be the default ones, and I REALLY do, couldn't forcing them to be the default ones introduce backwards compatibility issues with 3PD extensions?

Best,

Matt

Sent from my phone that uses an open source operating system.

[Michael Babker]

It can, yes, but the damage won't be as severe for the backend.  For the most part, a layout based on Bluestork's markup will display on Isis in 3.0.  That said, users won't have the component submenu since that's rendered by the component now instead of the template, and depending on the extension, some things may look out of place.

[Rafael Diaz-Tushman]

What about sites with admin-side template overrides in the Bluestork /html folder?  Forcing a change in template upon upgrade would make the admin lose those overrides... not an issue if a dev/maintainer is performing the upgrade, but clients themselves are clicking the "Upgrade Joomla" button nowadays since it's so prominent. 
--
Rafael Diaz-Tushman, President & CEO
Dioscouri Design: Form and Function
www.dioscouri.com
www.twitter.com/dioscouri

[Josip Posavec]

I dont know about you all but to me it is common sense to use new bootstrap admin template as default and to even drop the older ones and offer them as seperate download. 

Why? Simple as real life is, simple clean cut and starting over. Thats why we do have J3.0 and J3.1 and why they are Short term release. 

Forgive me for being so bold but i have seen this type of thinking through out my career and it never ends up right. So if u want joomla to be pushed towards the bootstrap then forget the old prehistoric stuff and lets move on.

By the time the 3.5 is out most of the user base around the web will be adopting new layouts that are mobile oriented. And more FOCUS we put on it now the better we will look in the end. 

Old outdated stuff should be dropped in this lets call it switch phase that 3.0 really represents. 

Cheers to the dev team finally happy with the way things are going

JP

Lead Project Manager

Sfera IT

Sent from my iPhone

[Brad Gies]

I agree totally. 3.0/3.x is the first release after a major, long-term support release (2.5.x) and as much deprecated and obsolete stuff as possible should be thrown out (admin templates and magic quotes to name just a couple). There's never going to be a better time to do it, so do it and get it done :).

Brad.

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Brad Gies
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idailythought.com      greenfarminvest.com
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[Amy Stephen]

Unless the Joomla CMS is jockeying for an episode of Hoarders, something has to go when new things are brought in. As is, the CMS is nearly 3 times larger than both WordPress and Drupal. Ever consider how that extra weight might be impacting the install process?

Good-bye to nearly 10 years of User Interface, time to embrace the future! It is a good thing.

[Nick Savov]

Also, to add to Michael's comment, users should make sure that practically
all their extensions are Joomla 3 compatible before updating, not after.

Kind regards,
Nick

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[Josip Posavec]

I totally agree and to point out i have asked over 60 client companies to respond to me with this same question and 54 answered that if i give them better solution to the backend and frontend they would not even think about not upgrading. And after i explained the different in the simpleminded thought process of simple user they said: so u say it works on any platform even on my iphone? After simple show and tell they all are onboard for new and even more asking already when am i making the upgrade. 

So yes, close the door to the old and lets go progressive and ahead of others before they all catch up. 

Josip Posavec

Lead Project Manager

Sfera IT

Mob:+385 98 947 7597

E-Mail: jo...@crowebs.net

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 18, 2012, at 20:17, Amy Stephen <amyst...@gmail.com> wrote:

Unless the Joomla CMS is jockeying for an episode of Hoarders, something has to go when new things are brought in. As is, the CMS is nearly 3 times larger than both WordPress and Drupal. Ever consider how that extra weight might be impacting the install process?

Good-bye to nearly 10 years of User Interface, time to embrace the future! It is a good thing.

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[Victor Drover]

+1

Sent from my iPhone

[elin]

No one that I know of wants to ship Bluestork, so the something has to go issue is not the issue. It's how to help upgraders (a) if they have made no changes (give them a button or option) and (b) if they have made changes to the admin template or are using an alternative admin template .... these webmasters are going to have do do some work which is why this is a migration not an upgrade. 

1. Hathor is a good alternative to bluestork for situations where you have oldstyle outputs. If we can get Jeremy's admin menu work in that is going to solve a ton of problems since we should eve be able to assign Hathor only where needed. 

2. If people have overrides in the actual Bluestork folder they can just copy them to whatever new template they want or to Hathor.

3. I'm sure there is tons of good will and/or some money to be earned for someone to put the time in to make a downloadable updated blue stork or even just a zip of the old layouts to be put in any html folder, but just like with Milky way and Solar Flare I suspect the demand is going to be extremely limited after the first 6 weeks. Still we all know that there area premiums out there for supporting IE6 and php 4 etc and I have no doubt that if there is that demand the market will fill it.

4. I really think ... let's avoid excess complexity. How in the world are we going to check whether a blue stork instance is actually a default -- what does that even mean given that we have styles and who knows what files added.  The important thing actually is that we've said this is a migration, we need to have good docs on what that means, in this case much much less work than any migration that has come before.

Elin

[Amy Stephen]

On Sat, Aug 18, 2012 at 7:27 PM, Amy Stephen <amyst...@gmail.com> wrote:

 

On Sat, Aug 18, 2012 at 7:15 PM, elin <elin....@gmail.com> wrote:

No one that I know of wants to ship Bluestork,

 
On the contrary, there's been quite a bit of discussion on updating Bluestork.

Personally, I think the old Templates should be removed and the update process should warn that will happen. Having core software sit around that will never be updated again and is no longer supported comes with it's own set of risks. If it can be removed, I think that would be good.

I also think the new Template should be set to the default. And old, non-core admin template won't be ready -- so putting the Template there that will work means they can then use it to upgrade to a version of their old Template -- if they want, when it's ready. At worst, they'll be confused -- but only because they didn't read the doc and warnings. ;-) They'll figure it out, I think.

I would keep it simple. Just my 2 cents. =)
 

[Josip Posavec]

+1 Elin,

 

Also, to make it absolutely clear when explaining migration we must stress this as much as possible to get to peoples heads, because I know there will be a lot of those ups, I thought I could upgrade… not just with the templates, this should be stressed for the version numbering as a general rule.  IMHO when going from 1 to 2 to 3 to 4 its like switching from windows xp to vista to seven, things just are not going to work the same way, some stuff wont work at all, and that is NORMAL, so that’s why you have 3PD who have to stay up to date with Joomla and NOT other way AROUND, where we should stay compatible with developers.  So lets just think simple.  Make J3.0 best we can and get rid of the obsolete and useless code and give developers best platform to work with, then rest of the band wagon will follow.

 

That’s what I think about this TBH.

 

Josip Posavec

Lead Project Manager

Sfera IT

E-Mail: jo...@crowebs.net

 

 

From: joomla-...@googlegroups.com [mailto:joomla-...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of elin

Sent: Sunday, August 19, 2012 2:15 AM
To: joomla-...@googlegroups.com

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[Chacapamac]

Thanks Elin,

I appreciate your way of thinking...

Yes to new, but being sure that keep power users or Joomla developers in control of their older and newer realizations. Each time you take away that control you alienate the very people that are essential to the platform. 

I know what I’m talking about, I’m still struggling to offer an acceptable multilingual solution in 2.5 to my customers. (still not certain how to go with it) 

Responsive and all new stuff are great but they always should be voluntary options for site designer and developers (if possible).

I’m a little uneasy with that responsive business, really cool. but to having a one design fit all is really practical and in certain cases the perfect solution. But imposing dumb down design for the sake of this or that devices is in my view an error. Hopefully Joomla will keep the site designer in complete control of what he/she want to present to the world

As the administration go i think that a responsive design (if well made) will be an excellent (default) solution. In case of upgrade this HAVE TO be a choice from the Dev’s .

Everybody know that the actual upgrade path of Joomla is extremely difficult to follow for Joomla Developers and trying to keep this path a little less rocky is primordial to keep all those Dev’s interested in the platform.

[Josip Posavec]

I don’t agree with everything you said there Chacapamac, just because I have experience with end user since I myself am developer and webmaster, and I do know how things work in real world. Don’t mind my bad language first of all, I do not mean any disrespect.  All I know is that there has to be clean cut, and instead of giving option to users to use responsive it should be other way around, all should be NEW tech = default and everything else put in components and/or options to use.

Why?  For simple reason of moving with the technology, use latest but if someone wants to use old let them use it on their own, put an option there to turn it on, but if you ask me I would totally put it as external install file like any other template/extension is.

True upgrade is hard, but sometime upgrade should be hard to get better product in the end.  Because if you do what you are saying we will be on version 6.0 in a while and people will still want in that version to have todays templates/extensions and expect them to work… which will never happen… so lets get used to new stuff sooner = better for all.

 

Cheers

 

Josip

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[Nick Savov]

The responsive design would be optional. Site designers and developers
would not be required to use them for their templates or extensions.

I'm not sure what you mean by: "In case of upgrade this HAVE TO be a
choice from the Dev嚙編 ."

What has to be?

Kind regards,
Nick

> Thanks Elin,
>>
>> I appreciate your way of thinking...
> Yes to new, but being sure that keep power users or Joomla developers in
> control of their older and newer realizations. Each time you take away
> that
> control you alienate the very people that are essential to the platform.
>

> I know what I嚙練 talking about, I嚙練 still struggling to offer an acceptable

> multilingual solution in 2.5 to my customers. (still not certain how to go
> with it)
>
> Responsive and all new stuff are great but they always should be voluntary
> options for site designer and developers (if possible).
>

> I嚙練 a little uneasy with that responsive business, really cool. but to

> having a one design fit all is really practical and in certain cases the
> perfect solution. But imposing dumb down design for the sake of this or
> that devices is in my view an error. Hopefully Joomla will keep the site
> designer in complete control of what he/she want to present to the world
>
> As the administration go i think that a responsive design (if well made)
> will be an excellent (default) solution. In case of upgrade this HAVE TO
> be

> a choice from the Dev嚙編 .

>
> Everybody know that the actual upgrade path of Joomla is extremely
> difficult to follow for Joomla Developers and trying to keep this path a

> little less rocky is primordial to keep all those Dev嚙編 interested in the

[Chacapamac]

Don’t get me wrong here, we need to be able to be “Responsive” in this day of ages and in certain cases it will be the perfect economic solution for a business to reach people on all devices. I cant wait to do my first “responsive” template...

But as a web designer, I will never accept any technology to restrict or dictate in any way what I want to achieve. I don’t really care if I’m using Lego blocks or cave paintings to pass a message or present a corporation. If a technology pushed me around and funnel my creativity to some standardized vision, I will simply passed to another one that will bring me all the flexibility and power I need to do my work.

Technology should adapt to US, not the way around. 

[Nick Savov]

The responsive design would be optional. Site designers and developers

would *not* be required to use it for their templates or extensions ;)

Kind regards,
Nick

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[elin]

You can still make a traditional template, the only thing you will have to do is to adjust to the new classes, ids, and layouts in the core. In this the adjustment is no different than going to the new names etc in 2.5 if you had a 1.5 template.  Of course, every time, people will say " this is it once and for always, these names stay forever"  but keep in mind that at that point there will doubtless be other changes in web standards and practices.  Overall I've kind of come to the conclusions that we have to anticipate and plan for change in the web and in hardware rather than fight it.  

Elin

[Angie Radtke]

Hi Guys,

took a look at the alpha2 and saw lots of hr elements in the
com_content now.
I'm not sure if this is the correct way to separate sections of contents.

http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/grouping-content.html#the-hr-element


Bye Angie

[Matt Thomas]

Hi Angie,

Where do you see these? I agree that <hr> is not a good way to go.Looking at https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/blob/master/components/com_content/views/category/tmpl/blog.php I don't see any use of <article> <section> etc.

Best,

Matt Thomas

Founder betweenbrain™

Lead Developer Construct Template Development Framework

Phone: 203.632.9322
Twitter: @betweenbrain

Github: https://github.com/betweenbrain

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[JSamir]

The more of the "old stuff" we get rid off, the better.

Am Freitag, 17. August 2012 02:08:18 UTC+2 schrieb Niels Braczek:

Am 17.08.2012 03:00, schrieb Michael Babker:

> Using the update script's postflight method, we can render a message to
> users if need be saying whatever we need to tell them.  So, that is a
> possible approach.

+1

Regards,
Niels

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[Angie Radtke]

Hi Matt,

if we will use HTML5 like Beez5 did, we will have.
But if we do not use it, we will have in logical way too, if we take a
look at the contents itself.

Example: Frontpage
We are displaying some contentitems there.
For me each of them is an article and all together are a section, right?
It does'nt matter that they are wrapped in divs, the semantic meaning of
each is still article.

On the other hand I'm asking myself for what we need hrs there.
If we use it only for the styling we can use borders instead. Otherwise
the HTML/CSS concept of separtation between and content and design is
broken.


Bye Angie

[piotr_cz]

I disagree :)

I love the Isis template and appreciate great effort that has been
done to include Bootstrapp, but I think the pros of keeping Bluestork
hasn't been discussed enough:

- Radical UX change to present users. Training some users to use
Joomla backend has been a challenge for me and the bluestork hasn't
changed trough years. As much as this is a downside, may be an upside
for some cases (some users don't like radical changes). To keep up
with industry and security I'll have to upgrade Joomla for their
websites sooner or later. There are still lots of websites on Joomla
1.5 and forced change in UX could be an argument against upgrading to
3.0.

- Bluestork is in my subjective opinion better in screen real estate
management on desktop computer when it comes to item views, more
convenient to work with for power user.

- Bluestork is using colorful icons in view toolbar. It's much easier
to recognize the actions than read text or small icons. Of course,
this might be just my habit.


The thing I appreciate most in Joomla 3.0 is the foundation for
ajaxified views in the backend. This was impossible to do without
hacks in previous releases.

These are comments of somebody who developes websites based on Joomla
for last 4 years, has tried Isis template for 1 week.

> > On Aug 18, 2012, at 15:40, Matt Thomas <m...@betweenbrain.com

> > <mailto:m...@betweenbrain.com>> wrote:
>
> >> Hi Folks,
>
> >> As much as I'd like to see the new Bootstrap admin templates be the
> >> default ones, and I REALLY do, couldn't forcing them to be the
> >> default ones introduce backwards compatibility issues with 3PD
> >> extensions?
>
> >> Best,
>
> >> Matt
>
> >> Sent from my phone that uses an open source operating system.
>

> >> On Aug 17, 2012 11:52 PM, "Nick Savov" <n...@iowawebcompany.com

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> ...
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> read more »

[Ove]

Imo it's a major 3.d party components compatibility issue. It's not only
about Bluestork as Hathor has the same problem. As Hathor use html
overrides for core views, the core components works. I've not used
Hathor much in 2.5 but from what I've seen, 3.d party components works
without any overrides.
Will the developers support 2 separate sets of output (tmpl) for the
backend? I guess not. And if, how load them automaticaly into the Hathor
path?

I've tested to adopt Isis to a first list view. Not difficult but a lot
of work. Copy/paste may help for the next ones but it will still take
time. Another solution is to code everyhing independent of the template
with own css and Js loading. We do not want that at all, do we?

Couldn't it be possible to have some settings for what template to use.
Preferrable down to view level. This would allow a smooth transition
but also for a future use of different templates (compare frontend).

If there is no solution both Bluestork and Halthor should, to my
opinion, be removed. Any non professional user will be very confused if
he/she change to one of these as default template. Probably he do not
have he skills to write own ouputs and is very interested in fiddeling
around wih the backend.

In frontend the compatibility can be solved by using different templates
. It only has to be explained to the users if Bootstrap is used by the
extension or not.
My hope is that the component by using Bootstrap will need no or very
litle own Css,

Regards
Ove

>> read more �

[piotr_cz]

I agree that all backend extensions should have possibility to be
template agnostic.
Of course, this is in theory and I didn't upgrade the extensions to
Bootstrap yet so can't speak about the experiences.

> >>>>      >>> > You received this...
>
> read more »

[Andrew Eddie]

For what it's worth, I think it's a no brainer to remove Bluestork and force move admin templates onto Isis (or leave them on Hathor if they already are).  Not that it's set in stone, but it's the way every major increment of Joomla has been done that I can recall.  On that note, and echoing others, this is a major increment - we shouldn't be stressing over major change.  The major increment is a point where we are supposed to deshackle ourselves from compatibility if we need or want to.  Yes, it will break some extensions initially.  That's the lesser evil compared to the whole admin breaking.

As for Bluestork itself, there is no reason why it can't be put out to pasture and picked up by people that want to maintain it (and that leads onto another topic of project distro builders so we don't have to be wastefully angsting over what should or shouldn't go in the core - just roll a different disto ... but I digress) either in an official repository on github (say "joomla-cms-less" - pun intended - all the stuff we wanted to cram in but didn't have room for), or someone can take a personal interest in picking it up.  I doubt there will be much long term support for Bluestork because all the new books, docs, blogs, etc are going to feature Isis - that's the baby that's going to be the face of the J3 admin.  And to be honest, I would wager most new, custom J3 admin templates are going to be modelled (no pun intended this time) off her.  My own experience is that every new admin template that has been shipped has taken some getting used to; but whenever I've gone back to a previous version, it's almost an "oh, yuck, what were we thinking" moment.  I'm sure that will be the case for Isis (J3) vs Bluestork (J2).

My 2c

Regards,

Andrew Eddie

[elin]

Maybe what we could do is switch everyone but tell them how to switch back in a post flight.  The only issue that would leave I think is people who are on Hathor for accessibility reasons who can't change back to Hathor but possibly we could just provide a button for switching to Hathor.

I really meant it when I said that seeing Blue Stork in 3 is going to scare users. A percentage are going to think something went wrong and panic. It's just not a polished transition, and I would rather avoid that.

Elin

[brian teeman]

did people panic when they upgraded windows and the UI changed 1000% and assume something went wrong - ofc they didt

On Wednesday, 29 August 2012 12:09:05 UTC +1, elin wrote:

Maybe what we could do is switch everyone but tell Them how to switch back in the post flight. The only issue would leave That I think is people who are on accessibility Reasons for Hathor who can not change back to Hathor but just possibly We Could Provide a button for switching to Hathor.

I really Meant it when i said That seeing Stork in Blue 3 is going to scare users. The percentage are going to think something went wrong and panic. It's just not a polished transition, and I would rather avoid that.

Elin On Tuesday, August 28, 2012 11:42:36 PM UTC-4, Andrew Eddie wrote:

For what it's worth, I think it's a no brainer to remove the force and moves Bluestork admin templates onto Isis (or leave Them If They Already on Hathor are). Not that it's set in stone, but it's the way every major increment of Joomla Has Been done that I can recall. On that note, and echoing others, this is a major increment - we should not be stressing over major change. The major increment is the point where we are supposed to deshackle ourselves from compatibility if we need or want to. Yes, it will break some extensions INITIALLY. That's the lesser evil Compared to the whole admin breaking.

The Bluestork for itself, there is no reason why it can not be put out to pasture and picked up by People that want to Maintain it (And That leads onto another topic of project distro builders so we do not have to be wastefully angsting over what should or should not go in the core - just a different roll this ... but I digress) Either in an official repository on github (say "joomla-cms-less" - pun intended - all the stuff we wanted to cram in but did not have room for), or someone can take a personal interest in picking it up. I doubt there will be much support for long term Bluestork because all the new books, docs, blogs, etc. are going to feature Isis - that's the baby that's going to be the face of the J3 admin. And to be honest, I would wager most new, custom J3 admin templates are going to be modeled (no pun intended this time) off her. My own experience is every new admin template That Has Been That shipped has taken some getting used to, but Whenever I've gone back to the previous version, it's almost an "oh, yuck, what were we thinking" moment. I'm sure That will be the case for Isis (J3) vs Bluestork (J2).

[elin]

When you upgrade windows you don't get a display of  a broken version of the old windows on your screen and have to take multiple steps to finish. You get the new version. I am really against having people see a broken blue stork for even a minute if we can avoid it. I think there are real down sides to every option we have discussed but probably switching to Isis and then giving instructions on how to switch back is probably going to be the least problematic ... but I would like to hear from someone who knows about accessibility to understand the extent to which switching to Isis and asking users to manually go back to Hathor is acceptable. 

Elin

[Michael Babker]

Switching the style is easy, just a DB query.  In our script file (not the update DDL), query the database to determine the template for admin and change it if it isn't Hathor based.

-Michael

Please pardon any errors, this message was sent from my iPhone.

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[Rouven Weßling]

Maybe I'm missing part of the issue but why can't we special case hathor and switch all other templates?

As far as I can tell we have two places where we set the template (style)
1. The site's main style in #__template_styles
2. The user profiles

Number one is a trivial SQL query.

Number 2 is a bit more tricky, we have to decode the user params for every user and check whether the template style belongs to hathor - in this case do nothing - or to some other template - in this case switch to isis.

Am I overlooking something?

Best regards
Rouven

[elin]

Excellent point that the default style for a site may not be the style for all users and that some webmasters may have done complex things such as using different template styles for different groups.  So, changing the site default is not going to be enough to change the default for all users.  

I'm going to say that in that case "this is a migration not an update" should apply and if people have enabled  style selection they are going to have to figure out how to cope with change.  Just leaving things alone will mean that anyone who has individually been assigned to Hathor will still have Hathor and I'd rather do that than attempt to do any messing with user parameters We can't possibly read their data and understand what they have done. They could have plugins changing the actual list of parameters, among other things. So we need to document this as a "something to plan for when doing a migration" in the release notes.

There is always a risk of something going wrong but what I would say is:

1. Query to find out if Hathor is still installed.

2. Query for the default style and if it is anything besides Hathor change it to Isis default. 

3. If possible in the post flight notify people that they can change back via the template style manager.

I can't see taking a site with 50,000 users and attempting to decode the user settings to see if there are users who have been specifically assigned styles other than Hathor. It just all seems so very unlikely as well--I doubt very much that people have consciously self assigned Blue Stork which leave Hathor (which we want to leave alone) or an alternative template (which means probably a relatively sophisticated web master). 

Elin

[David-Andrew]

+1

On Saturday, August 18, 2012 9:09:30 PM UTC+2, crocoast wrote:

I totally agree and to point out i have asked over 60 client companies to respond to me with this same question and 54 answered that if i give them better solution to the backend and frontend they would not even think about not upgrading. And after i explained the different in the simpleminded thought process of simple user they said: so u say it works on any platform even on my iphone? After simple show and tell they all are onboard for new and even more asking already when am i making the upgrade. 

So yes, close the door to the old and lets go progressive and ahead of others before they all catch up. 

Josip Posavec

Lead Project Manager

Sfera IT

Mob:+385 98 947 7597

E-Mail: jo...@crowebs.net

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 18, 2012, at 20:17, Amy Stephen <amyst...@gmail.com> wrote:

Unless the Joomla CMS is jockeying for an episode of Hoarders, something has to go when new things are brought in. As is, the CMS is nearly 3 times larger than both WordPress and Drupal. Ever consider how that extra weight might be impacting the install process?

Good-bye to nearly 10 years of User Interface, time to embrace the future! It is a good thing.

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[David-Andrew]

Exactly, but make sure to communicate first, then upgrade.