Usability

Collecting discussions and patches for a better input format support in Drupal 7. My battle plan writeup is at http://hojtsy.hu/blog/2008-feb-04/supporting-wysiwyg-editing-better-drup... and there are groups post here about cutting through the format clutter (http://groups.drupal.org/node/8911) and format association observations (http://groups.drupal.org/node/9072). This list summarizes the patches in different states to improve input formats and support RTEs better.

• For review:
  • http://drupal.org/node/125315 - Add the #input_format Form API construct, so that additional form fields are not required, and metadata is captured for WYSIWYG editors and form altering in general
  • http://drupal.org/node/110242 - Make filter access first class permissions
  • http://drupal.org/node/240873 - Move custom help settings to blocks
• TODO:
  • http://groups.drupal.org/node/8911 - Limit available input filters by "type of widget" used (node type body, comment, block, etc)
  • http://groups.drupal.org/node/9072 - Bring consistency into how we apply formats and provide more format support where it is missing.
  • Move site mission and footer message to blocks / new block regions (in part to add format support).
• Done:
  • http://drupal.org/node/222183 - Make input formats reorderable (committed!)
  • http://drupal.org/node/240988 - Break out HTML escaping filter to make non-HTML input formats (instantly) recognizable (committed)

Supernav seems like a great idea and could well be part of solving part of the admin navigation and interface issue. It might be overload for most admins but is well worth checking out, at least the description and screenshot: http://drupal.org/project/supernav

Would something like this be useful as part of an admin theme?

Six months ago, Dries linked to this DabbleDB demo from his blog. He hailed it as a vision for what CCK and Views could ultimately be. The demo is positively breathtaking in the flexibility of fields to morph and change. Further, the usability of the UI is outstanding. Everyone in these group really ought to watch the demo, and discuss what small changes we can make to get closer to this.

Some starting points:

• Can we design a flow whereby node_import module could suggest and then create the needed CCK fields to hold the incoming data?
• Can we add a metric ton of flexibility to CCK whereby we can take a field and move it into a new content type (i.e. the demo moves Person into a 1st class object) and move fields (and data) between content types (in the demo, the Company field moves over the new Person 'content type').
• Could we get a View created automatically for each content type that has the right exposed filters automatically? And then a UI which progressively shows those exposed filters in the 'query by example' method in the demo?
• The demo has a notion of saving ad hoc queries. Our equivalent is Views Saved Searches. Should this be a core feature of Views, or otherwise better integrated?

Looking at the UI design pattern librairy of Yahoo http://developer.yahoo.com/ypatterns/

I wonder why can not we have exactlly the same kind of ressource but for drupal.

For example we can put "Page Grid UI design pattern" in regards with "Panel 2" drupal module and some useful demonstrations and documentation.

Sometimes there could be several drupal modules that try to do the same UI design pattern and sometimes we need several drupal module in order to achieve one UI design pattern.

When a site admin goes to Admin>Site Configuration>Input Formats and choses the configure option for a input format, the admin lands on the view page instead and has to click configure one more time on the horizontal tabs. To avoid heavy changes, I think the Operation on Admin>Site Configuration>Input Formats could be renamed from 'Configure' into 'View Settings'

The group may not be the best place to post the above but I thought I might as well state a possible improvement than leave it for later and overlook the issue.

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As some of you know, I've recently taken over maintenance of Inline and Image Assist, and initiated the Wysiwyg project. That was not only caused by personal interest, but also to take the necessary steps to realize the long awaited Inline API. You might ask yourself, what those three modules have in common or to do with each other at all: They deal with user input, allow to embed complex contents into a content, and provide an interactive GUI for that. If you already had the chance to work with them, you already know that there is a rather hidden, non-obvious hard-dependency between them.

Although I'd really like to discuss both topics (Inline and Wysiwyg support) separately, the gained experience on these topics enforces us to discuss them concurrently. The following mockup hopefully explains why: (see attachment to view in full size)

I have been playing with the CCK head and my modal dialogs, and you can see the result at:

http://www.citris-uc.org/blog/tao/drupal_modal_dialogs_and_cck (2 minute loop)

I am particularly happy with the new ability to detect if the drag-and-drop table has been modified, and to offer to save the current progress.

Aside: Those of you paying close attention might have noticed me cheating. The /admin/content/types page doesn't actually have "fields" links. But it should (http://drupal.org/node/215623)

(Former and very short lived) Thread For Improving The Views 2 UI

Edit Edit: Latest Thread for Views 2 UI is on: http://groups.drupal.org/node/8429
Edit: The usability groups is now linked to a pre-existing thread at: http://groups.drupal.org/node/6288 so that we can contribute to the discussion there.
A Big Thank You to Yoroy

Please Start a thread for each solution you have and if possible, comments to that solution can be on the same thread (the reply link on the post should work for that)

If you have a new solution, please start a new thread in the story (The comment box at the bottom starts new threads while the reply link (I think the reply option should a button instead of a link) keeps the next post in the same thread.)

(scratch all that, there isn't an option to move or delete misplaced posts. The thread follows on from Accordian Node Add/Edit Form.)