On Jul 7, 2008, at 3:55 PM, Adrian Crum wrote:
As has been discussed in other message threads, some screenlets have
unusual links in their title bars. I'd like to request comments on
the use of links in screenlets and develop a Best Practice for them.
The current use of links in screenlet title bars makes the UI very
inconsistent. On one screen a "Create New" link is a button under
the page title, on another screen it is in the screenlet title bar.
On most screens, a form's Submit button is at the bottom of the
form, and in other screens it is in the screenlet title bar. There
are other examples.
Fortunately this is pretty rare in OFBiz. I say fortunately because
this is one of the biggest travesties in UI design that I've ever
seen. It slows users down at best, and stops first-time users dead in
their tracks trying to find the stupid button because it's not at the
bottom of the form where EVERY submit button in the world is. Having
other links in the header along with the form submit makes it even
worse because when submitting the form it is easy to miss and click on
one of those, killing your work in the form. I don't know where this
came from, but it's awful and we should never do it.
One interesting thing that I think is okay (but not great) in the
header bar is wizard progress links, like in the checkout process in
the order manager. Still, even that would be better as buttons with
arrows pointing to the right between them or something, and just below
the screenlet header... or better yet get rid of the header altogether
because it's ugly.
To be fair, I originally liked the idea of having list pagination in
the screenlet title bar - like in the Find Party screen. I even gave
the screenlet widget the ability to put a contained form's
pagination in there. But I have changed my mind. That also makes the
UI inconsistent because most lists have their own pagination menus
above and below the list.
I'm beginning to think screenlet title bars should contain very
little information: the screenlet title, an optional expand/collapse
link, and an optional Help link. All other links should follow
established best practices - Submit links are at the bottom of
forms, Create New links are at the top of the screenlet body, etc.
In other words, follow the same pattern inside the screenlet that
you would follow in the main content area.
Yes, they should have very little in them. I agree with that. There
could certainly be exceptions, but that's a good guideline.
BTW, on style: the dark blue headers on these are a little bit...
well... "heavy" might be the right word. If anyone want to play with
making this prettier maybe something lighter would be nice, but that's
really another topic and anyone with a text editor and a basic
knowledge of CSS can change that to their liking.
-David
