On 4/10/2010 8:05 AM, Colin wrote:
I agree, too much real estate is given up to themes that aren't in use rather than the theme we're interested in customising so I've whipped up this (attached) mockup (I quickly hacked admin/themes.php to do most of this with a little Firebug trickery for the screenshot).
First, thanks a bunch for rolling on this. It looks good.
Notes about my mockup and some of my thoughts: 1. The theme description is probably ignored by most people; they're more interested in what the theme looks like (hence the thumbnail) than any of the fancy words that accompany it. Accordingly, I've removed it completely from the active theme and put it into the thumbnail's "title" tag (so it's visible if you hover over it) for the inactive themes.
I agree. And putting it in the title tag seems alright, although my brain immediately thought of some including some javascript to do a Netflix-like flyout of the description and license (omitted via your point #2). See this screenshot:
http://screencast.com/t/ZTE0ZDJhMz
3. The theme can be activated by clicking the thumbnail or the "Activate" button in my mockup code, but I was thinking we could use the "clicking of the thumbnail" as a way to let the user preview their site with the clicked theme applied either by:
<snip>
Of course, there's always the option of introducing a "Preview" button next to the "Activate" button to do the preview function instead, or add a hook so a plugin can offer this feature (if the hook doesn't exist - I've not checked).
The technical details of implementing this aside, it seems like something people ask for a decent amount.
My suggestion would be to have the preview button, and activating the preview button would switch the theme for *that user's session*. Session messages would indicate how to switch back or cancel the preview.
4. I think the active theme's configuration tabs should be expanded and cover a much larger area by default so users can quickly and easily get to them. I also think it might be a good idea to switch to a fade out/in, just slide down or no animation at all when switching config tabs. The current slide up/down animation, whilst consistent with the similar buttons used on the post page, is a bit slow and can be shakey and juddery (is that even a word?) on some browsers. It doesn't feel smooth.
I agree that the configuration for the current theme should be expended. I am growing more and more of the opinion that they should not be in tabs at all, and should simply be in separate, already expanded sections running down the page.
5. The inactive themes section, whilst shown fully expanded in the mockup, would be "collapsed" and hidden by default, requiring the user to click a + button, or similar, in order to be presented with the list as I show. The minus button next to the heading is what would show when expanded like in the mockup.
This is an easily-implemented mechanism. I wouldn't really mind if the themes were expanded at the bottom of the page. This design clearly puts them in the secondary role that they should be in, which is one of the main things that should be addressed here.
Nicely done. I look forward to the comments of others. Owen -- To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/habari-dev To unsubscribe, reply using "remove me" as the subject.
