[30]User Interface Copy, Move, Delete, Trash Consistency

[masterchief]

1. INTRODUCTION

The Administrator has many screen with similar features, but they differ slightly in their implementation. This Paper deals with trying to rationalise the consistency of User Interface operations (such as copy, move, delete confirm, and so on).

2. SCOPE

Copy

Copy is currently provided in some components but the individual behaviour is different. Some allow you to copy multiple items at a time, some only single items, some prepend "Copy of" and others don't. This behaviour needs to be made consistent and also expanded to other components where appropriate.

Move

Move should be applied to other components where appropriate, such as those that also support categories.

Delete Confirm

A number of places in the UI are over-zealous on the "Are you sure you want to delete that?"

Trash

Trash is currently implemented for Articles and Menus but in no other component. Since the implementation is simply via a setting on the "state" field ("published" in other components) or -2, it should be portable to other components.

In addition, because Trash is a setting within the context of a component, there is no reason why com_trash has to exist. The functionality can be merged back into the parent component.

3. TECHNICAL IMPLEMENTATION

The published list box can be expanded to include a "Trash" setting.

The permanent delete toolbar icon is only display when the list filter is set to "Trash". For other settings the icon will send an item to trash.

Published icon need to change to the trashcan when an item is in the trash.

Edit forms can include the "Trash" setting in the published field list/radio set.

A trash method needs to be added to the controller but this is generally just a referrer to the same method that will change the published state (with the setting being -2).

4. IMPACTS

No backward compatibility issues. Would be best to update only refactored admin components.

5. REFERENCES

None

[pasamio]

The menu component also utilises the trash component.

[masterchief]

Thanks Sam. Don't know how I missed that *shrug*

[nexans06]

Also, I think the back-end of Joomla could be further improved in regards to efficiency.

I like this approach on the back-end:
http://www.reference.be/upload/technolo ... esktop.jpg

Sitecore have given all their modules resizing capabilities, and also made the back-end work just like on a windows computer by adding a "desktop" inside the browser (they've even added a starmenu). That way you could be doing more than one thing at a time. You could create an article, add usergroups/edit permissions, tweak templates, add categories/sections, menu items etc, all at the same time.

[severdia]

One more small UI consistency thing.....Can we have CSS filenames clickable in the Template Manager instead of using radio buttons?

[masterchief]

Tracker Task:
http://joomlacode.org/gf/project/joomla ... m_id=10745

[Joomla!Myanmar]

Hi, I don't know if this is related to the topic. I want a feature that I can unpublished multiple frontpage articles at once. (not unpublished the article, but only unpublished from frontpage) Currently I have to click on unpublished frontpage item one by one.

Thanks for consideration.