About the design of the administration? Topic is solved

[webdevtim]

I agree with @warneemer as well. Things should be in places that we are already familiar with, otherwise some may be overwhelmed when trying to find the things they are accustomed to finding in particular locations in the new J.4 interface, and discovering they are no longer there.

I just wanted to thank @simbus82 for providing the link to https://colorlib.com/polygon/admindek/d ... index.html, because this admin panel allows us to try several combinations of layout to see what work best for us. I think we can get some ideas from this, but conceive of those ideas in a Joomla way.

I hope the Joomla Core team is paying attention to these comments so that they can get some ideas as well.

[simbus82]

I want to point out one thing, in case my poor English didn't let you understand.

The problem that I know is of GRAPHIC STYLE: the graphic style (or design) is the first characteristics of a "User Interface", a necessary but NOT SUFFICENT feature to build a good "User Experience".

I leave to others the evaluation on features, animations and actions that the administrative template must provide.

The problem is the graphic style: the link I posted serves to show how much the right choice of border radius, light shadows, valid color tones, cute fonts, spacinga and adequate "aeration" beetween elements ... can make the user experience awesome in a backend.
And it's just CSS style, I don't want to go any further.

If you need AAA accessibility, please put an "accessibility switch" as everyone does on websites that require fantastic accessibility.
You can't ruin the UX for 95% of users to avoid ONE CLICK for the remaining 5% of users. This is UX.

If this backend was the frontend of lead generation website, based on KPI and CRO, we would lose all the customers!

UX/UI? Ok, let's start!

Cattura.PNG

In my modest opinion:
1 - Why a so big width for a container of a so small icon? Why another backgroun container? Do you know you can create "areas" simply putting spaces around "clustered elements"?
2 - Counter beetween an icon and a text? Impossibile seeing it, counters must go positioned in a visible manner, like in the top-left (or top-right for rtl) of the container, like a "badge".
3 - Missing buttons? Why can't I add a media or install a plugin? It's a broken UI that broke UX...
4 - Hard borders and hard shadows everywhere. Are we on Windows 95?
5 - Icon + text solution? This is not MS Office Ribbon, it is a web interface. If the icon does not transfer the concept, the icon is wrong. But these icons are nice and easy to understand, no need to add a label.
6 - Pleaseeeee BORDERS BORDERS everywhere! Borders around notification badges too... This is too much!

Why don't you get inspired by some good examples of awesome UX given by a really good UI?
https://themeforest.net/category/site-t ... -templates

And anyway the graphic style of Elisa Foltyn was fantastic! The style I say!

[jonBuckner1]

Just my thoughts about current menu items:
I have always found them confusing.

I think, in Extensions:
the link to Modules,
the link to Plugins,
the link to Languages,
the link to Templates
...should all be in components drop down. Because they are aren't they?

Extensions could just be:
Install
- Install Plugin <- submenu as search filter
- Install Module <- submenu as search filter
- Install Component <- submenu as search filter
- Install Language <- submenu as search filter
... plus more
Update
- Update Plugin <- submenu as search filter
- Update Module <- submenu as search filter
- Update Component <- submenu as search filter
- Update Language <- submenu as search filter
- divider
- Update Sites <- submenu
Uninstall <- Yes yes yes yes !!!
- Uninstall Plugin <- submenu as search filter
- Uninstall Module <- submenu as search filter
- Uninstall Component <- submenu as search filter
- Uninstall Language <- submenu as search filter
... plus more
Discover <- dodgy title, to me seems like a search to find wonderful new extensions on the JED, maybe Find? Tricky one

or simply:
Install
Update
Uninstall
Discover

Database should be moved to system <- that makes sense to me, you??
Warnings should be moved to system <- that makes sense to me, you??
Install Languages should be moved to tab on install page <- that makes sense to me, you??

[Webdongle]

Actually ... Components, Modules. Plugins and Templates are all extensions. But it makes sense to give Components a top level menu item because of their impact.

[deleted user]

If you need AAA accessibility, please put an "accessibility switch" as everyone does on websites that require fantastic accessibility.
You can't ruin the UX for 95% of users to avoid ONE CLICK for the remaining 5% of users. This is UX.

Accessibility is not an afterthought. If you're going to advocate for that then you might as well not bother with taking steps to making your websites accessible. Also, you do not have to compromise UI/UX for accessibility if the design is done right from the beginning. Also, accessibility goes a lot further than the design aspect of the page, part of it includes using semantically correct markup (i.e use a button tag for buttons, not an a tag styled as a button) so that assistive technology can correctly interact with a page.

[waarnemer]

Actually ... Components, Modules. Plugins and Templates are all extensions. But it makes sense to give Components a top level menu item because of their impact.

Yeah absolutely right! And keep it this way.
This is how it is supposed to be.

When working with teams of people on a website, it is very easy to control using the ACL features. Also very logical. Tab extensions is shut down for all but admins.
Tab components is available for those who are allowed.

[Chacapamac]

Sadly the very developers of Joomla seem to be ok to destroy Joomla 4.
This version (4) present the best CMS available today but the administration proposed is simply unacceptable.

My prediction is that if Joomla 4 come out with that administration design it will be the last nail in the coffin for that fantastic CMS.

Our only chance is to rely on our great 3rd party developers to bring us sanity and hope that the Joomla Devs finally come back to their senses.

You can see a great example of a replacement administration template presented by JoomShaper here.
—> https://www.joomshaper.com/blog/joomla- ... joomshaper

But the faith of Joomla will be set as NOBODY will accept a CMS that NEED a third party template to be usable. As a long-time user of Joomla, this is the saddest post I ever wrote.

[simbus82]

If you need AAA accessibility, please put an "accessibility switch" as everyone does on websites that require fantastic accessibility.
You can't ruin the UX for 95% of users to avoid ONE CLICK for the remaining 5% of users. This is UX.

Accessibility is not an afterthought. If you're going to advocate for that then you might as well not bother with taking steps to making your websites accessible. Also, you do not have to compromise UI/UX for accessibility if the design is done right from the beginning. Also, accessibility goes a lot further than the design aspect of the page, part of it includes using semantically correct markup (i.e use a button tag for buttons, not an a tag styled as a button) so that assistive technology can correctly interact with a page.

It seems that whoever is writing the css has confused "accessibility" with "visually impaired styling".
Giant buttons at 1920x1080, useless borders and box-shadows everywhere, wrong font sizes, misaligned icons, font-weight casually used without any graphic sensibility.
What happened to Foltyn's stylistic guidelines?
To make a template you need some frontend designers, not some backend developers.
Looking at the backend template now, it feels like picking up a Brondi phone. Do you know Brondi phones?

And above all, it seems that the backend project has been hidden from the community. Maybe some volunteers could propose to work on it.
At least I advertised a little Joomla 4 when I could: but the things I talked about seem to have vanished ...

[webdevtim]

You can see a great example of a replacement administration template presented by JoomShaper here.
—> https://www.joomshaper.com/blog/joomla- ... joomshaper

So is this admin template design prototype being considered by the dev team. There are so many excellent ideas here.

[Hackwar]

You can see a great example of a replacement administration template presented by JoomShaper here.
—> https://www.joomshaper.com/blog/joomla- ... joomshaper

So is this admin template design prototype being considered by the dev team. There are so many excellent ideas here.

The project will consider all proposals which are provided as working pull requests. If you think that the current proposal is not good and that you can do better, you are very welcome to create a better solution. Please keep in mind, that the proposal should be ready soon. The project can not wait with a release of 4.0 indefinetly and after a beta release, new features (such as a new backend template) would not be possible anymore. Considering that we all aim for a stable release of 4.0 in this year, a beta would have to be released very soon.

If I may be so direct, but I don't see that a different template will happen. Creating a working backend template with all that this acompanies takes quite a bit of time and we don't have another year to wait for that. Also, when I look at the Joomshaper screens, they do look nice, but where they really differ from the current proposal, they are also pretty far from reality. As an example, a dashboard with fancy graphs looks cool, but reality is that we don't have those graphs. And if you remove those graphs you get what is in the current proposal.

There also is no team that is standing by to implement another backend template. Those who worked on the current proposal (including me) gathered outside of Joomla and started with the work, then contacted the project to ask for some infrastructure support. It is not a group that the Joomla leadership formed and gave a formal mandate to do this. This path is open to everyone if you want to improve Joomla and considering that this thread is from mid-March, there would have been quite some time to get a working prototype if the participants in here would have indeed formed a group then. An even better solution would have been to join the existing team and to support their work. Some people have done that. (Special thanks to Brian Teeman here for his relentless work) So far I've not seen any PRs or actual work happening for an alternative from this thread.

[Webdongle]

...
The project will consider all proposals which are provided as working pull requests. I...

That is the whole point ... only experienced devs can see a working version of the new Template and create a PR for it.

[Hackwar]

...
The project will consider all proposals which are provided as working pull requests. I...

That is the whole point ... only experienced devs can see a working version of the new Template and create a PR for it.

I don't really agree with that. There are nightly builds of the backend template here: https://developer.joomla.org/backend-template/ and setting up a development environment to work directly with github also is not rocket science.

But even then: What would you expect to happen? Looking at this thread, there are probably at least half a dozen competing ideas for every single feature. Who should now go ahead and implement those? Images of cool backend screens are all nice and good, but they have no functionality, they are not tested across browsers, screen sizes, etc. You can "quickly" create a static image of a screen, but that doesn't help without it being implemented. And if you don't want to do the work or are willing to pay someone to do the work, we are all dependent on people like me doing it for free. And I have no interest in implementing a backend template just to throw it away again shortly before it is merged, because someone took issue with it. And there will ALWAYS be someone who has an issue with a template.

[Webdongle]

...

I don't really agree with that. There are nightly builds of the backend template here: https://developer.joomla.org/backend-template/ and setting up a development environment to work directly with github also is not rocket science...

So we can just download the Template zip and install it into the J4 dev?

[Hackwar]

...

I don't really agree with that. There are nightly builds of the backend template here: https://developer.joomla.org/backend-template/ and setting up a development environment to work directly with github also is not rocket science...

So we can just download the Template zip and install it into the J4 dev?

That is a complete Joomla installation, not just the template.

[waarnemer]

There is a misunderstanding that is lost in this discussion apparently..

We mix up functionality and the positions, categories, topics, whatever is changing between J!3 and j!4 with the way things look...

Template is how things look, not how things work....

[Webdongle]

@Hackwar

Ah that is the nightly build of J4. But earlier in this thread we were told the new Admin Template is different to the one in the J4 dev.

Okido... I was in contact with Elisa...
For one, she is not the design lead (anymore) even though that shows on the volunteers site.
Apparently Benjamin Trenkle is.
The design that comes with the Alpha8 now is not the one that will be used (bye bye Pyjama Blue, thank God)...

I'll come out of self imposed exile to comment on two bits here.

...

The development deliberately started in a closed access, invite only repository, because a number of people wanted to make sure that neither Brian Teeman nor myself could comment on any aspect of their work,...

Sounds like only Full Stack Developers can continue tinkering with Joomla templates. Note to self: learn composer, npm, docker etc.

Yes, Composer and NPM are required tools to work with Joomla from the git repository. These are tools that are pretty standard for a wide variety of PHP or frontend oriented projects these days. Most compiled resources and external dependencies are no longer checked into the CMS' git repo (IMO a step that was taken prematurely because a lot of workflow steps have not been sorted out to properly manage this for the release packages, among other things), so you need those tools to get a fully functional development environment. Also, if you're doing frontend work and using any kind of CSS or JavaScript compiler (LESS to CSS (and no, the lessc PHP library in Joomla 3.x doesn't count because it's beyond FUBAR, and I won't even test any SCSS compilers), SCSS to CSS, compiling JavaScript written with newer features so that it is compatible with older browsers), odds are you're using something that has come out of the Node ecosystem. Joomla core development has kept use of these tools away from the masses for the most part, but in all honesty if you're doing anything in PHP that isn't Joomla or WordPress you're probably using Composer, and if you're doing frontend work you probably aren't 100% writing CSS or JavaScript from scratch and using some kind of compile tool and/or dependency manager and that's where NPM comes into play. So yes, it raises the bar a bit if you're working in the most purest of development environments, but these are also tools that you really should have a basic familiarity with in general.

So have things changed since then?

Also does it means that anyone who has input will not be listened to unless they can develop and create PR's. So even if the new design is not being worked on in secret (and is in the dev nightly build) it excludes many users fro giving input because their opinion only counts if they can use git.

So disagree as much as you like. You are WRONG, the majority of us are excluded in any say of the design.

[Hackwar]

@Hackwar

Ah that is the nightly build of J4. But earlier in this thread we were told the new Admin Template is different to the one in the J4 dev.

No, that is the backend template nightly build. It is NOT the J4 nightly build.

The development deliberately started in a closed access, invite only repository, because a number of people wanted to make sure that neither Brian Teeman nor myself could comment on any aspect of their work,...

First of all, it should be acknowledged that all development starts in a closed environment, unless we are requiring all Joomla development to happen in live streams on Twitch or something like that. Normally, until a PR against the main repo is made, the development of any code is done in the closed environment of the developers machine and the PR is the first time the public gains knowledge about it. In contrast this group of people were always open for participation and the access to the repository was opened in March this year after about 3 months of work. Everyone who wanted to, could review the code, open new issues or comment on old ones or create PRs. Several people have done so, especially Brian Teeman. Keeping the repo closed for a short period of time (It was closed for a little bit less than 3 months and is open for almost 5 months now.) allowed especially new contributors in that team to provide code without being torn apart by toxic members of the community. Please don't act as if this whole project was some sort of secret endeavour with sinister motives, especially since this all was based on designs that were made and discussed 2 years ago.

So have things changed since then?

Also does it means that anyone who has input will not be listened to unless they can develop and create PR's. So even if the new design is not being worked on in secret (and is in the dev nightly build) it excludes many users fro giving input because their opinion only counts if they can use git.

So disagree as much as you like. You are WRONG, the majority of us are excluded in any say of the design.

Depends on what you mean with "have things changed". Yes, you still require "knowledge" of git, npm and composer to provide changes to J4 (and its templates). "Knowledge" in this case means installing git, npm and composer (as simple as installing any other program on your computer), checking out the J4 repo (same complexity as in J3) and then executing the commands "composer install" and "npm i" in the folder of your J4 installation. I'd say that that isn't to much to ask from someone who wants to contribute to Joomla.
If you just want to look at the current state of afairs, you can have this even simpler with the nightly builds.

Yes, in general I expect a contributor to provide a PR to add his/her code, but of course there can be exceptions. If you would have gone to the backend template repo and asked for a different icon to be used here or there or to use a different effect for X, then I would try to make that possible. If you come along and throw a link to Elixir at me and request me to rewrite it to that, I would say no. Among things because I don't want to work for free for you without any guidelines, etc., but most importantly because the time to discuss all of this was 2.5 years ago when the design was made, discussed and decided upon. The people who worked on this PR had very little say in the actual design.

[Webdongle]

Firstly that file has the same name as the Joomla nightly build https://developer.joomla.org/nightly-builds.html
Secondly you are not working free for me. I was working free for you and the rest of the community until you devs made it too difficult for me to help. You have been told (time and time again) that many of us are unhappy with the treatment we have received from many of the devs. Things have been made more and more difficult for many of us to help.

The enjoyment of helping has (for many) disappeared. It is not just me saying that, others have said similar.

[GillianBPP]

Hello. (edited after double-checking the backend nightly download zip)

I am confused as to whether the backend template nightly build on Github PR #25570 is just the backend template or a full Joomla package. When I download it from the link given on that PR, it appears to be the full Joomla package. Can you please confirm the correct way to update the nightly backend template?

Thank you.

[H13]

Offtopic:

Personally, I don't get why so many people are so adamant about clinging to the top navigation bar in Joomla, I see it as a restricted menu system and a sidebar gives a lot more flexibility in general.

This is a point of view, for me as ten fingers writer, not looking at the keyboard, holding the mouse in my right hand, the left menu is too far away in my ergonomic spread and my work is many times slower.

[Hackwar]

Hello. (edited after double-checking the backend nightly download zip)

I am confused as to whether the backend template nightly build on Github PR #25570 is just the backend template or a full Joomla package. When I download it from the link given on that PR, it appears to be the full Joomla package. Can you please confirm the correct way to update the nightly backend template?

Thank you.

As I wrote above, that is a complete Joomla installation package. This can not be installed in an existing Joomla site and nightlies can not be updated. You can unzip that package, upload it and install that Joomla. It can not be installed through the extension manager or similar.

The backend template is NOT just a template. It is a complex system of several modules, plugins, components, the template itself and modifications to the existing extensions.

[Webdongle]

Are you saying
1. Download the file called Joomla_4.0.0-alpha11-dev-Development-Full_Package.zip from the Joomla nightly builds https://developer.joomla.org/nightly-builds.html
2. Install it as a full Joomla installation.
3. Download the other Joomla_4.0.0-alpha11-dev-Development-Full_Package.zip file from https://developer.joomla.org/backend-template/
4. Then with the Joomla that was installed (using the first file called Joomla_4.0.0-alpha11-dev-Development-Full_Package.zip) use the extensions manager to install the second file called Joomla_4.0.0-alpha11-dev-Development-Full_Package.zip
5. Then the installed Joomla will display the Administrator Template that is being worked on in secret.

btw
Congratulations on having two different files that have the same name.

[Hackwar]

Are you saying
1. Download the file called Joomla_4.0.0-alpha11-dev-Development-Full_Package.zip from the Joomla nightly builds https://developer.joomla.org/nightly-builds.html
2. Install it as a full Joomla installation.
3. Download the other Joomla_4.0.0-alpha11-dev-Development-Full_Package.zip file from https://developer.joomla.org/backend-template/
4. Then with the Joomla that was installed (using the first file called Joomla_4.0.0-alpha11-dev-Development-Full_Package.zip) use the extensions manager to install the second file called Joomla_4.0.0-alpha11-dev-Development-Full_Package.zip
5. Then the installed Joomla will display the Administrator Template that is being worked on in secret.

I'm not saying anything like that. Considering what you've written, I guess you never looked inside the zip file. Please read my previous message again.

[brian]

Let me try and write this in really simple language

If you want to view the proposed template and you dont have git, composer and npm skills (and dont want to learn) then we've made it super easy for you.

1. Go to https://developer.joomla.org/backend-template/ and download the zip.
2. This zip is a FULL joomla installation.
3. Extract and install joomla just as you always do.
4. That's it. You now have the latest nightly build of Joomla 4 with the new template.

Nothing special required. No extra software to install. No new skills required.

[Webdongle]

Great, thanks. Glad that is available now.

[brian]

It's been available for a while. People just failed to read and comprehend.

[Webdongle]

I was told it was not going to be available. One of the devs offered to make one available for me but when I requested it was made available for everyone they refused.

[Hackwar]

I was told it was not going to be available. One of the devs offered to make one available for me but when I requested it was made available for everyone they refused.

"One of the devs"... Who? You didn't talk to me and I doubt that you talked to Benjamin or Christiane and the others would have referred you to us. The nightly build has been available for months.

[Webdongle]

@Hackwar

...
"One of the devs"... Who? You didn't talk to me and I doubt that you talked to Benjamin or Christiane and the others would have referred you to us. The nightly build has been available for months.

I will not name names but it was when I was in the 'CMS Release Team'. It was the same time that I was told the development of the new Admin Template was being done in secret because they did not want criticism. This thread was started months ago and the Template nightly build was not available then.

It was not available in June

...
Hopefully someone will ask you to include also the back end template in the builds, so that Joomla users and PHP developers like me with very limited "full-stack" experience can also access the back end previews with relative ease. ...

It was not until 2 days ago that you mention the Admin Template nightly build.

Go on call me a liar I dare you!!! Because I accuse you of trying to 'save face' by deliberately distorting the truth. That is not a wild accusation or a flame. That is my personal opinion based on the facts. I for one am disatisfied with the attitude of some of the devs and the deliberately excluding others from having credible input into the software.

[Hackwar]

@Hackwar

...
The nightly build has been available for months.

I have to correct myself here: The nightlies have been created pretty much at the same time the PR was created, so about a month ago.

It was not until 2 days ago that you mention the Admin Template nightly build.

I've taken notice of this thread the first time 2 days ago. As Brian wrote, the information was out there and everyone who wanted to have it, could get it.

Go on call me a liar I dare you!!! Because I accuse you of trying to 'save face' by deliberately distorting the truth. That is not a wild accusation or a flame. That is my personal opinion based on the facts. I for one am disatisfied with the attitude of some of the devs and the deliberately excluding others from having credible input into the software.

I don't know what interaction you had with other developers, but the two of us have had barely any contact in the last few years. I also don't have to "save face" about anything, because I don't think that the team has done anything wrong. I would do all of this the same way again and I'm happy with the work we delivered given the circumstances.

As I stated before, the development wasn't done in secret and the team was just realising the design that others decided upon 2 years ago. The code always was available to everybody, although admittedly you had to ask one of us for a copy before the Vienna Joomladay.

I don't think that the bar for participation is too high, but there will always be people for whom even a door sill is too high a barrier. There are good reasons why we use npm and composer and during development time I can live very well with the current situation.

Considering that we developers have worked very hard on allowing as much participation by everyone as possible, I don't think that your "deliberate exclusion" accusation has any merrit. You are obviously angry, but that is not my fault. If you feel excluded from the design decisions about this template, please take that up with those who created, discussed and approved the design 2.5 years ago. Just also be reminded that the time to discuss this was then and not today.