About the design of the administration? Topic is solved

[Maradona]

But forget about WP. All I want to say is: Please, lets create a better looking backend template for Joomla 4.

+1

[Chacapamac]

Placement/design/structure of internal actions windows

First, I second Mr. Wimpy, please kashwar listen to his smart suggestions on his previous post. =============================
posting.php?mode=reply&f=803&t=970614#pr3583751
1— LOCATION OF BUTTONS
• Important buttons ("New", "Save") on the left. So are the important fields ("Title", "Article text". And everything under the tabs. Everything is close together and fits into zoomed view (Help for Accessibility).

2— LOCATION OF MESSAGES
Placement of messages should be around the middle/top.
The widths of all messages should be the same.

3— LISTS
Blue Atum (official Joomla template) uses the same icons for statuses everywhere. They are clear and distinct: i.e. Green checkmark, grey X. And, in most lists, they are in front of the title. The rows are highlighted on hover, making it easy to read and and follow. Columns are pretty much in order of importance.

In White Atum (kashwar template), the icons are different in different list, and in different locations. Some are in front, like Category list and menu items list.
But on the article list it's close to the back. I have to move my mouse to the right, past the category column (???), I can no longer see what the article title is. I might just look at the status of a different article, or worse change the status of a different article. The statuses only have a small coloured dot (with text).

PS: Who believed that the ArticleID is so important that is should be in the first column? You (I) hardly ever use them. All the other lists the IDs are in the last column.

PS2: Where is the Featured icon/column for articles?

Also Kaswar see his “SOME OTHER DESIGN NOTES” — Contain top notch pro interface design advices
=============================

Remember that the following image is base on my own modified design exemple of kashwar design
(see this previous post)
posting.php?mode=reply&f=803&t=970614#pr3584030
In my proposed design;
I add a full color Joomla logo, small darker border to delimit the top & left menu from the main page content and kashwar duotone active color and icons to make a kind of “breadcrumbs” for the actual place.

internal-action-window.jpg

Saddly kashwar seem to bee absent from the discussion and important advices presented here ?

kashwar are you here ?

[kawshar]

1. We will re-check the button priority locations. But, the designer had a resource on that. I will try to get his answer and explanation. Btw, I shared your suggestion with him, he will check in a while.
2. Message location is widely used in the bottom left or bottom right. Please check Google docs or Gmail.
3. Icons can be more specific.

About the list, we could remove many options but we tried to keep everything in order to avoid chaos.

And, color logo is kinda outdated. The main purpose of this design is to give a modern look. About the duotone icon, you just have to write the icon name in the right view.html.php file.

I think we can improve a lot but right now challenge is to merge in the core. It's already uploaded to the official Joomla repo.

Thanks

[Chacapamac]

Thanks kawshar for your work and contribution:

I think we can improve a lot but right now challenge is to merge in the core. It's already uploaded to the official Joomla repo.

As for the black logo, I disagree. It’s nothing about a “Modern look” Logo.

A logo is the soul of a mark and should never be modified, only by the branding guidelines established.

In branding you got always a preferred UNIQUE Signature that should be use. For Joomla, this signature IS the full color logo. The black logo should be used only where color is unavailable or for specific purpose.

You can download 2017 Joomla brand manual here :
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0By_CBG ... hRb2M/edit

In the case of your design, it’s evident that the use of the black logo go even against the overall design that you propose.
1— First this is not the official Joomla signature that SHOULD ALWAYS appear in full color.
2— The black logo go against the overall look & feel of your design. Your design bring in subtle touch of bright colours used for icons & typography. The full color Joomla logo is a perfect match for your design

Look at the 2 images here... it’s easy to see that the black Joomla logo bring nothing to the template, It convey nothing positif, cool, for me it look even alien to the design.

logo-black.jpg

To the contrary the color logo fit perfectly with the bright, cool interface of your design and it’s Joomla Signature logo.

logo-color.jpg

[Webdongle]

What has been done about the menu refreshing every page change?

[bruno28]

I prefer the colored logo too

[Chacapamac]

To kawshar, I know you guys are probably busy merging the template to core Joomla.

When you have time look at my 3 precedent posts with design advice here:

viewtopic.php?f=803&t=970614&start=300#p3584030

viewtopic.php?f=803&t=970614&start=300#p3584032

viewtopic.php?f=803&t=970614&start=300#p3584036

[Chacapamac]

@ Webdongle

What has been done about the menu refreshing every page change?

Are you talking about kawshar (White Atum) ?

I don’t experienced that on Firefox / Safari / Chrome ....

[bruno28]

Joomla 4 beta 1 is available to test

https://developer.joomla.org/nightly-builds.html

[toivo]

Joomla 4 beta 1 is available to test

It is a development version, not yet the final beta 1, but testing is highly encouraged.

[bruno28]

OK

Thank you Toivo

Have a good day

[N6REJ]

I think the changes that this template brings are wonderful!!! It should not be discouraged. For the first time since hathor we will have a template designed by designers not dev's!

[Maradona]

Joomla is the best

[bruno28]

Joomla is the best

+ 100

[Chacapamac]

Just Download beta 1 — Where is kawshar template ??

I see some improvement in the original template, I will review....

[Chacapamac]

Any news from kawshar template will be great????

===============================================

I open beta one, everything seem in place and look fine...



Some details I don’t like:

1- Not Using the full color Joomla logo (Login & Administration)
— The color where modified from the original design to slightly warmer colours, (as I point out in this post from the start).

This is great, but even with this change, the overall look is somewhat dull. A “dull” interface is simply that... “dull” to see & “dull” to use.

• I will even bring slighter more pure and warm colours and definitely add the great fun, cool full colours Joomla logo to elevate the fun factor here.


2- Not having the same color background from the left menu to the top main action bar is a major design error.
a) it’s simply ugly
b) It blur the boundary between the inner page and the top action bar and the main action/menu items

• Simple, every Main action item (left menu, top bar and page actions buttons) should be uniformly presented.

Image Before/after — Points 1 & 2
Now:

1.jpg

Proposed:

1b.jpg

Note:
I also prefer, from far, to have full colours actions buttons compare with the actual white background. The main actions buttons become strong and importants compare to the rest of the information in the page. Also they become more uniform, as actions items, to the left menu and my suggest top bar. Here they are washed out with the page



3-In the login page, you miss some importants Joomla links, also you take out a minimum of Joomla links when you are in the administration???
— Joomla Home (This is obviously important) — https://www.joomla.org
— Joomla extensions directory — https://extensions.joomla.org — Really important to see what is possible with Joomla (Think New Users here) —

• Please, at least these ones...

Image Before/after — Points 3 — No Administration weblinks ??

2.jpg

4-No real breadcrumbs or navigation markers ??
— No navigation markings when you are in submenus are another major interface mistake.

• It is primordial that any user of an interface have a good visual representation of where they are situated in this interface at all time.
The majors effects when having this visual help are:
— The user feel in control of the interface and simply know where they are.
— The user learn where the things are and become more efficient and familiar with the interface.

Image Before/after — Points 4
From that:

3.jpg

User have no idea where this “Article” page is situated in the interface —

to That (at least to the first main level):

4.jpg

Now we know where we are and learning where things are:
—> Main left menu —> Content —> Article

[bruno28]

Good work Chacapamac

It is more efficient to use

Tkank you

[edwin007]

Hello
I just wanna say that after years of using Joomla!, I'm disappointed and worried after seeing the Joomla 4 admin template on my nightly build install. It is non-intuitive, even for experienced users and will frighten away new users.
In addition to what has already been said in this thread, the size of the various text/title blocks seems to have been increased, in the name of white space. This uses up unneccessary screen space, and causes cluttering.
Check image

Screenshot_20200109_031107.png

[Chacapamac]

On the functionality side, the Atum template is generally Ok.

Acceptable to be the interface and driver of Joomla 4, no way...

Sadly, I find the Atum template simply boring, and worst, with still important design and UI-UX mistake that has no place in an important web application like Joomla.
I already precise the most important flaws before, in this post.

But my overall qualification for it is:
- Amateurish look
- Dull & boring
- Old looking
- Even Wordpress look fresh in comparison
- hard to read typography
- confusing
- ...

I repeat this warning for all the Joomla community.
Joomla is today the best CMS of all time, but the passage from 1.5 to the newer versions as been difficult but necessary to build this great software that has nothing to do with the crap Wordpress is thriving on.

WP was and still the same substandard system when Joomla has become a great, real, modern CMS. This passage was so difficult that many website providers were burned and site owners jump the wagon to WP as the cost to upgrade and redo websites with Joomla every few years make no sense to them.

Today, Joomla is a brand new beast, but cannot make any mistake for is brand. Releasing Joomla 4 with this substandard interface will probably be a grave mistake as nobody wanting to go back to Joomla or experiencing it for the first will have the “WOW” factor that Joomla 4 should have.

This is sad and dangerous for the brand.

kashar template did have that “wow” but seem to disappear in the fourth dimension ?

[H13]

Hi, we have discussed Joomla! 4 in our local community and users ask if there any news about backend template? So the same question like Chacapamac posted. Are there any news regarding this topic?

Thank you, Jan

[Webdongle]

@H13
You are good at making Templates

[H13]

@Webdongle
Being good is not enough when talking about Joomla! 4 Backend template

[Chacapamac]

@H13

Being good is not enough when talking about Joomla! 4 Backend template

Good enough is for second class software, not Joomla 4, it should be amazing.

Nothing amazing in what I see now, not even great or good...

[webdevtim]

Interface design is more difficult than data structures design. All the user sees is the interface, they have no clue about what is going on underneath the skin. Therefore the interface is what will sell the product. This means that the interface has to have just as much attention as the data structures and probably even more, because the end user will only know the product through their interaction with the interface. Therefore no effort should be spared creating an award winning interface that gets rave reviews.

Thanks Chacapamac for staying on top of this as you have. Thanks to the core developers for the hard work they are putting into this, but at the same time, the core designers need to put the pedal to the metal and realize, that the future of this great product is on the line. Joomla needs to be that CMS that challenges AWS. We need Open Source to maintain a grip on the market so that conglomerates like Amazon, Google and Facebook don't take over everything. That is why Joomla is still so very, very important, it is the voice of democracy on the Interment giving people control over their own content, and we need to keep that voice as strong as we possibly can.

So please all of you in core development, take all of these suggestions seriously, because Chacapamac and the others have their finger on the pulse of the community, and are only relaying that to you so that Joomla remains that strong voice that still gives people the ability to have control over their content. Think of Aaron Swartz, he would have wanted Joomla to retain as much market share as possible, so that the Internet embraces democracy rather than oligarchy, where everyone has a voice, where everyone can be heard, where everyone has the potential to make their voice heard by the many, where access to information is a right, not a privilege.

[Chacapamac]

Well say webdevtim, one thing I know is that tons of excellent work is done for this version of Joomla and I want to thanks all the volunteers that give their time for this great CMS. This includes the design team. I know how much work is there.

I wish Joomla find a way to channel the help and suggestions of the community, It will be so beneficial to Joomla. Many people bring great ideas in this post, like kashwar and others but all that enthusiasm seems to dissipate as, it seems, we are talking in an empty space.

Having some kind of channel where the community can participate will bring Joomla to another level.

Some feedback from the design team will be appreciated.

[Hackwar]

1. There is no design team. Please don't expect a response from something that doesn't exist.

2. There is a channel to participate: GitHub. In the best case provide a pull request with code changes, in second best case, make specific proposals in an issue. Don't expect some developer to monitor all social media channels and wait for the community to advise him which work to do. Joomla is coded by volunteers. In my case, I'm doing this coding work late in the evening when I've worked a full day and put the kids to bed. You are asking for "the developers" to listen to the community. There is no difference between the community and the developers and unless you do the work, it is pretty unlikely that it will be done by someone else.

[Webdongle]

... There is no design team...

Why not? Was there nobody capable of being in charge of design or was a design team deemed not necessary.

[Chacapamac]

It was a design team at the start of Joomla 4 development and I try to communicate and help them on Github, by the forum, by mail and I just abandon and come bak to the forum as it was going nowhere...

— GitHub is a coder environment and cannot be used to communicate and work on design and ideas about improving Joomla.

— Many people participate here and give time to create good templates, like kashwar and actual models and bring great ideas, hint and point problems, but, because it is not an official channel, all that work and participation is going to be wasted.

Joomla need a way to channel the great power that resides in the community to help the project.

An IDEA (to develop, just an example...):
Maybe using the actual “Joomla! Ideas Forum” ?
and create rooms on different facets of Joomla (Design-UI-UX, functionalities, Coding & framework, marketing, Suggestions ... etc... (just some subject on top of my head...) where people can discuss and bring their ideas.
The actuals posts should be re-assign to their own room

Ideally and if possible a system of vote on each ideas/post can bring to the top the most liked and interesting topics. (Joomla devs and Users votes should have a different weight or be distinct from one to the other)

For sure the moderators should be the bridge between the Community and the Devs Team, even Team of moderators can become more involve in specific room.

This is just an ideas. Joomla can become a community driven project.

If you take in example this post, I know its possible...

[Hackwar]

... There is no design team...

Why not? Was there nobody capable of being in charge of design or was a design team deemed not necessary.

No one volunteered to do it and stuck around.

[Hackwar]

It was a design team at the start of Joomla 4 development and I try to communicate and help them on Github, by the forum, by mail and I just abandon and come bak to the forum as it was going nowhere...

— GitHub is a coder environment and cannot be used to communicate and work on design and ideas about improving Joomla.

...

Again: You are expecting people to stop their paid work, work for free for Joomla, browse all channels that there are and then directly implement whatever you throw at them. Joomla is a community driven project, since there is no company behind it and not a single paid developer. We are all working on this in our spare time. And especially then, I ration my attention that I give to different channels. That is why I'm not active on the forum or on the defunct ideas forum or by mail or whatever, but just communicate by Github and Ringcentral/Glip. If you want the attention of a developer, go to Github. I honestly have no idea why you think that you could do something here in the forum that you couldn't do in an issue on Github.

You say that a lot of people contribute here and produce great stuff for Joomla. Then where are they? Ask Kawshar and he will tell you how much support he got from the community for his template. Hint: It was 0. Zero. People are quick to complain about stuff and they praised his stuff and bashed the Joomla stuff on Facebook like crazy, but not a single person came forward from those who wrote there and helped out with his backend template.

No one is stopping you from contributing. The code from Joomla is very well structured and no big surprises are hidden. Most of your proposals are just CSS edits. Why don't you edit the accompanying SCSS files and create a pull request for that? You can do that via browser without ever starting an IDE or checking out the code. If you refuse to do the work, why should I do it for you? We are both volunteer members from this community.