Hi there...
My name is Marek Sotak and I am a drupal developer, consultant and designer currently based in Prague, however traveling to London quite often. :) I have more than 8 years of experience creating customized web applications for clients.
My areas of expertise include graphic design, custom websites, and Flash applications. I also specialize in Drupal, a highly customizable and robust content-management system (themes, module development). I am a co-founder of Atomic Ant ltd. Click here to contact me
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January 12th
Drupal Admin theme - mock ups vol1
Submitted by sign on Sat, 01/12/2008 - 14:33.See the latest rootcandy screenshots
RootCandy screenshots album
Update 14/1/2008 21:45
Little navigation enhancements for long pages.
see files 01.png, 02.png, 03.png -> anchor links.
Update 14/1/2008 18:45
A little update for those who are following :)
Few small changes, such as history button, which will show last pages visited by user. Found it helpful on another system.
--
I did a small research (on myself) about how many clicks are useless when administering drupal using default garland theme. I like improving user interfaces and giving users something more useful.
So, I started to think about drupal admin theme and it's usability. Here is the first mock-up (well I have more pages designed, but still working on that), click for higher resolution.
All administration should happen within this theme, thats why there is a button on top saying 'back to homepage'. In drupal 6 we can use admin theme for edit/add nodes so users won't have to leave the theme. Haven't tested it yet, I hope that there won't be a redirect ;) or at least the ?destination will work :) not an issue right now. :)
5 main sections have icons. There is still some place for other modules to hook in (for example organic groups - as far as i remember they have its own admin > og page)
Underneath the blue bar, there might be a 'bookmarks tab', I found it quite useful for tasks you are performing every day. Let's say checking logs, comments in queue, etc... The plus sign will allow you to add current page to bookmarks.
Navigation system
I am very big fan of gmail. I guess you have already noticed that ;) There are no breadcrumbs, as they won't be needed. You will be always able to see structure where you came from, and easily click through.
This is really just a snippet of what I have in my mind and I will post more ideas and mock-ups later. Mainly I want to change main admin site - use something like a widgets in there, so admins will be able to build theres own admin welcome page with blocks, widgets, tips, etc...
And this is how dashboard could look like:
...icons are from tango project. planning to make my own if needed.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| admin_site_config.png | 81.11 KB |
| admin_site_config_2nd_3.png | 97.82 KB |
| admin_dashboard.png | 116.28 KB |
| admin_site_config_2nd_5.png | 126.78 KB |
| admin_site_config_2nd_5_small.png | 38.31 KB |
| 01.png | 145.54 KB |
| 02.png | 38.33 KB |
| 03.png | 39.68 KB |
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Good Work
This kind of work is really needed. I'm leaving for vacation tomorrow. So, I can't look to closely at this yet. But when I get back next week I will. The screenshots look like a good start.
This will really benefit Drupal.
Also, I've got a Drupal Series of articles being published over at gomediazine. Its to get people excited about Drupal. I focus on a fictitious band website in the Series. GoMedia is known for doing branding work for clients in the Music Industry. http://www.gomediazine.com/tutorials/create-a-killer-band-site-with-drup...
Thanks.
Great work
Hey Marek !
Your Ideas are quite similar at what we are up to in groups usability http://groups.drupal.org/node%252F417
Wouldn't you like to join us? Especially on mondays, since we hold a regular meeting on IRC on #drupal-themes at 18.00 UTC every monday.
Cheers Thomas - eigentor
Very Nice
Very nice job but why D6? D5 is going to be around for for a wile and most people will not move to D6 till most of the useful module are ported to D6. The admin panel is why my wife will not use drupal she said it to techie for her and she gets lost in it, though its great for me. This will be a nice addition to D6.
Hi Tom, well, it could be
Hi Tom,
well, it could be for d5 too, however I want to develope it first and then backport it.
Image Licenses
Just so you don't get stuck in a situation like ours, you might consider using something other than Tango icons for the project. They are licensed GPL, so it's my understanding they shouldn't be put up on d.o. I'm not casting stones, b/c I did that with Ubercart before I realized the problem! Anyways, I'm trying to find an alternate solution right now... unless you can somehow petition them to give us GPL for Drupal usage. :P
Yes Ryan, you are right, I
Yes Ryan,
you are right, I thought that they are gpl, was so obvious to me as they are used in some GPLed applications, such as gnome, but now I have found out that they are strugling with licensing. I will remove them from drupal cvs :/ and will create my own. Maybe they will use GPL in the future. Thanks for pointing this.
This is great initiative.
This is great initiative. One truly needs to be patient to do Drupal administration at the moment.
I'll certainly follow up how this develop. It seems to me that design you put together is also going to need couple of modules. Maybe it ends up as Drupal admin package.
This is an amazing effort
This is an amazing effort that wouldn't sacrifice on Drupal's complexity but would introduce it to beginners. Personally, I would probably still add the Administration Menu for myself but having this in core would make me very happy.
Yes you are right, it will
Yes you are right, it will need atleast one module for sure. Still investigating to not overwhelm it.
There is so much effort
There is so much effort going on on d.o. regarding 'admin theme' and its usability. I am trying to follow it, however I don't have very much time to read thru comments and try to convince everyone to do what I think is right :) So I am still building what I want, and anyone can take ideas from this theme (as they did). So probably this won't make it to the core. :)
Hey, This is a great theme /
Hey,
This is a great theme / project! It would give starters a nice, simple overview without making compromises! I surely will follow this project!
In a month or 3 i think 75%
In a month or 3 i think 75% is in D6. Why make the effort to backport it?