[TYPO3-hci] new skin

[Alex Heizer]

Hi,

Thomas Murphy wrote:
> Andreas Balzer wrote:
>   
>> As already mentioned in the design group, the skin of lasse with the 
>> dhtml pop out menu would be nice to see in TYPO3 4.5.
>>
>> Someone could contact him maybe..
>>     
>
> He was part of the initial "TYPO3 skinning team", but unfortunately we 
> "lost contact" to him.
>   
If his role is to redo the BE to be all DHTML pop out menu based, please 
let him stay lost. ;)
> The drop-down menu is in discussion, personally I don't like it at all, 
> but afaik Kasper and some others do.
> Don't know what will happen, as I don't see those changes done without a 
> proper restructuring of the API and BE-interface first.
>   
I think any restructuring that needs to be made should be on the 
processing end, for example, when you click something, the system 
processes it a certain way. In my experience training several hundred 
people who actually use the system for what it is designed for on a 
daily basis (maintaining a website as an editor), the current interface 
and way of completing necessary tasks is perfect (well, maybe it needs a 
little "polishing"). Other CMSes have different interfaces than T3, 
which makes this a big selling point to use T3 over anything else. 
Changing the interface to make editors pull down a DHTML menu instead of 
clicking an item that is already right in front of them would be a great 
step backwards for the interface and would only help to make the UI worse.

True, it may be nicer for admins and T3 developers to have "nice" 
features that hide everything and make it look pretty, but the UI 
already works perfectly for editors and to take it in the direction of 
other CMSes' bad UI's would be a mistake. It's different when you make a 
site and move on to the next one, if T3 wants to be used, let's improve 
what made it as used as it is and keep it easy for editors to work in 
the system every day. People are already complaining about usability 
issues with having too many options right out in front of everyone 
(look, they can choose *this*, *that* or *this other one*), but I don't 
think hiding all the options and forcing them to pull down a menu and 
*then* choose among all the available options (which some people think 
are too many) would be a step in the right direction.

I hope those doing the restructuring realise there is a difference 
between restructuring the API and changing the interface, and I hope 
they are reading this list. The current UI works great for content 
editors, so should be improved, not changed. A site may have one 
developer who works on it for a week or a month, but a dozen editors who 
work on it for years. Changing it to be better for a developer but worse 
for an editor would be a selfish move on our part, so I hope that any 
changes are kept with this in mind.

Just my thoughts on an already great UI.
Alex
> bye,
> Thomas
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