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2.5 dashboard organization
rbrahmson
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I wish some of the dashboard options were differently arranged. If it were up to me I'd put Users and Roles on the same menu group (currently Roles is under Settings while Users are under Moderation). At the minimum I'd add Users to Settings.
Just my opinion.
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I'm not happy with the layout, I would prefer the modern dashboard style with a navigation on the left like you could find it in nearly every dashboard template.
But the separation has some kind of logic: the options you find under moderation are all content related. Settings are forum specific settings.
When your forum has moderators, they should be able to support you by only using the moderation section: they must be able to edit users, maybe are allowed to add and edit messages and so on.
You want them to help you manage the content of your forum, not the settings.
Moderation = Content
Settings = Configuration
Yea, still, the person who manages users may need to manage roles as well. It's the separation between users and roles that bugs me...
I have to agree. I would say the new dashboard design is a bust as well. I can find everything. Most of it is counterintuitive and harder to use than previous version.
Pragmatism is all I have to offer. Avoiding the sidelines and providing centerline pro-tips.
They are separated by workflow. (Naturally, that means they are also separated by permission.) As @R_J correctly points out, Moderation is for content and Settings for config. "Users" and "Roles" are logically related, sure, but they are certainly not functionally equivalent in how you use them. The Dashboard isn't designed as a mind-mapping of concepts, it's for ease of use. And that means also considering what "ease of use" means to teams, not just single owner/operators.
The tabbed interface allows us to add new areas to the product without an infinitely-long menu. For instance, our cloud offering at the higher tiers has an "Analytics" tab that offers its own very long menu of charts and graphs.
The "Moderation" screen is what folks need to use day-to-day in the operation of forum. We expect folks to use those options weekly or more often (sometimes constantly on high-traffic sites).
The "Settings" screen is what folks are probably only using during initial setup, or when making broad changes to the structure or functionality of their site. We expect folks to use those options maybe monthly or less after initial setup.
The Dashboard design was done with much consideration of future goals, so I wouldn't call this the final iteration but rather a big step towards where we're headed. We made some small organizational compromises in the present to set us up for better success in the future.
Even if the new setup/"architecture" is future bound there are currently options that can be reorganized differently. I'd say that the Vanilla team would never pick the organization that gets everyone happy. So while I like the concept of grouping I'd like to let admins reorg the options in every group as they wish.
Substituting configuration options for difficult design decisions is antithetical to our philosophy.
I am sorry to read that. IMHO the presumption is that (1) You will find a solution to the difficult design issue, and (2) that whatever your decision will be, it will satisfy every admin out there who may have their own view and workflow.
In the meanwhile, will you tell me how to add "Users" to the "Settings" under "Membership" (while still keeping it under "Moderation" as it is today)?
You will figure that out by looking at applications/vanilla/settings/class.hooks.php
Search for the dashboardNavModule_init_handler method.
Thanks!
Since it would be really easy to create a custom dashboard theme where you could a) stuff everything on one page and b) order it the way you like, I don't understand the need for having some configuration options.
Vanilla is not about providing as much triggers and knobs as possible. It's strength lies in providing an extensible codebase to create everything you need on your own, that's why it is my preferred forum solution
I would say the goal is to not shirk the challenge of number one, and we're not deluded into thinking two is possible. Abdicating design decisions creates more complex software, which in other discussions you'll then lambast us for not maintaining its backwards compatibility perfectly with our available resources.
Criticism-based discussions on this site often seem to start with a shake of the mental Etch-A-Sketch, discarding all the connections and limitations of the last discussion. It's my team's job to never do that. Coding is the easy part.
@link - in the point of being criticized no matter what you do - I fully concur and sympathize. See this. I also accept your point on allocating limited resources. I hope it wouldn't be offensive if I may find some future time to try to write a plugin that reorganized the options (not sure I will). Thank you for supporting the open source community.
I’ve never been offended by a plugin.
Well. Signatures comes close.