Thinking about Reorganizing SMF 2.0.x's Admin Area

[dougiefresh]

I've been looking at SMF 2.1 Alpha 1 and like it's admin area a bit better.  Been thinking about reorganizing the admin area of SMF 2.0.x to more closely resemble SMF 2.1 Alpha 1....  Aside from the number of code changes involved with this change, does anybody have an opinion on this?

Thanks in advance....

[Arantor]

1. It will be a maintenance nightmare.
2. It will break a good deal of mod compatibility.

It's going to be bad enough for modders updating to 2.1 without forcing it on 2.0 users too.

[dougiefresh]

1. It will be a maintenance nightmare.
2. It will break a good deal of mod compatibility.

It's going to be bad enough for modders updating to 2.1 without forcing it on 2.0 users too.

Good points.... Scratch this idea....  Can you lock this thread?  Thanks....

[Arantor]

Why lock it? It's a valid question because 2.0's admin area IS terrible. I deliberately made a series of conscious efforts in 2.1 to do something about it though time will tell whether I did a good job or not. Certainly things being in a different place is a culture shock to adapt to.

[dougiefresh]

Why lock it? It's a valid question because 2.0's admin area IS terrible. I deliberately made a series of conscious efforts in 2.1 to do something about it though time will tell whether I did a good job or not. Certainly things being in a different place is a culture shock to adapt to.

Yup... Sure is....

1. It will be a maintenance nightmare.

How so?

[Arantor]

Even putting aside the mod compat issue, if you try to rewrite the admin panel, it will be a huge headache because to build it and then bug fix it is a huge task. It's frankly scary how much the whole thing is a little fragile.

If you're just moving entire areas around that's not too bad but anything more subtle is a headache.

[dougiefresh]

Well, I noticed so far that the pages are pretty much the same and I figured that if I just rearranged the areas and subareas to match the "new style" of 2.1 alpha 1, I wouldn't have to do much coding.....  That's my two cents....  Hold on.... I misplaced my two cents.... 

Besides, just about any mod can break compatibility with other mods..... 

[Arantor]

Trust me, it really isn't that simple. Just moving stuff around isn't too bad, until you start doing some of the splitting of pages, which requires changing the forms themselves and the functions themselves...

[dougiefresh]

Wasn't too bad, IMHO....  SMF 2.1-style Admin Area waiting for approval.... 

Typing in any URL from the pure-stock forum works even after installing the mod.....  That took some work, though 

EDIT: Changed the name of the mod.....

[Arantor]

Hmm. I'll reserve judgement until I see it - not because I have doubts about your coding but because I know just how fragile SMF's code is.

[dougiefresh]

Fair enough....

[Kindred]

Hmmmm... That mod seems to presuppose that the admin is using the left menus rather than the drop downs...   

[dougiefresh]

Hmmmm... That mod seems to presuppose that the admin is using the left menus rather than the drop downs...

No, the picture does.  But it's rather hard to show the changes using a drop-down menu instead of a sidebar menu.  The user still has a choice of whether to use the side menus or drop downs.  The mod simply makes the changes to make the admin menu of 2.0 line up with 2.1 Alpha 1, which will reflect in both the sidebar and drop down menus.

[Hj Ahmad Rasyid Hj Ismail]

What will this mod do in organizing admin area / page? I do have some ideas in arranging mod settings menu especially its area, a bit. I was thinking that mod settings menu ought to have its own top menu since most mod that requires activation will use it. There is also no link to package manager from there which is useful if you are doing a lot of testing / (un)installation.

[dougiefresh]

Menu Changes Involved
o Configuration => Security and Moderation is now hidden.
o Added Configuration => Anti-Spam (from Configuration => Security and Moderation)
o Added Forum => Attachments & Avatars => Attachment Directories
o Moved Bulletin Board Code from Forum => Posts & Topics to Configuration => Features & Options
o Moved Members => Search Engines to Forum => Search Engines
o Moved Configuration => Server Settings to Maintenance => Server Settings
o Moved Configuration => Security and Moderation => Moderation Settings to Members => Warnings
o Calling Configuration => Security and Moderation subsections via url redirects to correct location
o Calling Forum => Posts & Topics => Bulletin Board Code via url redirects to correct location

Attached is a screenshot of the new Adminstration Center page, modeled after SMF 2.1 Alpha 1's Admin Center.....

[Arantor]

That's one way to do it, yes. Nice job.

[dougiefresh]

Thanks!   

[dougiefresh]

What will this mod do in organizing admin area / page? I do have some ideas in arranging mod settings menu especially its area, a bit. I was thinking that mod settings menu ought to have its own top menu since most mod that requires activation will use it. There is also no link to package manager from there which is useful if you are doing a lot of testing / (un)installation.

I personally think that these are great ideas and I had already implemented them in Real Tabs for Admin and Moderators version 2.0+.  However, they aren't in SMF 2.1, so they would fall outside the purview of this mod, since the goal of this mod is to reorganize to closely follow SMF 2.1 Alpha 1....