2.1 CSS

[davo88]

Admin_CP_revamp.jpg
Having everything left justified is definitely easier to read than the current centred style. And it looks snappy too.

Admin_menu_revamp.jpg
But the all text style is great for actually finding stuff. Particularly if the all the drop downs work so you can get to any menu level from the one page.

[Antechinus]

They all work. Essentially it's the standard drop menu, but with the first lot of drops being permanently on display.

An alternative way of looking at it is that it's the old sidebar menu, with drops, and rearranged as a top panel in columns (which is what I actually developed that example from). That same markup can easily be done as a sidebar, and of course the sidebar can be off screen on a phone, sliding in via tap on a hamburger.

I have thought of getting rid of all icons, because on a complex menu they do tend to be nothing more than a distraction. Nobody can remember all the icons anyway, so it's the text you need to tell you what does what. It might work better with icons if they were more subdued. The "box of fluorescent crayons" look doesn't really work on a menu, IMO.

"Admin_CP_revamp" was just me doing what could be done with it quickly, with only basic CSS tweaks, as a change from grumbling that it was useless. It's still no good for general navigation because it's only available on the admin home page but, since it is there by default, someone might want it easier to use and looking snappier.

[Sir Osis of Liver]

Do you *really* need to rub it in? We get it that you don't like it already.

I'm not trying to rub it in, but it should never have come down to this after ten years of development.  I still have some files I posted in 2015, possibly on team board (you might be able to find it), with a suggested modification to ACP, which, whether good or bad, were not d/l'd even once, no one even bothered to look.  Ant's been knocking out better alternatives one after the other for a couple weeks now in his spare time, why weren't they considered back in alpha?  The reason is the people who were running the project at the time had pretty much everything chiseled in stone before alpha was even released, and those of us who disagreed with the plan were rebuffed (or worse), and any unfavorable criticisms or suggestions were ignored.  Not surprising that most of the devs who started 2.1 were long gone by the time it was released. 

Brings to mind the Win 8 fiasco.  MS devs ignored the overwhelmingly negative feedback from beta testers (what do they know), released a crappy ui, and wouldn't admit they'd laid an egg until oems started screaming about all the new computers that were being returned. 

Sad thing is, we're probably stuck with what we have for the next ten years or so.  Any improvements will only be made available as mods.

[Arantor]

Look, I made these changes in 2013. I even posted screenshots at the time. No one seemed to dislike it much *then*.

I can't vouch for what happened after that though. 2015 was a time I wasn't here much. Nor was I team...

[Kindred]

We did not have negative feedback from the beta testers.....

[Antechinus]

Obvious question: did they actually use it?

My guess (based on my own experience) is that people didn't bother complaining about it because it's down the bottom, of one page only. Invisible even on that page unless you go looking for it, and not accessible at all on any other page, so they simply used the menu instead.

[@rjen]

We did not have negative feedback from the beta testers.....

I can only speak for myself, but when beta testing I focus on technical issues, not functional...

But since there are many people around that see functional improvements today, perhaps they can join the beta test team as well?