Sometimes our admin ui is crap, depending on the screen size/resolution/browser width combination. Should we jump on the responsive design bandwagon with the admin for the next major release? Thinking maybe @saracannon could head it up if so, given her previous experiments with same?
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Jane Wells
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Andrew Ozz 8:18 pm on July 6, 2011 Permalink |
I was planning to do some testing/fixes for iPad + friends, mostly to make our JS tap aware and the CSS rotation aware. Not sure we can achieve proper support for smaller screens.
saracannon 8:31 pm on July 6, 2011 Permalink |
I wonder what the percentage of users access their site via the browser on mobile / ipad rather than an app. I can see optimizing for mobile to be very helpful. Just took a look at 3.2 on my iphone … there is a lot of potential, especially for the collapsed-menu to work really nicely.
Andrew Ozz 8:50 pm on July 6, 2011 Permalink |
Looking at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers the global percentage is quite low but growing. Surely something to think about, maybe not for 3.3 but soon. I think tmce will have support for iOS in the next major version too.
RyanWilliams 4:00 pm on July 19, 2011 Permalink |
There’s an official WordPress app which strives to provide an optimal small screen experience. Should this effort not be combined with any effort to make the admin UI itself work well on small screens?
As users of the iPhone Facebook app probably know, it’s a bug-ridden mess that has less features and a more fiddly interface than the more recent mobile-optimised site — yet it’s still promoted as the optimal small screen interface.
It’s only after months if not years of this horror that they’re finally conglomerating the two (the app’s news feed now literally just fetches the mobile site’s HTML and shows it in an an-app Safari window). Ideally this process will be avoided for WordPress.
saracannon 8:20 pm on July 6, 2011 Permalink |
This is very true. Especially when it comes to very large monitors. I find myself shrinking down my window for my post editor because I dont want to type across the screen. Simple limitations and modifications could potentially go a long way. I would love to start looking into this.
Jane Wells 8:50 pm on July 6, 2011 Permalink |
Yep. It’s officially your project.
Investigate/experiment at will, report to me + @azaozz as things come up so we can discuss anything contentious, and let’s start using UI meetings for it. I’ll put out a call for people to help. A lot of people would like it to look better on their high res screens.
Hugo Baeta 3:56 pm on July 7, 2011 Permalink |
And the other way around would be interesting too. What about optimizing the admin for smaller mobile screens?
saracannon 7:41 pm on July 7, 2011 Permalink |
I agree hugo
and the iphone needs some love anyway. check out the WP logo in these screen shots: http://cl.ly/1Y2O14252d2l1W0b0B0G
Zoomed: http://cl.ly/1n2X1M2t3z2n3K322T22
I havent looked yet to see if there is a ticket…
In thinking about this when it comes to the mobile bag of worms: if we start heading that direction for small optimization we’re getting closer to an app-like-influence. One idea would be to somehow encourage / force collapse the side admin menu and have the icons larger to make it more interface-like but still keep the style of the admin intact.
I can see a use case for when moderating comments via email.. clicking on the link.. going to the wp-admin in your phone’s browser.. (at least the log in screen is already optimized! yay!) and having it be actually a decent experience where you dont have to zoom to read it or fumble to click the 8px button that is “spam”
side note: I updated all my network to 3.2 from my iphone just the other day… I dont believe you can do that from the iOS app. If we decide to work on improving the mobile “wp-admin” experience, everyone could possibly feel comfortable updating their sites and posting/moderating on the go.
Jorge Bernal 4:47 pm on July 27, 2011 Permalink |
Yep, we (mobile team) get lots of feature requests to add “advanced” features to the mobile apps (user/plugin management, specific plugin support, …).
If wp-admin adapts well to small screens, the apps could just focus on the most useful features (posting, moderating, reading)
And besides the apps, for many people (specially Asia and Africa) mobile internet is their only internet. Ideally you should be able to set up WordPress and use it from any mobile device (Opera and Nokia are stil big), without needing to go to a computer. That’s probably way beyond the scope for 3.3, but I think it should be a long term goal.
For 3.3, I’d be really happy with an improved experience on iOS and Android
If you need testing, coding, or anything for this, we’re here to help
Ran Yaniv Hartstein 3:50 pm on July 7, 2011 Permalink |
I like the idea of a more width-sensitive Dashboard – the Dashboard now can get quite weird on large monitors too, with very long lines for example in the settings pages.
Elio 7:01 pm on July 7, 2011 Permalink |
An outstanding move. Large monitors could use two sidebars instead of one in the post/page writing screen.
How can I contribute to this?
Chelsea 6:14 pm on July 18, 2011 Permalink |
Helpful new discovery from @stephdau: http://www.getskeleton.com/