[wp-hackers] WP 2.7 menu sidebar

[Jeremy Clarke]

Thoughts:

'Templates' - I think this is an unnecessary change from the 'Design'
label introduced in 2.5. There are all kinds of things that could be
under this menu that aren't directly related to templates, and I don't
think it adds anything that 'Design' Doesn't already get across (while
the opposite is not true). I know that part of the idea is to move
away from 'verbs' and towards 'nouns', but in this case I think Design
really works both ways. You click the Design tab to work on 'your
design', or 'the design' of the blog, which includes selecting theme
as well as things like header images and custom css etc. Hell, even
'widgets' don't really make sense under the 'template' header, as they
are core functionality. Alternately, 'Theme' would be another good
candidate for a label. Templates is just really confusing, because
it's synonymous with 'themes' but has never been used in WP land
before.

'Utilities' - this just bums me out. I feel like this will confuse
people used to the current interface and is a bit haphasard about what
goes in. Couldn't tags and categories be in content? Plugin pages
under 'Users' are appearing under 'utilities'? I'm sure this stuff
will get cleaned up going forward, it's hard to move them without
creating new headings, but maybe that's necessary?

Draggability - While I definitely respect that you guys are bringing
back the draggable posting screen, I think that sacrificing the big
surface for opening/closing metaboxes isn't really worth it. Right now
you can only open and close them by clicking the tiny arrow on the
left, whereas the whole space is reserved for dragging. It would be
nice if instead most of the space was devoted to opening/closing
(which people are liable to do each time they post) and the drag zone
was much smaller, as it should theoretically only be used once per
computer you post from. If there was a 'drag me' icon that showed when
you mouse over the heading of the metabox then people would probably
have a pretty easy time moving things around without being shown.
Here's a screenshot of what i mean:

http://simianuprising.com/images/crazyhorse-dragvsopen.png

-- 
Jeremy Clarke | http://simianuprising.com
Code and Design | http://globalvoicesonline.org