[wp-hackers] Menus and Labels and Plugins, oh my!

[Rich Pedley]

Jane Wells wrote:
[mucho snippage]
> As Ryan mentioned, a lot of people had trouble with the Write/Manage
> dichotomy, mainly because editing a post that had been saved or published
> was a confusing thing: were they writing or managing? Technically they're
> writing, but they're also managing. A lot of people also found themselves
> writing Pages instead of Posts accidentally because of the menu structure.

I've usually done it the other way  - writing a post when I meant to
write a page.

> There are two fundamental opinions about navigation here: start with a few
> menus and have deeper/broader subs, or have more main menus, with shallower
> paths and fewer subs. We are basically switching from the former to the
> latter to try and address some of the problems people have had with
> findability, but again, the switch from write/manage to posts/links/media
> etc isn't really adding a bunch more navigation in terms of number of top
> level links, they're just grouped differently.

But it will mean a learning curve for current users, and I can
guarantee now that a good proportion of them won't like it.

> Re: Users menu. In response to the feedback on this list, we're putting the
> Users menu on the top level and leaving it alone for 2.7. However, we do
> want to consolidate it into Settings ultimately, and Ryan's point about a
> tabbed profile page is something I think would work well. For individual
> users, they can still get to their profile screen in one click from the
> Howdy Username link at the top of the screen. By putting off a change to the
> placement of the Users menu, we're trying to accommodate Plugin authors, and
> hopefully we can all work together on a more gradual transition for that
> profile-attached stuff.

Any chance of asking someone really really nicely to add a span around
the word 'Howdy' It can then at least be hidden easily via CSS for
those that don't like it.

> Re: "Wasted space" in the left navigation column. If you look at the amount
> of space currently taken up by the header and the navigation horizontally
> and compare it with the space taken up in 2.7 (well, when 2.7 is styled,
> anyway), it is significantly less, given that most monitors/laptop screens
> are wider than they are tall, and many people's browser windows have similar
> ratios. One of the main reasons we went with left hand navigation was to try
> and use less space for the non-working area.

The current design doesn't work as a lot of people have to scroll up
and down, anything that stops that is a plus. However all this talk
about the menu does make be wonder if it will be keyboard accessible
or not. I really hope it is...

> P.S. Why don't more people trim their posts on this list? Just curious,
> because it's a pain to follow on a mobile device with all those
> fully-included emails.

You sound like you've been around a bit (erm, in a nice way?). The
longer people have been around the more likely they are to snip, and
reply at the bottom. But it's a whole can of worms which I'll try and
stay away from (and probably fail).

Rich Pedley

-- 
my mind is on a permanent tangent
http://cms.elfden.co.uk/