[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #32296: Allow the customizer to be made wider

[WordPress Trac]

#32296: Allow the customizer to be made wider
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 Reporter:  grapplerulrich           |       Owner:  jtsternberg
     Type:  enhancement              |      Status:  assigned
 Priority:  normal                   |   Milestone:  4.5
Component:  Customize                |     Version:  3.4
 Severity:  normal                   |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  has-patch needs-testing  |     Focuses:  ui, javascript
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Comment (by celloexpressions):

 I'm still not a fan of doing anything beyond adjusting the default width
 to be percentage based with min/maxs ([attachment:32296.diff]). A few
 design criteria for a potential "grabber", though:
 - UI must not visually conflict with browser scrollbars
 - UI should incorporate the existing Customizer design language in terms
 of colors, widths, etc.
 - There should be a reasonable minimum and maximum width
 - The change must be explained in terms of usefulness with specific
 examples based on core-provided sections and controls. If developers
 design custom sections and controls that are designed to use a wider (or
 narrower) width than the current default, users would need to change the
 width of the customizer controls when switching in and out of those
 sections. That's horrible UX. One of the best parts of the customizer is
 the unity of its UI. I'm very concerned that implementing a grabbing
 resizer will actively encourage fragmentation, and that only hurts users.
 The solution here needs to maintain reasonable defaults and an expectation
 that developers should work to respect them, finding innovative solutions
 like the add-widget slide-out panel when additional space is needed.
 - Any core controls that would benefit from different layouts (not just
 maintaining inputs at 100% width) with a wider width should be updated to
 adapt appropriately. If there are none, should we be making this change?
 - Extensive user testing for discoverability, usability/functionality, and
 purpose/usefulness needs to be conducted. If results don't indicate that
 there's a need for it, we should keep something like a grabber as a plugin
 and instead go with a simpler solution for core.

 We often hear complaints that the customizer is "too narrow", "cramped",
 etc. But before rushing to make a change that could potentially cause
 significant usability problems for the majority of users and encourage
 developers to build unusable UIs, we need to make sure that the issue is
 clearly defined. I don't think we should try to get this into 4.5 unless
 the above points can be addressed objectively first. It would be worth
 taking some extra time to do user testing though. I can't remember any
 complaints about the size of the customizer controls window in any of the
 previous customizer user testing we've done for core.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/32296#comment:37>
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