[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #37661: A New Experience for Discovering, Installing, and Previewing Themes in the Customizer

[WordPress Trac]

#37661: A New Experience for Discovering, Installing, and Previewing Themes in the
Customizer
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 Reporter:  celloexpressions         |       Owner:  celloexpressions
     Type:  feature request          |      Status:  assigned
 Priority:  high                     |   Milestone:  4.7
Component:  Customize                |     Version:  4.2
 Severity:  normal                   |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  has-patch has-           |     Focuses:  ui, accessibility,
  screenshots needs-testing has-     |  javascript
  user-testing ux-feedback           |
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Comment (by folletto):

 After today's discussion, I uploaded two i3 versions.

 The two proposals share many improvements, and incorporate the feedback
 from the chat:

 1. It changes the mental model from i2. The i2 model was "themes are
 higher in the hierarchy, thus they are to the left of the customizer". The
 i3 model is "we zoom out from the previewed theme so we can see all the
 themes".
 2. It reuses the customizer UI patterns as much as possible, keeping the
 bar on the side and inheriting the behaviour where any action there gets
 "updated" the view to the right. This is a customizer's fundamental
 action, so user should be facilitated by that.
 3. All the filters and interactions are on the left, with the only
 exception of the theme picking action.
 4. The theme info box still appears as overlay, no change there.
 5. Yes, I hate that search box too. However that's a limitation of the
 .org theme showcase API, so we have to deal with that until search becomes
 transversal to filters and not a filter on its own.
 6. A benefit of reusing customizer patterns is that the UI is thus very
 extensible. New sections can be easily added as filters.
 7. Mobile reuses the same customizer pattern of "previewing", creating a
 nice flow: change theme → select criteria → see themes list. Also should
 make it easier to build since there aren't anymore blocks that move from
 the side to below, stacking. This approach is meant to be highly reusable,
 and it's something we can then iterate on in a future release.

 The difference between i3a and i3b:

 * i3a "Standard Slide" reuses to a higher extent existing customizer
 patterns, and achieves more clarity in each of the filtering sections.
 * i3b "Accordion" reintroduces momentarily an old pattern. The reason for
 this should be to make it easier to build.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/37661#comment:53>
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