[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:  westonruter
     Type:  feature request          |      Status:  reviewing
 Priority:  high                     |   Milestone:  4.9
Component:  Customize                |     Version:  4.2
 Severity:  normal                   |  Resolution:
 Keywords:  has-screenshots has-     |     Focuses:  ui, accessibility,
  user-testing has-patch needs-      |  javascript
  testing ux-feedback                |
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Comment (by celloexpressions):

 Thanks for the feedback! Lots of great enhancements in here.
 https://github.com/xwp/wordpress-develop/pull/216 has been updated to
 address today's comments, except as noted/commented below:

 > - I don't think the feature filters should be sticky when open. I
 scrolled down to look at the theme results, and can barely see a full row
 on my screen.
 The thought is that they can be more-easily toggled when you're further
 down the list, for example if you want to check what you selected but may
 not change it, since you can toggle it back closed. I typically see users
 scroll very far down the list trying to find something they like; my
 prediction is that making the bar sticky (only when it fits on the screen)
 improves the likelihood that they will try another filter if they get far
 into the results and aren't finding anything that they like. Worth getting
 additional feedback on this - it's easy to remove if we decide it doesn't
 make sense. Might also be worth considering a visible icon showing that it
 toggles (like the +/x on add widget/menu-items).

 > - The background colors behind the theme filters and the theme list feel
 a little awkward to me — I've attached a screenshot of an alternate set of
 colors that uses #eee for the background, adds some additional borders,
 and changes the theme name background to white.
 Updated similar to your screenshot, and also fixed the use of color in the
 theme details modal to better match the existing customizer design
 language in terms of contrast and hover/focus styles. (the #dd was
 @folletto's suggestion from above, but it starts to be too many shades of
 gray)

 > - What if we showed your current theme (maybe condensed down to a
 smaller preview) above the Installed/.org filters?
 Can you mockup what this might look like? I know @folletto did a few
 iterations of this back in 4.2. We may not want to hold up the initial
 commit for this, but it should be a reasonably quick addition before beta.
 There's plenty of space here and that could help alleviate the concerns
 @folletto expressed earlier. However, we should probably also distinguish
 between "live" and "current" in this space if those aren't the same, and
 that could use further technical investigation as well.

 > - What if we added some help text or a description to this panel?
 There is already a description/help text for the panel, under the help
 icon (where panel descriptions show up by default). It could definitely be
 expanded on if you have any suggestions.

 > - Bug: if I search in installed themes and I get a single result, the
 wording is still plural ("1 themes")
 This is dependent on more robust core JS i18n functions or a hack that
 won't work for all languages. I'd lean against the hack here since it's
 not super common (except on local searches).

 > - Bug: if I go to "WordPress.org themes", search a string, clear the
 field, and then switch back to "Installed themes", the old search string
 is still present.
 This had been intentional (to avoid clearing a search when switching
 back), but I agree that it's not expected behavior. It should now always
 sync the search bar, even if it's empty.

 > - Bug: if I filter .org themes (i.e. "Editor Style") the counter goes
 from 5k to 1k themes. Then I add another (i.e. "Holidays") and it goes
 down to 45. Then I remove both quickly in sequence and the count goes back
 to 1k themes instead than 5k. Concurrency issues?
 Sounds like a race condition, possibly where we need debouncing on the
 filter checking? However, there are provisions to intercept results for an
 outdated set of filters or search terms that should be applying here...
 could use additional testing to nail down exactly how it happens.

 If we can finalize design direction by the end of this week, I can most
 likely get uploading working this weekend, which would put us on target to
 get that in by Beta 1. My current thought is that it should be a separate
 section header, but that the actual uploading should take place in the
 preview area. Once upload is complete, there could be buttons to upload
 another theme, live preview, or view all installed themes (linking to that
 section, which would now include the uploaded theme). We should discuss
 further on that ticket.

 One other note - can we live with the icons/animation on mobile for now,
 or do we want to try to go to the arrows? That's been a very tricky UI to
 implement in the past but we can try here.

 @joyously: I have not seen that - I believe that was supposed to be
 removed in 4.7, but maybe it's back as part of the drafting work?
 @westonruter may know.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/37661#comment:195>
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