On Sat, Feb 6, 2010 at 1:02 AM, Russell Keith-Magee <freakboy3...@gmail.com> wrote: > On Fri, Feb 5, 2010 at 5:37 PM, j...@jeffcroft.com <j...@jeffcroft.com> wrote: >> All due respect to Wilson (he's a great designer, a good friend, and >> he and I have talked on several occasions about the Django admin >> interface), I have to agree that the Django admin interface is dated >> and has some UI issues that could use work. I can also confirm that >> Wilson himself says this, and won't be offended by anyone else saying >> so. Wilson is one of the very best designers I've ever had the >> pleasure of working with, but he's not immune to the same "God that >> thing I made five years ago kind of sucks by today's standards" >> feeling we all have. >> >> As a designer who has been closely associated with the Django project >> for over four years, I gotta say: the feeling that no one but Wilson >> can contribute to an admin interface redux is a major frustration. >> I've talked about it with other great designers who love Django, >> including Nathan Borror and Bryan Veloso, and I think I can speak for >> all of us when I say we feel as though it's really not worth our time >> to propose an update for the admin interface, because if it doesn't >> come from Wilson, it won't be taken seriously by the core team. > > I'm sorry if I gave that impression. My comments were intended that > while the admin can certainly be improved, but it isn't "fundamentally > flawed" as the OP seemed to imply, and we will hold a very high > standard to anyone proposing design changes. It was also intended to > point out that "OMFG, the design elements aren't all left aligned" > isn't necessarily an indication of bad design. > >> Every time an update to the admin interface comes up, I hear one of >> two arguments against it from core devs, and both of them are, quite >> frankly, inaccurate: >> >> 1. "Wilson is the admin interface's designer, and he'll update it when >> he deems it necessary." -- No, he won't. He's a busy, busy man working >> on paying projects and from my discussions with him, I don't believe >> he has time for this (although I do believe he would *like* to do it). > > I completely agree. Unless Wilson is specifically offering a new > design -- and not in an abstract, "oh yeah, I'll do that" kind of way > -- we should make way for someone else. >
Agree completely. >> 2. "The interface was designed by Wilson F'ing Miner of Apple.com fame >> and therefore it can not possibly have any UI issues." -- Wilson >> himself will be the first person to tell you this isn't true. There >> are UI issues. The look is dated. A lot of the template and javascript >> code sucks. It was a great piece of interaction design in 2005, but >> that was five years ago. Nothing on the web from five years ago is >> still awesome by today's standards. Nothing. > > Again, completely agreed. > Ditto (although I still believe the admin has aged exceptionally well). >> The Django admin needs an update, and I think it's high time the core >> devs start making other talented designers feel as though if they put >> the effort in, their contributions will be seriously considered for >> inclusion in Django. > I honestly don't know where this impression comes from. Either I've missed a long string of messages on this mailing list, or there's something else going on? There have been many improvements to the admin-ui over the past releases including, but no limited to: * admin actions * list editable * the GSOC admin-ui work * readonly fields While none of these are the comprehensive reform that is being discussed here, it's should be clear that improvements are always welcome, but for something large, like a compete refactor, it's going to be the kind of thing where someone needs to do almost all of the work themselves. None of Django's core developers are designers, nor can they necessarily execute someone else's creative vision. > Ok - let me put my cards on the table: > > * I'm a member of the core, and I would *love* to see a comprehensive > design refresh of the admin. > > * Wilson is *not* the only person that can do the job. Wilson is > certainly welcome to propose a design change, but I think this is a > perfect opportunity for Django to shine the spotlight on the design > talent of others in our community. > > * However, the work needs to be done by someone that knows what they > are doing. Wilson's work isn't perfect or irreplaceable by a long > shot, but it does set a high bar. We're not going to change designs > just so we can wash the Wilson out of it. > > * This isn't an exercise we're going to repeat every 3 months just > because we can. If we do a design refresh now, I would expect that we > won't do another one for another couple of years. > > So, to I'd like to make a proposal. Lets have a competition for a > redesign of the admin + databrowse. We accept proposals to anyone that > wants to make them, and the winner gets their code as the new admin > interface in trunk. > Can we please ignore databrowse, not a single patch has touched that since 1.0. I don't know what it's future is, but I question whether anyone gives a damn (and if they do it's certainly not in the way that people care about the admin). > I'm open to suggestions on how to best run the competition; e.g. > > * Time frames? It would be nice to put this into 1.2, but I'm not > sure that gives us enough time to do the job properly. > No way in hell for 1.2. Even if I thought it was possibly in that timeframe (which I don't), we had feature voting, it passed, we had a timeperiod for people to write patches for new features, it passed. Unless you can argue that a new UI is a "bufix" (it's not), it would be procedurally absurd for this to land in 1.2. > * Do we need to write a formal design brief, or do we just say > "everything the admin currently does, but better"? > Everything the admin does, *and* should be ready for the next generation of admin features (those nifty select inlines, etc.). Consider that the current templates have had those "Add another <x>" links commented out for the last 5 years until Jannis landed some of the admin-ui work, the same standard should be held to any new potential design, it should be clearly ready for features we know we want to land (the rest of admin-ui for example). > * Do we need to do this in phases - e.g., phase one for design > proposals, and then phase two for best execution of the design > proposal we pick? > That seems reasonable to me, but I'll add the stipulation that any design proposal must include a commitment to do the implementation, and must include all of the admin's pages. > * Who judges? I'm predisposed to say that the winner should be picked > in the same way that we do feature voting for releases -- binding > votes by the core team, but with input from anyone else that wants to > offer an opinion. > That seems ok with me, I am slightly concerned about the mismatch between the voters and the implementors in this case, but I seem no reasonable alternative. > If this works out well, it might turn in to a model we can reuse. The > DSF has some plans that will require some design work. Semi-regular > design competitions might be one way to draw attention to the awesome > design talent in our community. > > Comments welcome - from other members of the core and the BDFLs in particular. > > Yours, > Russ Magee %-) > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Django developers" group. > To post to this group, send email to django-develop...@googlegroups.com. > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > For more options, visit this group at > http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en. > > My one question is, just how many designs do we expect? This would be a fair body of work to take on, I hardly expect a large swath of people to have the time, skills, and motivation necessary to complete this task. So let's just put out a call, before the 1.3 voting process (i.e. from now until then) we want to see your new admin designs, be they mockups, photoshops, or full HTML/CSS, and see what falls out (after all despite this entire thread I've seen no concrete offers from anyone). Alex -- "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." -- Voltaire "The people's good is the highest law." -- Cicero "Code can always be simpler than you think, but never as simple as you want" -- Me -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Django developers" group. To post to this group, send email to django-develop...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to django-developers+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/django-developers?hl=en.
