On Feb 7, 12:52 pm, "j...@jeffcroft.com" <j...@jeffcroft.com> wrote: > Also, I'll say again: this discussion shouldn't really just be able > the admin interface -- it should be more broad, talking about who can > lead *anything* interaction design-related in the Django community. > > > If the admin application were designed for skinability, which would be > > some work, but which I believe could be done by a non-designer with > > input from various designers as they attempt to write skins, would a > > Design Czar really be necessary? > > I say design leadership is still needed, because this isn't just about > the admin interface, and because it's not just about skinnability, > either. Some of us have ideas for an overarching, sweeping, re- > thinking of the admin interface. There seems to be a misconception > here that we're talking about the admin interface's *look*. I'm not. > I'm talking about its *design*. > > Grappelli has done a great job of skinning the admin interface. But > we're talking about something much greater than that, here (or at > least I am).
You are indeed, but the admin UI is still the center of it. (As for the django website -- I would argue that's really a different matter than developing django itself, and seems to deserve a separate discussion.) I'm guess I'm concerned about small matters that could be addressed more or less immediately getting stalled while a grandiose vision gets sorted out. Rethinking the admin UX would certainly take some leadership, but it would also take considerable buy-in from the devs and the community to actually fly, and take a long time -- and in the meantime, we've got the admin we have now, which regardless is going to need incremental improvement. By all means argue for Py3K-ing (or Perl6-ing :) ) the admin, but closer to hand, it needs a different kind of help. Grappelli is in a crisis of its own because it breaks on django-trunk rather badly; its devs are trying to decide whether they have to fork the admin as a way forward, when really they would rather just skin it. The admin right now can't be skinned in a stable way, which isn't AFAICT because its design makes some assumptions that painfully restrict how it can be skinned -- it is a matter of implementation details: how the javascript is hard-coded, and that sort of thing. (This hugely affects me personally, which is why I'm sticking my neck out and writing about it.) Jeff, you've pointed out that having a design czar is more or less the status quo, except that it hasn't worked in the long term. I question that in the future it would work in the long term any better. Transferring ownership of the position when a czar gets busy with life isn't going to be that straightforward. Finding a way for designers to contribute without a czar being needed strikes me as a better approach. If the admin were truly themeable, that would be the case; the need for a singular czar goes away when you don't have a singular design. My two cents, Jacob S. -- 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.
