[MTOS-dev] Template Listing Screen

[Mark Carey]

I agree with all of Jay's comments, and I have one more to add:

(Note: I haven't tried the beta yet, so comment is based only on screen snaps.)

There doesn't appear to be a way from the listing screen to tell
whether an index template is set to "build with indexes".  Such an
indicator is VERY, VERY, important IMO (and more important than the
'linked to file' indicator).  Some sites (rightly or wrongly) have a
large number of index templates and some of them are not not set to
rebuild with indexes (usually for performance reasons).  Being able to
see at a glance which indexes get built with indexes is a "must have"
feature in my view....

-Mark

On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 9:44 PM, Jay Allen <jay at endevver.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Apr 9, 2008 at 5:00 PM, Beau Smith <beau at sixapart.com> wrote:
>  > What do y'all think of the new template and widget listing screens?
>  >
>  >  http://www.movabletype.org/2008/04/movable_type_415_beta_1_now_av.html
>
>  Hey Beau,
>
>  Thanks for asking.  As someone who lives in these screens, I do have
>  some feedback.  Actual *constructive* feedback.  :-)
>
>  Frankly, I'm mixed.  I definitely DO like having access to all of the
>  templates from one screen and I love seeing the output file/archive
>  path right there in the listing.  It's a very nice efficiency
>  improvement. However, there are a few things big and small that bother
>  me in using it:
>
>   1) I would like to be able to act on templates of different types
>  together via the buttons and/or itemset action dropdown.
>   2) The Quickfilters aren't as quick as I'd like, requiring a page
>  load instead of simply filtering the list with Javascript.
>   3) Once I use the QuickFilter, I can't figure out how to get BACK to
>  the full all templates listing without going to Design > Templates in
>  the top nav.
>   4) I'm worried that the listings might be missing some really crucial
>  pieces of data in the template options which could make debugging
>  certain template issues maddening, but I will admit that I have not
>  enabled caching for ANY templates so perhaps you guys handled this
>  well with the "Publishing" column.
>
>  My hopes for this combination of pages would best be described by
>  looking at, for example, iTunes.  I was hoping for one big old list of
>  templates with various columns display relevant and important metadata
>  for each.  All of the templates could be acted on as one (except in
>  cases where it didn't make sense, like deleting system templates) and
>  the listing could be filtered dynamically by name, type or other
>  metadata without having to do the whole page reload (like the iTunes
>  search bar filter and/or browser functionality).
>
>  I certainly understand that there are OTHER usability issues to deal
>  with when you combine the templates into one large listing but I was
>  pretty confident that those could be solved to make the experience
>  easy to understand AND super-efficient.  I do think that this is an
>  improvement assuming that the navigation BACK to the unfiltered
>  listing can be made obvious.  I just wish the filtering were a little
>  more dynamic overall.
>
>  --
>  Jay Allen
>  Endevver Consulting
>  415-200-6985
>
>
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