Hi Caty and all, On Sep 12, 2011, at 6:35 PM, Ecaterina Moraru (Valica) wrote:

Hi Vincent,

On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 16:04, Vincent Massol <[email protected]> wrote:

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Hi devs,

I've just installed a new wiki with someone (an xwiki newbie) and realized that we have some usability issues. I'm listing just one below to start with.

Usability issue #1: Color theme usage

Story: * A user wants to change the logo * First he has to know it's done in the Color theme but let's imagine that this is fine… (although it's not since Color theme means changing colors, not the logo…)

The logo can be changed also from XWiki.DefaultSkin

Thanks for reminding me. I wasn't sure if we had dropped the "old" way of doing this. I personally don't like it too much when there are different ways of achieving the same result but this was probably left to preserve backward compatibility. BTW I check the documentation on xwiki.org about changing the logo and: 1) it's not very to find this information IMO 2) I could only find explanations about how to do that using a custom skin and not using a color theme. It's not even mentioned on http://extensions.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Extension/Color+Theme+Application :( I've found that developers usually develop new feature and forget to update the documentation. That's a problem. See below for more comments.

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* He click on "customize" for the Color Theme then realizes that he wants his own color theme (for ex because he doesn't want that a future upgrade overwrites his theme) * He clicks on manager color themes * He sees the "create new color theme" and use it. However he finds that the new color theme isn't the same as the color theme he wants to use as the basis for the new color theme (btw the new color theme should be the default color theme IMO and not a different one as it is now). * Then he's stuck because the doesn't offer the possibility to copy an existing theme * Imagine that he understands that he can go a color theme page and click the copy action… * He goes there clicks copy, he finds that he wants to copy in a new space but he cannot (this is fixed in 3.2 I think so cool). He copies in the new space. * Then he edits the new color theme, finds the way to set the logo * He sees a field where he has to enter information and doesn't see how to upload his logo. Reading more carefully the text he understand that he has to cancel the edit, go to the attachment tab, upload the logo, edit again, edit the header again and there he's stuck again because he doesn't remember the name of his logo. So he has to do it all again this time copy pasting his logo name

http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XE-695

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* Then he saves his modifications * .. and realizes that nothing is happening: the displayed theme is still the same as before. He hits refresh (because he's a clever guy!) and finds it doesn't help * Then someone points to him that he has to go back to the admin, click on presentation and sets the color theme to use to be his new color theme. * So he does this and finds that his new color theme doesn't appear in the list but OTOH there are 2 color themes with the same name

There is http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-6743 but it's for Rename action.

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* Then someone mentions to him that it's because he hasn't changed the title of this copied page...

Ideas for improving this experience: * In the Admin>L&F>Presentation screen, next to "customize", add a new button "Create new colortheme". * In the new color theme page screen, add the possibility to copy from an existing theme *AND* that sets the new title!

My main problem regarding Administration components is why it is necessary to mix them. There are thing that can be done only from the Administration interface and other that redirects you to other parts, like the Color Themes, like Search Suggest ( http://localhost:8080/xwiki/bin/view/XWiki/SearchSuggestConfig).

The question is why are ColorThemes outside the Administration. Some Admins want only them to be able to customize the way the wiki looks&feels, others maybe will want in the future to be able to have settings per user (in the direction we already did with Personal Dashboard).

I've made a proposal that integrates Color Themes management inside the Administration http://incubator.myxwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Improvements/ColorThemesProposal

The select is replaced only by "Use this theme" link. This way even if you have Color Themes that have the same title, the preview will help the user to find his theme.

When hovering the items you will get the actions: edit, copy, delete http://incubator.myxwiki.org/xwiki/bin/download/Improvements/ColorThemesProp...

You can see the proposal partially in action at http://incubator.myxwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Improvements/ColorThemesAdminist...

Sounds good and a very nice improvement. It does fix a few of the issues. Some remain outstanding. Thanks -Vincent

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* In color theme edit mode, add the capability to select the logo using the widget used in the user profile to select/upload images * When saving the new color theme, go back automatically to the admin page from where the user clicked on "create new colortheme" and set the newly created theme as the selected them * The user press save and he's done

WDYT?

In addition to all this we should probably rename Color Theme into something else to make it more clear that it's not just about colors (or move the logo out). Also it's probably not very clear what's the difference between color themes and skins.

I've added some hint text, but it can be improved.

Thanks, Caty

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Note: I really did all those steps mentioned above in the story and it was a real pain from a newbie user POV.

Thanks -Vincent