2.8 UI Discussion

Yes, I believe it is a major improvement and will make some of the extensions fit in more naturally. There are a few things that you could consider as you think of UI.

1. By moving some things to the far right, it makes things more difficult at higher resolutions. For example, the edit click is now a long way away from the focus of attention at the left. Similarly, moving the comment date to the right virtually eliminates it from view.
   
2. In general, there are too many instances where the buttons for actions are on the far right or in other inconvenient locations
   • Edit screen - far right top and away from the comment and minor change fields at the bottom. Filling in the comment field should be encouraged, but it is often forgotten because of this placement
   • Link properties - buttons are on the bottom left, but are out of view until you page up. The input fields are top left.
3. It would be nice if the edit help tips could be toggled off to give more edit space
4. I think the drop-down list for the user name is functional, but not as welcoming as previous. Why is space drop-down first? I would think user should be first (like before).

Just a few more in addition to Bob's points.

1. If I don't have permission to add content of any type, I still can see the "+Add" menu. If I hover the mouse over it, a gray line (border of the empty menu list) is displayed.
Please remove "+Add" if the user lacks permission to add content.

2. Space and User menus (top right) may not be intentionally aligned because they hide the labels for "Space" and user name, instead they should be displayed below them just as you did with the other menus.

Tibor

The last two emails I got notifying me about updates to this page (an edit and a comment) were both in German. Is that intentional?

I generally like the new menus, but I think the latest version of them in milestone 9 are too big, looks "fisher-pricey" to me

Also I miss being able to tell if I am watching/favourite a page just by looking at it without having to look in the menu.

Just noticed that labels are now at the bottom of the page content. I think they may be lost there with pages longer than one screen. You would have to find the end of content and beginning of the comments section - not easy to do with longer pages with lots of comments.

Suggestion regarding comments. How about something like:

When this gets compressed, just leave the first line, but use a smaller font and keep the perm link. Also, make sure there is more of the text - now it seems to be cut off after only half of the page width.

Quoting a comment from 'Anonymous', which was originally placed as a comment on the page titled Using the Confluence Screens:

Congratulations on the improvements. I've just noted, however that if you increase/decrease font size (ctrl+, ctrl-) in Firefox/Mozilla (WinXP - not tested others) that the top-left breadcrumbs start breaking strangely and do not revert back to their original location when undone. A page reload fixes things, but it is annoying. IE font resize attempts still fail because of the continues use of non-relative css

Ideas for additional UI elements and changes to some of the ones already proposed:

I generally like the direction the new UI is going and agree with most of the comments made above. I'm no programmer but here are some "ideas" which might be of use:

1. Display a row of content icons at the top of the page that are only visible when there is info associated with them. eg. Attachments - a Paperclip icon with the number of attachments in brackets; Comments - a Comment bubble icon with the number of comments in brackets; Labels - a Label icon with the number of labels in brackets.

2. In an extension to 1. above, have a drop down arrow after the number of items that when you hover over or click, it lists the items. This way one can immediately see and then select an attachment say. For comments it would list the comments in brief format and if a comment were clicked you would go straight to that comment. At the end each of the listed comments the number of nested replies to that comment would be in brackets. The top link for the drop down arrow could be ALL to take you to the attachments page or down to where the comments start. The drop down will also be there for Labels to list those labels assigned to the page, and if you click on one of them it works as normal (taking you to a list of items with that label).

2. The Edit link should be changed to a menu. Under this would be found - Page, Labels, Restrictions, Copy, Move, Remove and History (as they're all related to editing)

3. For the display of the top level menu titles, a user preference to display, Icon+Text, Text Only or Icon Only would be ideal. A tool tip would be required for Icons Only.

4. Return the toggable icons for Watch and Favourite but, so that it stands out, make the Favourite icon ALL yellow when a page has been chosen as a favourite. Perhaps put these in line with the icons mention in pt 1.

5. An icon for the page's Tiny Link (to be renamed Permalink) could be at the end of the page title. Ideally, hovering over it would show the path with a tool tip saying Click to Copy Link.

6. Moving the Print function to the browser's Print Preview makes sense for general use. However to me the Print, Export to PDF and Export to Word should all use a new function of "Output to...". This function, to be grouped under Tools, would allow one to choose from a list templates, defined elsewhere, that would reformat the layout (put in logos, headers, footers, etc) and then provide options to either print or export to PDF or Word.

Personally I really like the Clickr theme so a UI that puts the content first and gets the wiki mechanics out of the way but still accessible is ideal in my opinion. Of course all these UI enhancements should take into account Accessibility issues. I think the new Move system is very good. I also have

Keep up the great work. (Edit: fixed some typos and added pt 6.)

To the Space menu add Watch Space and Add to Favourites.

Concur with many of the comments made above. New UI is overall nice and clean, however:

• Action menus look "fisher-pricey". I'm not sure whether my reaction is because the graphics are a bit simplistic, or because I have a deep-seated aversion to menu-like elements on web pages;
• I like labels at the top. It's a visual filtering tool - not labelled with anything I like, ignore the rest of the page Scrolling or labels is not easy.
• Favourite and watch icons should be visible at the top of the page - like labels, I don't want to go digging for these.
• Comment dates are pretty much invisible. What about: "On 31 March, Miles Metcalfe said:" and "date - commenter" in collapsed form?
• Dave Dembo's comments above about the Tools menu are very perceptive. "Tools" is like the "Cog" button on many Mac OS X applications - it hides a multitude of sins rather than being a named concept. Perhaps the Mac OS X route is a little better - a to add the default object, and everything else bundled away on a (cog).
• If you add watch space and favourite space to the space menu as Tomi suggests, some visual indication of favouriting/watching as with pages would be desirable. Perhaps a change of emphasis or colour?

I think I see the logic of locations/content related to a space being under the "space" menu, and actions related to a page being under the "tools" menu. This helps explain as well why Attachments are listed in both areas (as content and as a potential action). So, in general, I think all this makes good sense.

I concur with the others in this thread who would prefer to see labels listed at the top. A label is an important content marker, and should be visible right next to the title, not at the bottom of the page.

Other comments from above with which I agree: not being able to see at a glance whether/how many attachments a page has is a real loss. Also agree strongly that when fairly big UI changes are made it is very helpful to allow parts to be switched on/off or to continue on with the old UI. Show/Hide children is a good example of something that can be toggled in this way. I also agree that having an icon for the TinyURL available right on the page is very helpful - it's 95% why I go to to Info on a given page.

On a separate note, I'd like to put in a request for a toggle to show/hide profile pictures/icons in the dashboard. Right now we're commenting out this functionality.

Overall, while I think the new UI is a big improvement I do hope 2.8 will not be released until the most requested change requests listed in the comments (and I'm assuming echoed by others via other channels) are taken into account.

There is another limitation with the way the tools menu. Before 2.8, I could be viewing or editing a page and go up to the attachment or info link and right click and select to view it in another tab. This was very convenient especially needing to look at attachments to complete an edit. With 2.8 menu, this cannot be done. So, if an attachment count or something is put back on the page, make sure it is a link as well.

• I agree about the new 'toy' looking icons. They are too big and also sit nearly 1cm off the top bar on my 1280x1024 display. This means nearly a whole cm of screen real estate at the top is wasted.
• Labels should definitely be at the top
• I second the idea of a row of icons showing important information about the page. Attachments, permalink, favourites etc.. Much better than having to dig into a menu

I'm not sure if this is expected behavior or if it has already been documented, but I noticed on another page (see "Big +1" in Neil's comment on March 19th) that the "+" symbol disappeared from the text upon collapse of the comment.

I fully concur on labels being at the top.

In addition, a quick way to view the # of attachments on a page (not buried in a menu) is invaluable for us.

Confusion/bug in toggling comments: When you hover over a commentator's name the tool tip says "Click to toggle the display of this comment". If you click it the comment is toggled but you then get redirected to the commentator's profile (occurs in both FF2 and IE7). Note: Hovering over the commentator's picture correctly displays ~username (this is what should happen if you hover over the commentator's name).

Minor bug: Also just noticed that in IE7 (not FF2) when a comment is toggled off and then on the Permalink icon changes colour. This happens for all comments if you use the Collapse All/Expand All or for just an individual comment if it is toggled.

Minor bug: When using FF2's Find function to find the terms 'edit', 'add' or 'tools; and then choosing Highlight All, the icons for the drop-down menus appear in the centre of the highlighted menu text (this only happens when the Highlight All function is used). And for the Edit menu (only), the icon and the highlight remain even after the Highlight All is turned off.

How are Atlassian going to handle the above points, recommendations, ideas?
Has any of them been built into 2.8 final?
Has anything changed between 2.8 m7/9 and 2.8 final?
2.8 is out - with labels at the bottom...

Thanks,
Tibor