09 June 2011, 7:46

Hi folks

I have noticed that, as Mahara is accumulating more plugins and blocktypes etc, the top panel containing the icons is growing in size such that it is tricky to drag-n-drop them into the Page/View when editing. The Page/View itself can be off the bottom of the acreen. Obviously this depends on a range of client-side factors, toolbar setups, screen size and resolution etc.

So, just wondering whether the panel layout could be made more compact , smaller icons, CSS tweaks, or perhaps scrollbars within the panel?

Still time for a tweak for 1.4?

09 June 2011, 8:14

Could you make a few tweaks to the CSS showing how you would like it and share it with everyone? All the padding, heights, scrollbar stuff is in the CSS btw..

maybe it could get  merged with 1.4 or probably 1.5..

I am also looking to improve the editing user interface with new themes, so I will provide some options soon..

09 June 2011, 18:26

That's a good idea.

Too late for 1.4 though I'm afraid ;)

Cheers,

Francois

10 June 2011, 20:09

Hello Geoff,

Tha sounds like a great idea because the icons are really very large and could be displayed smaller for most users. What about having just one row with icons and then scroll horizontally to see others?

Cheers

Kristina

11 June 2011, 15:57

Hi Kristina

Yes, that looks good. Also, following Thomas's prompt, here is a screenshot of my own 'quick fix'.

11 June 2011, 17:08

Oops! Got timed out...

I ended up keeping the large icons as I felt they were more representative of 'blocks' to be inserted in the page.

However, edited /theme/views.css as follows

Gave the panel a reduced fixed height (130 px). If icons 'spill' into a second row, a vertical scroll bar appears. The top of any second row icons is just visible to give a visual cue of their existence (in addition to the scroll bar)

Reduced the spacing between the icons.

Also, edited /theme/raw/templates/view/blocktypelist.tpl so that the icon description appears in a 'title' mouseover tooltip rather than text underneath the icon. This helps keep things more compact.

As indicated, this is very much a quick fix and I'm sure others will have their own suggestions...

17 June 2011, 13:26

...and just stumbled across Thomas Bell's Unity theme for Mahara, which deals with the 'panel' in a compact, innovative way.

http://mahara.org/view/view.php?id=41252