Regrouping the General Admin page

At the AdminUIRevamp meeting on 12/11/2007, we discussed going for "low-hanging fruit" — making small changes that will have large impact.

General Preferences

Basically I grouped similar options into 3 blocks. Sub-items (such as the "Log SQL queries longer than XXX seconds" are hidden until the parent is enabled. Likewise, if the "Use URL as home page" option is enabled, the "Use TikiWiki feature as home page" option becomes hidden.

General Settings

Can anyone explain the difference between the General Preferences and Settings? The Contact user should be a droplist of current (validated) users.

Here, too, I grouped the items into fieldset blocks.

Release Check

Prehaps this should really be named Check for Updates?

Date and Time Formats

I added a sample of what the entered code will produce.

Other

I think these options should really be moved to either the Preferences or Settings tabs.

Password

Made it clearer that you are changing the Admin password.

One idea was to reorganize the options on the General Admin page to make it easier for a new Admin to see exactly what needs to be done first.

Required

Here's my attempt at the Required tab:

Some cool things:

• Includes a link/reminder to check for updates.
• The URL Field for the home page is hidden (since the Use URI... option is not selected.
• Fields that are required (such as Sender email) that are blank, have an alert icon.

Recommended

And here's the Recommended tab:

Some items of note:

• As before, the alert icon for missing/required information.
• As before, hidden fields for items not selected (Disallow access....).
• Shows how your selected date/time options will appear.

Optional

And here's the Recommended tab:

Password

I decided to move the Admin Password to a separate tab:

And it includes a note about setting your admin email address (so the REMIND PASSWORD will work for admins).

What do you think?

Required vs. Recommended vs. Optional

It may be helpful to re-organize the General: Admin page, based on:

• Required: Tiki won't work (or won't work as expected) if these are not completed
• Recommended: Not required, but recommended to make your Tiki as usable as possible.
• Optional: Probably not necessary unless you have a specialized purpose.

My (ricks99) first stab at reorganizing all the General Admin options:

• I have attached a new TPL file to this page. It features:
  • Reorged options, as listed below.
  • "Hide-able" secondary options (using JS, although Ajax might be better)

Please let me know what you think. Should this approach be carried to the other admin pages?

Required

• Home
  • Tiki feature or URI
• Browser Title
• Temporary Directory
  Add note that it must be writable
• Email
  • Sender Email
  
  Add note that it will be used for all out-going Tiki-generated messages
  • Default Character set
  • Mail end-of-line
• OS
• Default timezone
• Favicon
  • Filename
  • Type

Recommended

• Authentication Method
  Block method forms that are not used
  • Where is this option? I don't see it in my 1.10. (ricks99)
• Contact Us
  Add note if feature is currently disabled
  • Contact User
  • Allow anonymous access
• Close site when sever load exceeds threshold
  Note that users with permission can still access
  • Max threshold
  • Message to display
• Cache
  • Use cache for external pages
  • Use cache for external images
• Use gzipped output
• Use Tiki Help System
  • Help URL
  
  Add note about using non-doc.tw.o sites
• Time format
  • Long date
  • Short date
  • Long time
  • Short time
  • Display order
• Separators
  • Locations
  • Choices
• Display menus as folders

Optional

• Show user's real name instead of login (when possible)
• Use direct pagination
  Instead of next/prev links
• Close site
  Note that users with permissions can still access
  • Message to display
• Group Home
  • Go to Group Home only if...
• Error Reporting
  • Visible to Admin only
  • Include Smarty Notices
• Log SQL
  Add note, where does this get logged?
• Use Proxy
  • Proxy Host
  • Proxy Port
• Session
  • Store session data in database
  • Session lifetime in minutes
  
  Add note, what does 0 mean?
• Count Admin page views
• Preference Syntax
  Add note that useful for backwards compatibility