EE3 Control Panel Design Provokes Eye Cancer

While I think it’s fair for you to say that you aren’t a huge fan of the new control panel interface, I think many of your other points are untrue.

Regardless of how much you love or hate the new design, EllisLab made a step forward with EE3.

• It’s now a responsive design (mostly anyway) :D
• Sections and settings feel much more unified and easier to find. There’s a couple things that bother me, but this has still largely improved from EE1 and EE2.
• The entire control panel features a very consistent UX/UI. This extends even to the services and style guide they made available to third party developers. Personally speaking (from Solspace), we have been able to take advantage of this to make a nicer, more consistent and intuitive user experience in all of our add-ons.

Many of the 1st party modules you’re referencing are ones that were not popular, and the Wiki module has been made available later after EE3 launch.

This is also the early stages of EE3. Bugs and feature gaps are being ironed out. I strongly suspect we’ll see lots of new features and improvements to the design in the months and years to come.

One thing I can say is that it seems that EllisLab has been significantly more active with product development and fixes, and while not perfect, they have improved their communication with both developers and customers. This is something the Solspace team and I have appreciated. 😊

I can speak on behalf of Solspace when I say that we are not “jumping ship” as you may see things. Sure, there are developers that have disappeared, but developers (especially smaller ones) come and go.

I, as a designer, felt safe too, because the EE control panel was clearly structured by color, typo and logical sections and offered a smart way of user layout adjustments that saved me (and the client) plenty of time.

I have to wonder if we were using the same ExpressionEngine. I enjoyed working with EE 2, but not because of the control panel but rather in spite of it. There was no color structure, it was just all pink everywhere all the time. And it wasn’t very well organized. Add to that too many sub-menus and it just wasn’t a best in class experience.

Moreover, the options for channel permissions were numerous but well-ordered and suitable even for more specific requirements.

I am a fairly advanced user and I have yet to find anything missing that I rely on. That, of course, does not mean there isn’t something. As you have observed this is was a major overhaul of the CP and of course as humans, it is possible EllisLab missed something. It is my experience that they are listening and taking action as necessary. They have been very friendly and responsive to all my (and other’s) observations and bug reports. If there is something specific that you feel is missing, I would recommend filing a bug report.

Adding up to this, most of my clients use the German localization, but the latest language file – downloaded and installed today – is only partially translated, not in good German and mixing up upper and lower case. Sorry, this is a no-go for the money you take.

I cannot speak for EllisLab, but I would imagine they are very open to better translations. EE is a natively English language product. As such I’m sure that was the first priority. I know for my own add-ons I have had one request for a German language translation, which the requester was happy to translate and provide for me to incorporate into my add-on.

I did, but I am completely at his mercy. He seemed like a very nice guy, but if he mis-translated anything or did a poor job how am I to know?

Finally, I do wonder about third party add-ons like some other users in the forum. Is there a plan to integrate some of the functionality of well-known add-ons into EE3 or are you giving up on that part? Referrers are gone, mailing lists are gone, wiki is gone … developpers gone, too?

I’m a little confused about this one. It seems like you might be mixing up first-party and third-party add-ons. EllisLab has open sourced some things like the wiki. I can’t speak for the mailing list, but in my opinion it was never great. I think it’s good that EllisLab is focusing on things closer to home.

As to third-party add-ons, it’s pretty early days but many, many add-ons have been ported to EE 3 and many new ones have appeared on the scene.

All my add-ons are EE 3 ready and in some cases, EE 3 only.

I also have a big add-on coming up in the next few days — my biggest add-on yet — for EE 3.

I think that the new CP, while improvements can certainly be made, is a massive leap forward to make EE modern and relevant again.

So, as a developer with clients, and as an add-on developer, I have no intention of abandoning the platform and I think the future has never been brighter.

I hope that helps.

Adding up to this, most of my clients use the German localization,but the latest language file – downloaded and installed today – is only partially translated, not in good German and mixing up upper and lower case.

There are no official language packs by EllisLab, they are only provided as a courtesy to the user. Speaking of the German one, which is maintained by Werner Gusset, I can quote from private communication (Feb 1) with him: (quoted in the original German; if you don’t speak it, just skip this part)

Ich bin nicht dazu gekommen, die Dateien zu übersetzen. Ich habe gesehen, es sind viele, viele neue Strings drin, so dass es dauern wird. Aber ich werde mich dran machen, wenn das Speichern jetzt einfacher ist. Das werde ich in Kürze überprüfen.

tldr; He’s working on it.

Dear Ingmar Greil, TJ Draper and kmartens,

Thank you for your replies and giving your view on it.

I slept on it and had another look into it this morning and still think there is much room for improvement regarding colors and typography and grouping elements visually compared to EE2. I am not insisting on EE2’s CP as the perfect and flawless one but it would have been the better base for a re-design from my point of view, taking the good parts of it and improve others.

@TJ: Of course, the CP is not the crucial factor when choosing the appropiate CMS yet it is an important one when it comes to usability for clients. You and I, we’re all pros and work with a range of CMS, being used to it and understanding the concept behind. Clients often aren’t (at least not in this field) and make a point of quick knowability and simplicity in use. And apparently they find these to some extent with e.g. Wordpress or Joomla … . Personally, I’m not rating these CMS as the better examples but there is something about their CPs that attracts people. EE2’s CP could beat them at this point (my experience) and I don’t see this potential in the EE3 CP as it is now. Responsiveness is great, no question but we already had it before with «Responsive CP» by Ben Croker.

When I try to get behind the changes in EE3s from a clients point of view which is always usability-orientated I mostly don’t get the intention that led to them, e. g. with the main navigation bar. For years users were able to adapt the navi bar according to their preferences. Wow, great feature! Now this functionality is gone, the site link was put in the place from right to left and I wonder for what benefit are users being mixed up this way? Naturally, improvements cause the death of some features. But for heaven’s sake - not of the smart ones!!!

@Ingmar Greil: Thanks for sharing the message of Werner Gusset. My critique regarding the German translation does not address him but Ellislab. EE2s translation was just perfect and now the deficits are irritating and don’t help at all getting quickly accustomed to EE3. Clients do see an inconsistency in this and take it as a sign of poor quality. I think this is serious. We’re all sellers of EE and must understand and respect what’s important to users. The greatest template system in the world is useless if people don’t get warm with the interface.

Sorry, I don’t have time to continue now… I’ll come back later.

Regards,

e.

Thanks for sharing the message of Werner Gusset. My critique regarding the German translation does not address him but Ellislab. EE2s translation was just perfect and now the deficits are irritating and don’t help at all getting quickly accustomed to EE3.

But that’s the point I’ve been trying to make: Werner did the “just perfect” German pack for EE2, and he will be doing one for EE3, he just hasn’t found the time yet. This means that currently there is no German pack for EE3, to the best of my knowledge, so whatever you are using is almost certainly woefully incomplete and/or out of date. I, too, am greatly looking forward to a German pack since my current project (to be launched in late spring or early summer, if all goes well) will depend on it.

Hi Ingmar,

I’m fully aware of the point you want to make. But don’t you think Ellislab should have an eye on this and e. g. support Werner in his efforts BEFORE they release a new version? After all, we’re talking about PAID software! Providing opportunities for a community-based translation is fine with FREE software. Anyway, for my part they can go on like this. But the translation should be ready in advance. Selling EE as the sophisticated CMS it is and then confront my clients/users with a fragmentary translation counts against my credibility.

I would like to go on working with EE and even expand because I believe in the product. So I do hope Ellislab takes such evidence into consideration.

e.

But don’t you think Ellislab should have an eye on this and e. g. support Werner in his efforts BEFORE they release a new version?

Frankly, no (and please bear in mind that I am speaking as a fellow germanophone and not affiliated with EL in any way). Let’s be realistic, the combined English and American market is probably 80% [1] of their business, meaning that the rest of the world comes at a very distant second. I like the language pack approach, meaning that you get to redefine the output without having to hack EE core files, but I fully understand that and why other languages have to take a backseat to English, especially given that developers and designers (and that’s really EE’s target group, the former more so than the latter) usually have a working knowledge of English anyway.

If full localisation is important to you, you can either do it yourself, pay somebody to do it (would you be willing to pay a fee for a good translation?), wait a little till you get it for free, or choose some other CMS. I’m afraid I don’t see any other options.

After all, we’re talking about PAID software!

Yes we are, but that certainly doesn’t mean that they have to provide all languages, regardless of demand and economic viability. Also, why only German? I’m sure there are just as many French, Spanish, Russian etc. users out there. And EE was never advertised as being available in anything other than English: this either fits your requirements, or it doesn’t, simple as that.

[1] Yes, this is a guesstimate on my behalf

(…)that certainly doesn’t mean that they have to provide all languages, regardless of demand and economic viability.

I’m not saying they have to. I’m just stating that the release of a new version with an incomplete translation - no matter what language it is – is counterproductive with regard to end users. I’m trying to bring in experiences with the end users’ view on it and their needs, giving examples and pointing out. Writing them down in this forum is for giving honest feedback to EL and to help improvements.

Hey TJ, So nice to read your thoughtful reply. My clients and I absolutely love working with EE period and it was reassuring to read your comments. Thanks AM