New Create Entries management page

[denise]

This post is to report bugs in the new Create Entries page. This is a complete rewrite of the old Update page, in order to allow for future expansion and new features such as draft posts, scheduled posts, recurring posts, expanding the range of what can be posted to your journal, and a whole host of other awesome things.

When reporting bugs, please include:

* The browser name, browser version number, and operating system you're using
* The steps you took to reproduce the problem
* Whether or not you've tested the same steps in another browser (and if so, which)
* Whether you get the same result every time you try the same steps, or if it only happens sometimes

If we can't reproduce the problem under the same browser and operating system, we may also ask you for a list of any browser extensions you have installed.

Not all features are completely implemented in the new Create Entries page yet. The biggest thing currently missing is the Rich Text editor -- the only option is the plain-old-HTML option. The design of the page is geared towards changing concepts and visual/workflow metaphors around what it means to "post an entry", too -- because of the forthcoming draft and scheduled posts, we needed to adapt some of the language and some of the ways we present concepts -- even though the draft and scheduled post functionality isn't ready to be released yet. So, if something looks awkward or like it doesn't quite fit, it's probably there to allow for something we'll be releasing in the future. (You can still mention it, though!)

Things we also consider to be bugs that should be reported, in addition to something not working right:

* if you can't figure out what to do at any step of the update process
* if you have accessibility-related problems (with your screenreader, with the tab order of the page, with the workflow, etc)
* if something about the new workflow completely breaks the way you use your journal, and you can't figure out any way to work around it (there may be a way to do what you're used to doing, but if you can't figure it out, that's something we might change or might want to document, etc)

You can enable or disable beta testing at any point.

Not yet enabled

* Rich Text editing
* Using the new Create Entries page for editing existing entries
* Using the new Create Entries page for comm admins deleting posts or performing admin overrides
* Draft posts of any type, including the in-browser saved drafts that exist right now

Known/Reported Bugs

* some difficulties crossposting, looks like possibly date-related? we're trying to figure it out.

Should be fixed

* Settings not properly saving when using the "gear" customize-this-page popup; some modules disappear
* Create Entries form being repeated after posting an entry
* Error in link to Beta Features at top of page
* Error messages when using new update page in older versions of Firefox
* Difficulties with IE (oh, IE)
* Errors with time being truncated
* inactive icons showing in the icon browser
* minsecurity of journal not reflecting properly in update form
* whole host of display glitches

Comments

[fu]

Chrome: there was a fairly annoying bug which was messing with reordering of panels. Try again now, though, I just pushed out changes that should make that work much better -- if all your panels have disappeared, you might need to reset them to their original settings

IE: Hmmmmm. That's not the first I've heard of IE, in particular, not liking the JS. Can you look into the error log / error console and tell me if it's choking on anything? (security setting: it should just be normal JS, if the other JS on DW works for you, that's likely not it)

[melannen]

RE: Alignment issues with "Post as" - this is getting me too, when it's in a side bar. Also with the "Currents" panel, moving it to the sidebar puts a line break between the bolded labels and the boxes, which adds a lot of unnecessary vertical space.

[fu]

Hm! Incidental to other things, I just pushed out a change which should style the elements when in draggable mode into distinct boxes. It doesn't solve your problem of having to drag them alll,but might make it clearer that it's specific boxes at a time, not the whole column of them.

(If not, let me know your browser and your site skin? *G*)

[melannen]

There's something weird going on with going in and out of 'settings' - If I'm in 'settings' and I hit the sprocket icon again, it seems to re-load the options box, but the dotted lines around the panels disappear and the alignment of the label changes. If I click the sprocket again, the dotted lines come back and the labels re-left-align. When I click 'save' and make the settings box go away, the labels switch alignment to the opposite of what they were when I clicked "save". This all seems very odd. I would prefer re-clicking the sprocket button to take "settings" away without changing anything, and for the labels in sidebar panels to be left-aligned all the time.

(I'm in Opera 11.52 in Windows XP if it matters. ETA: Same thing is happening on Firefox 3.6.15)

[darkicedragon]

I'm still getting led to another page on Maxthon and Internet Explorer. On the other hand, I get the drop down menu in Firefox, can adjust things how I want to and after I save it, it's there in Maxthon and Internet Explorer - except the panels that I change gets wiped again as soon as I try to hit the gear. Huh.

I get the expanded menu for the journal panel in Maxthon and Internet Explorer too - so I have the fill-in boxes for username, password, and post to, even though I've clicked on 'darkicedragon'. This doesn't happen in Firefox, where I only have the drop-down menu for what community I want to post in.

(Also, OMG WE CAN POST AS OTHER ACCOUNTS and keep logged into our main account! THIS IS SO MUCH AWESOME AND LOVE!! ♥ ♥!! Less/No switching between browsers!)

[fu]

Oops, I guess that I replied to the wrong comment *g* This is much more appropriate for what I said above.

I've covered #1, with #2 hmmm interesting, I'll have to see if I can find a Windows box; if I understand your description properly, it's acting differently in mine. Dragging anywhere within the box drags the box even if it appears to be whitespace -- anyway, I'll see what I can find out, thanks for letting me know!

[fu]

1) thanks, haven't fixed the icon overlap, but I've fixed the items in the settings panel. (Might need to reset panels to default settings; reload the page after doing so)

2) huh interesting, I'll take a look, thanks!

[sara]

Yeah, I've never actually done anything with the WP site itself, but I've run various projects off self-hosted installs for some years now.


(Dee, I still don't see any difference in the update page; wasn't the code push you did while I was sleeping the one that was supposed to kick us over into the Brave New World That Hath Such Modules In It?)

(ETA: Never mind, got it. You might update the top-level post for clarity, though.)

[denise]

You have to turn it on -- beta is by-module, not totally on/off.

[automaticdoor]

I actually have no problems with it so far! It was jarring because it's so different, but I love it. However, I do have one thing that irks me: it now defaults to security level: public when my DW is access list only. I'm afraid I'm going to post without thinking and start creating a ton of public posts, made worse by the fact that I cross-post (friends-locked) to LJ, which would then also be public.

[musyc]

I have modules! They move around! IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL, FU!

[fu]

Excellent \o/!

[sara]

Yep, got it.

Have you slept yet?

[darkicedragon]

My security settings are also automatically expanded in Maxthon and Internet Explorer even though my security level is public, but it's all right in Firefox.

[denise]

Who, me? *innocent look*

[denise]

If your journal's minimum security level is set to locked, it will post locked to your journal; the journal minsecurity overrides the security on the update form. It's just that the old update form recognizes this and sets the security visible on the page to match the minsecurity, and it looks like that bit got left out of the new update page! (In other words: the post will post locked at the time of posting; it just doesn't show that it'll post locked before you hit post.)

[sara]

*eyerolls* The bugs will still be here after you've had a nap.

[automaticdoor]

That works for me! I will probably double-check with the settings anyway, but thank you!

Also, I am very glad to see the progress on George. Good lord, tendrils.

[denise]

But how do you know?

[denise]

Ha, seriously. And thank you!

[sara]

There will always be bugs, dear heart. They're like laundry.

[shadowspar]

Super-slick! Looks great & I love the customizeability. Well done fu. ^_^
Do wishlist items / future enhancement requests go here or straight in the bug tracker? I'd love it if I could throw the panels on the left of the update textarea. Maybe the update area could even be made a panel of sorts or otherwise made draggable as well....? I haven't looked at the underlying code at all, so I'm not sure how big/scary a job that'd be. =)

[musyc]

You may know this already, but just in case. Do you have your account's security/privacy settings customized?

http://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/settings/?cat=privacy
"Default Entry Security: Set all new entries to a minimum security of"

The drop-down menu should give you the option of "access list".

ETA: HAH DENISE IS FASTER THAN ME. What she said.

[eruthros]

I don't know if this is a bug or if you just decided not to implement it, but in the mockup there were arrows at the top of each module that could be used to minimize it, and I don't see those at all on the page.

I see the "create poll" link as just text, not a button, and the link text is partly obscured by the preview button.

And some UI things:

I've seen several posts on my rlist from people who didn't know that the gear would let them rearrange modules, which suggests that maybe there needs to be text there as well.

I wish that when I dragged all my modules to the sidebar, they stayed distinct modules - they all turned into one long sidebar module, and since the titles of the modules are no longer grey, it's hard to parse where any one module begins and ends.

... oh wait, I just tried the gear setting again without changing anything, and now they are distinct modules. Hurrah! That is much better!

Visual Look

[stormy]

Also, I really prefer each module to look like it does when you're editing/configuring. They each have a header that is in a boxed cell. It keeps each section feeling like a section. When I look at it out of configuration, it feels like everything is squished. I don't really love horizontal rules between sections, so I wouldn't suggest that, but the table cell look that it has in configuration is really clean. Also, it helps separate the feel of a lot of black text mixing in together since the headers of each section aren't colored differently.

The only visual difference between sections currently is a very vague silver line space between them.

Also, for the textareas (subject and entry), I noticed you have a very discreet border-top in a medium blue shade. Might I suggest an inset border (similar to what I use in my search box and what google uses now):

-moz-box-shadow: inset 0 0 2px #999999; -webkit-box-shadow:inset 0 0 2px #999999; box-shadow: inset 0 0 2px #999999;