[dev] [commits] Horde branch develop updated. 2f8d58fe9f090e2bc99a596b83555406bf51d5f3

[Michael M Slusarz]

Quoting Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org>:

> commit b4f5efa1b1b64c15da4c3038650d880b95800829
> Author: Jan Schneider <jan at horde.org>
> Date:   Fri Jun 29 11:48:03 2012 +0200
>
>     Revert "Initial CSS tweaks to make the UI usable again."
>
>     This partially reverts commit 49876ab409273d4864e200b687264054a495eb84.
>
>     I knew you would to this. ;-)
>
>     Keep at least the same padding like all the other page elements.  
> Give your eyes
>     a few days first to get used to the design and the whitespace  
> before starting
>     to throw things over.
>
>  imp/themes/default/dynamic/screen.css |    7 +++++--
>  1 files changed, 5 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
>
> http://git.horde.org/horde-git/-/commit/b4f5efa1b1b64c15da4c3038650d880b95800829

All this padding makes the UI completely unusable on a smaller screen.  
  And regardless: the mailbox page needs to contain message data.  The  
mailbox page should not contain huge swaths of useless whitespace.   
What is the theory behind so much whitespace?  There are already  
prominent separation elements between the different parts of the page.  
  And none of this text is difficult to read without the padding.  And  
this change increases the likelihood that one will have to use the  
mouse to scroll down.

Not to mention: why is the subject so prominent?  From a UI standpoint  
this makes no sense.  The subject is important when deciding what  
message to read (message list).  Once you are reading the message, the  
subject is irrelevant: the data of the message is all that matters.   
I'm not looking at the subject anymore; the To/From/Cc information  
becomes the critical information since it is not all available in the  
above message list.

Same thing with the compose page.  We are losing significant space (by  
my count, at least **2** full rows: 36 px padding / 18 px a row) in  
the most important element on the screen: the message body.  We need  
to be doing things to INCREASE the amount of the viewable data, not  
decreasing it.  All these changes are just increasing the need to use  
the mouse on the page.

I understand the idea that it's going to take time to get use to the  
new look, but these are critical issues that need to be addressed  
immediately.  These are UI lessons we have learned over 12+ years of  
development and trial and error.  I feel like the design right now has  
whitespace just for the purposes of having whitespace, without  
concerning itself with the context of the surrounding data.

michael

___________________________________
Michael Slusarz [slusarz at horde.org]