[horde] Disable dynamic view

[Ralf Lang]

Hi guys,

Am 26.06.21 um 15:53 schrieb Jānis:
> Thank you very much for reminding!
>
> Janis
> Citēts Markus Winkler <ml at irmawi.de>
> Sat, 26 Jun 2021 11:29:43 +0200:
>
>> Hi Jānis,
>>
>> On 26.06.21 00:10, Jānis wrote:
>>> How can I disable dynamic view and/or make the regular(basic) one 
>>> default?
>>>
>>> I asked it already some 5 years ago, but can't locate the answer now.
>>
>> I think this was the answer at that time:
>>
>> -------- Forwarded Message --------
>> Subject: Re: [horde] Disabling of dynamicmode
>> Date: Wed, 15 Mar 2017 08:33:57 +0100
>> From: Arjen de Korte <arjen+horde at de-korte.org>
>> To: horde at lists.horde.org
>>
>> Citeren Jānis <je at ktf.rtu.lv>:
>>
>>> Citēts Arjen de Korte <arjen+horde at de-korte.org>
>>> Tue, 14 Mar 2017 21:09:20 +0100:
>>>
>>>> Citeren Jānis <je at ktf.rtu.lv>:
>>>>> Is it possible to disable the dynamic mode in Horde config or, at
>>>>> least - to make the basic view default and dynamic to be chosen
>>>>> only manually?
>>>>
>>>> The basic view is obsolete and (as far as I know) will no longer be
>>>> available when Horde 6 is released. The question here is, why do
>>>> you want to be this the default?
>>>
>>> simple answer - we need a mail reading tool without (sorry)
>>> distracting and pointless bells and whistles just because marketing
>>> people thinks that  "they look cool" and the "existing technologies
>>> allows it". I remember the discussions on the new interface of horde
>>> before the switch from 4 to 5 and whining that it looks obsolete.
>>>
I'm sorry, I fear it won't fit in very well what I am saying:

A lot of years have passed since H5 release. While we have not yet 
eliminated the notion of separate views, we have definitely blurred the 
line between traditional view and dynamic view. We might as well get rid 
of that differentiation.

The "minimal" view designed for very simple mobile devices has most 
likely outlived its purpose.

The "mobile" view designed for then-current mobile phone experience is 
still useful as it makes Horde accessible for limited screens. It's 
however a certainly dated approach.

All our views share that they are heavy on legacy technology. Horde's 
basic and dynamic views depend on protoypejs and scriptaculous, projects 
which can be considered dead and partly made unnecessary by modern 
javascript.

As a senior advisor with a consulting company, I sometimes get asked 
about groupware or collaboration options, including eGroupware, horde, 
owncloud/nextcloud based solutions and, in the past at least, a lot of 
zarafa and tine.

The market for a true FOSS, host-your-own solution has shrinked. Partly, 
companies simply do not want to burden themselves with the implications 
of running their own stack, partly, they find horde's UI dated and even 
the word "ugly" has been used. I am very aware of it. Horde's UI, even 
the dynamic one, never was about looking cool. It was all about making 
Webmail, Calendar etc a viable solution that could compete with user 
expectations on a still very desktop heavy environment. Today, most 
freemail web UIs are at least on par with horde, most likely even 
beyond. If you look at the mail UIs of Google Mail, Outlook Web Access & 
friends, they have a lot of resources behind their back and it shows. 
They allow working with mail in a way similar to desktop experiences. 
Even though I don't agree with their UI and usage philosophies in many 
cases.

Ignoring the lack of manpower to get it done quickly, I am sure a little 
investment in using current UI technologies would be very much 
appreciated by the user - a UI which dynamically falls back to a 
presentation suitable for tablet or phone (or very limited desktop 
screens) or shows additional data where the screen allows it, backed by 
technology current day FOSS developers understand and are able to 
provide patches. However, there are even more urgent topics to address.

The point I am trying to make: What are annoying patterns or usability 
issues which are specific to the Dynamic UI as opposed to the 
Traditional UI? I'd like to understand that and avoid making any 
mistakes when building a new UI aligned with Material UX guidelines.

Oh and by the way, I just patched support for custom theme packs into H6 
Composer deployment a few weeks ago...