[development] the past, present and future of drupal admin

[Frando (Franz Heinzmann)]

Dries Buytaert schrieb:
>> First of all, we ourselves don't have a clear definition of what a
>> setting is within Drupal. I'll take a rough guess, and say that
>> settings are 'global' values (such as the site's name), and that a
>> setting should only ever have one 'instance', or one 'set of values'.
>> This is in contrast to non-settings, which are 'per-instance' values,
>> and that have multiple instances, or values, which are tied to data
>> entities within Drupal (such as the name of a menu item). Of course,
>> stating this definition is much easier than actually applying it to
>> the real-world Drupal, where there are many grey areas as to what
>> constitutes a 'global' or 'per-instance' value.
> 
> Clearly, people have different opinions, experiences and expectations.
> There is no ideal solution so let's agree to stop arguing about it.
> 
> The answers to all (y)our questions can be solved by a simple cardsort
> experiment.  We have the categories (block titles), the top-level
> links and their descriptions.  All we need to do is organize a
> cardsort experiment, invite all our users to take part, and we're
> done. :)
> 
Of course there is no perfect solution, but it's not that difficult to 
unite Dries' and Jeremy's view, for example.

Of course the proposal is not The One Way, but at least I think it 
covers two ways of using the admin interface:

We organize the whole adminstration area as Dries and Earl Miles 
proposed (so task-specific, and settings seperated).

However, additionally, we extend the module listing.
Below each module in the listing, we have a collapsible div that is 
collapsed by default.
This div, when expanded, contains a short description of the module and 
a listing of *all* links ("administrative tasks for this module:") where 
this module has settings/tasks/whatever placed, similar to the listing 
we have in the help section.

Then, if I just need to tune this option of this specific module, and I 
have no idea wether it's a setting or something under 'Content 
Managment', then I just go to the module listing, and with one more 
click I am where I want to be.
For some task, this might save a lot of clicks, especially for 
experienced admins who know exactly what they want.

So by doing this we open two ways for users, without confusing them.

regards,
Frando