Symphony.

Am I right that CacheLite is supposed to cache the frontend and not the backend?

This is true, but there are a number of hooks in the backend for refreshing the cache when editing/creating entries. I’ll see if I can look into what’s going on sometime this weekend.

I’m getting weird behavior with the Symphony integration branch. Any ideas? I attached an image.

Attachments:

subsectionmanager.gif

I think I got that once before and it was a javascript issue… Are you getting any errors in your console?

I wasn’t checking for warnings, so I’m getting the following from the Council now:

object.find("div.stage").symphonyStage is not a function

Sounds like I might be missing a file…?

Oops, I didn’t realize there were submodules. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

No worries. I think everyone makes that mistake the first time they use this extension. Make sure to grab both Stage and Draggable.

Nils, do you have any idea when this extension might be coming out of beta? It looks like 2.0.8RC2 is rolling soon, so it would be great to be able to use a stable Subsection Manager when 2.0.8 is out. Can I help?

My first plan was to finish this extension before the London meet-up. But there are two things that I need to get done first: relaunch Johanna’s and my website and finish an ensemble that we like to present at the Symphony meet-up in June. I only have time during the weekends so that’s why things move slowly.

Can I help?

Of course! Any help is appreciated! Primarly outstanding bugs need to be fixed and the three repositories (Subsection Manager, Stage, Draggable) need to be cleaned up: some of the code is residing in the wrong repository/plugin.

Furthermore the Mediathek documentation needs to be updated and transformed into a Subsection Manager introduction.

By the way, I’m not sure how many people are using this beta release: If there’s anything that has not yet been reported but that you think needs to be part of version 1.0, please post it in the GitHub issue tracker.

The only bug I know of is the CacheLite/Subsection Manager incompatibility. However… I’m not sure which one is really responsible so I’m not sure which one I need to submit the bug report to.

I updated from 2.0.7 to 2.0.8RC2 and am trying to get the subsection manager to work. I have placed the draggable and stage extensions in the lib folder, and I’m not receiving any errors when creating the subsection field. But when I go into a section entry, the subsection field is unusable. It displays some mouseover effects (bg color change & pointer cursor), but that’s all.

I have tried it out to manage both simple sections with a couple of text input fields and complex sections with upload and other fields with the same result.

Did I do something wrong, or is the extension undergoing some major revisions at the moment? I’m attaching a screen shot.

Attachments:

subsection-mgr-noworkright.gif

No errors in Symphony or no javascript errors?

The error console in Firefox displays 2 javascript errors when the section entry page loads:

Error: Symphony.Language.add is not a function Source File: …/extensions/subsectionmanager/lib/stage/symphony.stage.js Line: 20

Error: Symphony.Language.add is not a function Source File: …/extensions/subsectionmanager/assets/symphony.subsectionmanager.js Line: 16

This seems to be a problem related to a broken Symphony update. Redownloading the latest version and replacing all core files should fix the issue.

I replaced the entire Symphony directory (hopefully I didn’t break anything else), and that seemed to do the trick. The extension works much better now.

The only feedback I can give immediately is:

1) I am using the unique file upload field to manage image uploading in my subsection. The thumbnail preview doesn’t display anything in the subsection field. That seems to be what michael-e referred to @ post #22.

2) I think usability would improve if the current subsection members were displayed below the control. Adding more than a few entries forces the user to scroll the page as they scroll the control. I’m not sure it is even necessary to show the current member list until the user is done using the control since the control informs the user as to which entries are selected/members.

But this is looking great as a solution for subsections. Ordering members of subsections/categories was stumping me without it.

Your issue with the Unique File Upload Field is strange as I’m using it myself without any problems.

I’m not sure I completely understood your second point. Could you please elaborate? As this extension is based on the Mediathek field putting the selected items above the controls was one of the main UI decissions while building the Subsection Manager.

Maybe the missing thumbs are not caused by the unique upload field, but they are missing. I was also trying out a separate thumbnail extension, but that didn’t seem to be the culprit as nothing changed after uninstalling it. Does it matter that I upload 2 different images per subsection entry (main image and custom thumb)?

I have attached a screen shot of my current extensions.

The usability issue is minor compared to the valuable functionality offered by the extension. But I feel that a control should stay fixed in place or else the user becomes disoriented, and repeated use is made less efficient.

If only a few items are selected, the downward movement of the control on the page is only slightly awkward. But as the control begins to slide off the page, the user has to scroll down the page and then scroll within the control, and I feel that goes from awkward to annoying (see the screen shots). If the control were fixed in place above the selected items list, you would only need to scroll the source items.

The only value I can see in putting the selected items at top is to make some of them accessible to one-click editing while selecting new members, but I don’t know why you wouldn’t finish one task (selecting items) before beginning another (editing items).

From a visual design perspective, the selection control is currently lower in the hierarchy than the selected items, and I feel it should be the other way around. The items are contingent on the activity of the control. Although the select/create-new bar does serve nicely as a divider between the two lists, I think I would have the source list expand upward from the control to feed the lower selected items list rather than the current arrangement.

Another unexpected behavior (for me) is the creation of a subsection entry that is not by default included in the selected items list. A new user would assume the creation was unsuccessful because it seems to diappear without a trace. Since you can create ungrouped entries in the actual subsection’s section page, this is not a necessary functionality. The more valuable functionality is the one missing, creating an entry that automatically becomes a member of the current section’s subsection. But I don’t know if that is possible. It just seems categorically messy to create entries in one section’s subsection for a different section’s subsection.

Like I said, the value of the extension far outweighs the issues. And my gut feelings aren’t exactly a usability study. :)

Some other quirks:

• I couldn’t get this to repeat, but I saved a new entry and went back and then forward in the browser history and received an error from resubmitting identical text on a unique text input field. It’s in one of the screen shots. I should have paid closer attention to what I was doing. :(

• After choosing files for upload in the subsection, the path is invisible in the file upload field. I’m guessing it’s a style issue (see screen shot).

Attachments:

extensions.gif, submgr-back-forward-resubmission.gif, submgr-invisible-upload-text.gif, submgr-created-but-not-child.gif, submgr-runoff-complete.gif, submgr-runoff-begins.gif and submgr-good-but-missing-thumbnail.gif

The invisible text has been fixed I think, it’s a browser quirk of inheriting a white colour for the text inside the field. Some inherit, some don’t.

I’m with you on many of your usability concerns (read from the start of this thread and you’ll see I’ve echoed much of your suggestions). In fact, today I released a visual designer colleague of mine on a build that uses Subsection Manager quite heavily. He’s used Symphony a couple of times before, but he was totally confused by the inline/expanding layout. I’ll quiz him some more as to what he thinks can be done to improve it for him.

One major thing was that he forgets to save the page after adding entries and selecting them. It’s such a rich, deep interaction, you forget about the lowly Save button on the parent entry. I do wonder it needs a dreaded JavaScript confirm dialogue to catch the case where navigating away would lose un-saved changes.

Thanks for your detailed response, Brien.

Another unexpected behavior (for me) is the creation of a subsection entry that is not by default included in the selected items list.

This is definitely a bug - the source of this problem lies in the interaction of the subsection iframe and the main section it has to interact with. Some of the other issues you attached as screenshots are known bugs as well. It would be great if you could post your issues in the bug tracker on GitHub.

The missing URL in the upload field seems to be a browser quirks (it only happens in Firefox if I remember correctly and seems to be security related).

Concerning the missing thumbnails: Are you sure that JIT Image Manipulation is correctly activated?

One major thing was that he forgets to save the page after adding entries and selecting them.

For me this is one of the major issues in the current implementation. But I’m not sure how to handle this nicely (if changes are saved automatically, there needs to be an undo function / adding a confirm dialogue doesn’t feel right to me).

Nick, it would be great if we could discuss the UI of this extension during the Symphony meet-up next month. It’s a huge extensions and the problem is that it can be used in so many different ways that it is hard to find a perfect solution.

It would be great if all of you trying this beta release could post real life examples or use cases you have in mind.

@nils: I was still using the JIT extension that came with 2.0.7, and after updating it the thumbnails started working properly. When I had updated to 2.0.8RC2, that extension had broken, but I hadn’t noticed it failing in other areas until after your suggestion.

The other bugs are already on Github, but I’ll post any new ones.

One other item that may have nothing to do with the Subsection Manager is an error I get in IE6-8 regarding the WMD Editor:

Line: 6 Character: 2 Code: 0 Error Message: Expected identifier, string or number URL: …/extensions/wmdeditor/assets/jquery.wmd.function.js

Everywhere I go in the Symphony admin area throws a similar message. And when I try to open a subsection entry for editing (in IE6-8), it starts to open but sticks on the spinning preloader. I updated my WMD Editor extension to no avail. But it may have fixed a problem with Chrome linking the subsection entry (upon click to edit) to a referenced image in the subsection (posted on GitHub).