Thread: Usability related features

Usability related features

Hello,

I wish to discuss several points that should be submitted in the ideas section but as i'm not yet a customer so i can't post there. On the other hand, having your general point of view on these ideas (you can take as suggestions) should give me an idea about becoming a customer, so are there some chances you may be interested into some of these features below ? enough to implement some of them ? What are the ones already planned or under review ?

1. For large directories web site, categories with a simple management become a problem for both user and admin sides. So, are improvements planned ? for example like these ones :
- on user side, about sidebars : jquery nested lists (demo) or treeview, depending of what you like most. jquery nested list would act like a treeview, ie the list zone updates without needing a whole page update which avoid tedious navigation on big sites. A breadcrumb about the list would then be useful.
- on user side, about menu : categories are also proposed from the top menu. I'm looking for a millercolumns gui component there.

- on admin side : while i really love treeviews, jquery list may be a better solution on user side for both mac & pc users. On the admin, it's another story, i suggest here a treegrid for categories (bringing many features like drag&drop etc)


2. About create listing : could we use all the screen width to save some space ? or at least use 2 columns for fields ? and present things in steps : 1. Search Description 2. Main Description with a light wysiwyg editor with attachments allowed. And so on for additional Details. At best, a tab wizard for each step would be the solution like here with a dropdown tree for selecting the category, demo

3. Admin section : i think you did a great job on design, especially with a quite new theme like Vantage is; maybe the reason why a few sections looks "young", not yet very "mature", ie incomplete :), it's at least my feeling about the lack of clean and polished design driving the user straight to the researched features.
- Sidebar menu : i propose to better organize menu and maximize vantage features identity with colorized icons
- Main space for each of these menu entries : organized in tabs, each tab displaying a 2 columns of portlet widgets.
- Owerview page : see the screenshots below for a very useful dashboard


4. I want to use my "QualiFire WordPress Theme". Can Vantage use this design ? If it needs Vantage be a child theme, then i suggest it.

5. About features wished in user profile section (dashboard) :
- My Directory Listings
- My Purchase History
- My Messages
- My profile page

6. About the right side panel :
Based on the demo, we have vertical sections => recent reviews, text widget, popular categories, recent listings. As the user is not necessarily interested in all of them, i'm looking for an accordion capability for them.

7. Is Auto update possible for Vantage ?

8. About listing views : can we display for each entry "visit web site" and tags ?

9. I saw in the idea section that a shopping cart linked to listings have been already suggested. If the idea become under review, it makes much sense to me to support a multivendor theme. If you know one, perfect. On the other hand, i suggest ShopperPress as next major release will support this. Or you may prefer CS-Cart multivendor edition.

and also :

10. What is the difference between the standard and developer licence ?

PSD included.....

Wow! A lot of info here. I'll do my best to address it all. Please see my responses in RED.

1. For large directories web site, categories with a simple management become a problem for both user and admin sides. So, are improvements planned ? for example like these ones :

- on user side, about sidebars : jquery nested lists (demo) or treeview, depending of what you like most. jquery nested list would act like a treeview, ie the list zone updates without needing a whole page update which avoid tedious navigation on big sites. A breadcrumb about the list would then be useful.
I do not believe that we will be moving to a jquery function on this. It could be considered but not likely to be implemented soon.

- on user side, about menu : categories are also proposed from the top menu. I'm looking for a millercolumns gui component there.
Also a feature that could be useful but not something that we would be implementing soon.

- on admin side : while i really love treeviews, jquery list may be a better solution on user side for both mac & pc users. On the admin, it's another story, i suggest here a treegrid for categories (bringing many features like drag&drop etc)
Same as above. These are very good ideas and worth considering. However, we are focused on building out what we consider to be very key features: new map features, events, responsive design and more. These features will need to be created before we move onto some of the things you have mentioned.


2. About create listing : could we use all the screen width to save some space ? or at least use 2 columns for fields ? and present things in steps : 1. Search Description 2. Main Description with a light wysiwyg editor with attachments allowed. And so on for additional Details. At best, a tab wizard for each step would be the solution like here with a dropdown tree for selecting the category, demo
This will likely not change in the near future. We can add a lot of front-end, user interface functionality but it can add complexity and unnecessary code to the theme. We're trying to make the theme lean and flexible enough for the variety of different applications that it will be used for.

3. Admin section : i think you did a great job on design, especially with a quite new theme like Vantage is; maybe the reason why a few sections looks "young", not yet very "mature", ie incomplete , it's at least my feeling about the lack of clean and polished design driving the user straight to the researched features.
- Sidebar menu : i propose to better organize menu and maximize vantage features identity with colorized icons adminmenu.png
- Main space for each of these menu entries : organized in tabs, each tab displaying a 2 columns of portlet widgets.
- Owerview page : see the screenshots below for a very useful dashboard
summary1.jpgsummary2.jpg
One of our primary goals for our themes is make better use of WordPress core. We don't want to change the way the admin works. In fact, we want the theme to be more integrated with the WordPress admin. Our themes - especially Vantage - are making more use of existing WordPress functions instead of injecting our own. We think that reducing the number of redundant functions makes the theme easier to use. It also reduces code, making the theme more stable, lightweight and easier to update.

4. I want to use my "QualiFire WordPress Theme". Can Vantage use this design ? If it needs Vantage be a child theme, then i suggest it.
Sorry, Vantage does not work with that theme. It is not made to work with any theme other than the child themes offered in our marketplace.

5. About features wished in user profile section (dashboard) :
- My Directory Listings This already exists.
- My Purchase History This is a good idea.
- My Messages We will have an email messaging system but not a private messaging system.
- My profile page Good idea.

6. About the right side panel :
Based on the demo, we have vertical sections => recent reviews, text widget, popular categories, recent listings. As the user is not necessarily interested in all of them, i'm looking for an accordion capability for them.
This is not likely something that we would consider in the near future.

7. Is Auto update possible for Vantage ?
We have a free plugin that automatically checks for updates and notifies you when one is available. The whole things works similar to how WordPress updates. In fact, it uses the WordPress updates code. You can read more about it here ( http://www.appthemes.com/blog/all-ab...updater-plugin ).

8. About listing views : can we display for each entry "visit web site" and tags ?
I assume that you mean the pages that list multiple business listings because the single listing page shows the website and tags. You could do this but it would require some customization. That could be done with a child theme.

9. I saw in the idea section that a shopping cart linked to listings have been already suggested. If the idea become under review, it makes much sense to me to support a multivendor theme. If you know one, perfect. On the other hand, i suggest ShopperPress as next major release will support this. Or you may prefer CS-Cart multivendor edition.
Noted.

10. What is the difference between the standard and developer licence ?
As mentioned by johno69, developer edition comes with PSD files. Thanks, johno69.

Hello Shannon,

Thanks for your time and effort to answers.

1. Is there a way to let the customer customize some components and manage Vantage updates to take care about modifications ?
2. Is there a simple Vantage template that allow to modify the look feel this way (described previously) ?
3. I understand your answer but on the other hand, Jobroller follows most parts of the described ideas so why not into Vantage ?
4. and 10. Is there at least a simple way to give Vantage the same look & feel ? Can we build our own homepage in Vantage (so the directory would be in another page of the web site) ? Is there documentation to achieve it ? Are the PSD files provied for this goal ? ie guide the look & feel modification to adopt the appearance of another template ?
5. I don't see "My Directory Listings" in the dashboard section of the section. Are the others coming in upcoming releases ?
6. do you think we can reasonably achieve this ? Like for question 1, is there a mechanism that would allow us to make this kind of modification without updates break it ?
7. Great so we can update at will easily as i can see
8. Correct, i mean the pages that list multiple business listings. Ok, with a child theme, i will have to learn about that.

PS: stange, i poted images in my first post and even by being the author post, i don't have rights to view them :)

Alex

We have uservoice like area but is there a roadmap somewhere ? it would be incomplete of course but even something general is useful.

About 3. Joroller is not alone to follow these ideas, i see in classipress demo that it is followed too.

Hi Alex, in response to your additional questions:

1. For anyone planning to customize the default theme, we recommend the use of a child theme which will save you losing all of your modifications in the process of an update.
2. The default Vantage template is as you see on the Vantage demo, and customization of that can be done in the form of a child theme you create yourself as mentioned above (the link explains how this is done). Alternatively you can also find ready made child themes in the AppThemes marketplace.
3. Our themes have all been created at different times, and as Shannon mentioned in his earlier response, we are now doing things differently in terms of the framework for our themes (especially since Vantage). Some of the features you may see in older themes such as JobRoller and ClassiPress may be done differently in Vantage and going forward with other themes in the interest of improving the overall performance, or making it generally easier to maintain.
4. and 10. The answer to this also relates back to answer #1, in that you can ultimately redesign the layout of the Vantage theme in whatever way you want. You'll need some knowledge of html/css in order to make these design changes, but it can be done. Our Vantage customer showcase has some great examples of how Vantage has and can be customized. The Photoshop .psd files are available only with the developer license.
5. The Vantage demo login doesn't have any existing listings to show, but if it did, you'd see them on the dashboard page here. There are no specific plans for the other features you mention to be implemented at this time.
6. Answer again relates back to #1, a child theme is the best method in order to minimize the loss of modifications made.
7. How "easy" it is, essentially depends on your level of coding knowledge, but ultimately any kind of changes can be made.