UI improvement

The only problem i can see with this is if/when there are several custom licenses added. Maybe should remian, but place it up top where you suggest.... and maybe when each menu item is selected, a layer will appear to the right displaying the link to view license, license logo (if any) and any other pertinent data for the user to see before submission.
Might need a bit of js, however.

thoughts?

i wish i could edit my replies. anyway, i mistyped alittle so excuse the seemingly poor grammar.

I like the look of the new design. My main concern is the list will be too long. There are many licenses. If all types are allowed a user would have public domain, all rights reserved, 3 or 4 CC licenses, 1 or 2 FDL licenses, and maybe others I just don't see often. The admin can add as many as he/she likes. So that's why I made it a drop-down.

As for being at the top instead of below, my assumption is that most node authors will not choose an alternate license most of the time. There will of course be some sites where there are many contributors and each are very strict about licensing, but I would imagine this isn't too common. Personally, as a node author, I like the Title and Description to be as near the top as possible. When I click Create Content/Story I have an idea I'm itching to write down, so the sooner I get it down the better.

What do you think? I always strive for the best UI possible. So I'm open to all ideas.

Ber, i was trying to convey what veridicus mentioned... too long a list, in some cases. I figured dropdown is safer bet to appease all situations, or it could all go in a new 'copyright' tab ?

Interesting. I hope the outcome of your work will be to eventually document some of the common UI standards we should follow for Drupal.

Div "with overflow" is new to me. If it is what I imagine then it sounds like a good option. I'll look into it to learn more about it. As for JavaScript, I like to have as little as possible because I feel it gets very ugly, but that's just me.

I'll play with a few various methods for these UI improvements as soon as I get a chance. Then I'll come back with a solid suggestion of how I feel we should proceed. Thanks for the variety of ideas.

Ok, I applied the patches (and made the necessary fixes ;) I also added a css file. I'll tweak the css more later. It's all in cvs.

Even showing only 2 lines of licenses it seems to take up too much space. Maybe I should modify my theme to bring radio buttons and check boxes closer together and shrink the margins, but I'm using mosly pushbutton settings, which is a very popular theme. If you get a chance try it with pushbutton and tell me what you think.

I'll consider making the placement of the form an admin option. Then the code can determine whether to generate the form in "pre" or "post".

For the moment it'll only generate links to the full license texts for local urls. I'll adjust that later.

Thank you very much for the patches.

* Making the form themeable - Sounds good. Could there be some generic "fieldset" theming so they could set overflow for any sort of options (i.e. something relatively generic for the drupal theme core)? Or are you thinking of a copyright-specific theme function? I would think themability for option groups would be quite useful to everyone.
* Placement - Ok, you're right. I'll play with CSS to see if I'll ever be happy with it at the top of the node form.
* CSS file - Yup, patches don't include new files by default (can they ever?). Once the form is themable will we keep the CSS file in case the theme doesn't do its own formatting? If all (or the core) themes supported our needs our CSS file wouldn't be needed.