True inline editing must be done, however, the power of a well built webform must also not be overlooked. The current form system is very flexible, but it has a limitation of everything needing to be in code and therefore everything must be hardcoded.

I propose we apply the entity view mode system to the content entry forms.

Use case would be, an admin is able to build a form with Form Builder and can then be packaged inside a "form view mode" which could be displayed with (for example) the block system.

This would allow for things like

  • a quick user add form with only username, email, & password fields (once the user registers then they can be redirected to the full user edit form to fill out completely);
  • quick post form (only title & body) for a simple blog;
  • multi-page node add forms.

The above list is of somewhat simple features that currently require a somewhat specialized solution --this need not be the case.

We should start by seeing if there are any modules currently out there that offer this functionality. Even if we have to strap them together somehow. I have used Form Builder before to build forms to be used with form alter hooks. It is viable to use for the actual building of the forms for entities?

Comments

mrsinguyen’s picture

Great features, I will hope we can create a new content is very simple like as http://backpackit.com.

webchick’s picture

Priority: Normal » Minor

Since this is more of a site builder task than a content author task, this is not something the Spark team plans to tackle, at least for the first while. Lowering in importance. Keep these kinds of suggestions coming, though! It never hurts to catalog existing solutions.

escoles’s picture

This looks to me like a case-study for the problems with persona-based development. The "site-builder"/"content author" separation is great in theory, but in my experience clients end up unhappily stuck with things they can't change on their own, forced to pay extra for stuff they can go to a third-party provider like Wufoo and do it themselves. This leaves them feeling (rightly or wrongly) very much like they did when they had to hire somebody to recode their static pages.

The reality of web maintenance is that content authors need to build landing pages, and if we don't want them to ruin our work we have to give them tools to do it decently.

webchick’s picture

Yes, it's totally true that the line between site builder and content author is really blurry, and at times might not even exist, depending on the site. From my perspective, it helps to think of things in terms of tasks, and how often those tasks are performed, and by whom on a given site.

For example, installing and configuring modules. I don't think there'd be any argument about the fact that the Drupal modules page completely sucks. It's way over-loaded with useless information (and missing other key information), it's impossible without a great deal of Ctrl+F to find what you're looking for, the interface to add new modules is absolutely horrid and unusable, etc. However. It's a page that is visited very infrequently once the site is originally set up (and this is normally done with someone more techie or at least with a tolerance for tinkering), and it's not something that the sucker who's in front of Drupal every day actually putting stuff on the site is encountered with more than once in awhile (if ever). Therefore, redesigning the modules page won't be a priority of Spark, even though everyone would be happy to build a statue to whoever solves this problem. :)

Contrast this with something like creating content, which might be done several dozens of times per day by hundreds of people on a busy site. Getting that process streamlined and usable is absolutely critical to people genuinely enjoying using Drupal. And that's true regardless if you're a content editor, a site builder, or an end user of a site; the entire point of a CMS/CMF is to manage C. :D And while forms are one type of C, what we plan to focus on, at least at first, are more general solutions that are broadly applicable to lots of different types of C, since this has a much bigger overall impact on the UX.

Hope that makes sense.

webchick’s picture

Issue summary: View changes

fixed some wording issues

webchick’s picture

Version: » 7.x-1.x-dev
Issue summary: View changes
Status: Active » Closed (works as designed)

Core didn't end up doing this, so neither did we.