In modules listing: collapse fieldsets

A) I think it's a terrible idea to have every module use "package". They should only do so if that makes sense, where there are a group of modules that all work together. Having 30-40 separate fieldsets makes the listing more cluttered, not less.

B) I think collapsing these fieldsets by default would be a *huge* pain in the neck, and a giant step backwards for usability. It'd vastly increase the number of clicks admins would need to do anything on the page, would hide a bunch of useful information by default, etc.

Therefore, "won't fix".

Sorry,
-Derek

I think this would be a huge mistake. Dear core maintainers: please don't commit this patch. ;) Thanks.

I'm neither + nor - here, but some thoughts:

- Grouping makes sense, if some general groups will be proposed somewhere, so that maintainers of even unrelated modules will easily hit the same general fieldsets such as "administrative tools" or "filter formats" etc., ensuring the number of fieldsets being low.

- Number of clicks should also consider time / mouse activity needed to scroll through a large page (and to scan visually through a huge monotonous pile of modules in alphabetical order). This also depends on screen size and browser speed, but I guess uncollapsing one of sensibly grouped fieldsets might be slightly better than scrolling over a huge page.

- But in the other hand, collapsed fieldsets will also hide some information useful for finding a module that you're not sure where is (tracking dependencies, for example), and make some operations more difficult (disabling all modules before upgrade).

Not sure, what the conclusion should be here.

When the fieldsets were introduced on the modules page in D5, collapsing all by default was contemplated, but webchick strongly opposed, rightly arguing that when you install a new module to your site, you have to expand all fieldsets to find the one that contains the module you just uploaded (maybe she had other points against the idea, but this one stroke me most).

It was rather late in the D5 cycle, so there was no time to explore ways of refining this (expand / collapse all, persistent state, automatic expansion of packages containing newly uploaded modules, whatever...). We are now even later in D6 cycle...

The modules fieldsets could definitely use some usability enhancements, but I agree with dww, simply having fieldsets collapsed by default is not the right idea.

@Pancho: Sorry if it seems like I'm angry, I'm not. I just think this issue, as titled, is a bad idea.

The question of classifying related contrib modules into reasonable groups is totally outside the scope of this issue. I see you've proposed such classification in a number of contribs. That's a fine place for that discussion, not here. Either that, or a forum post proposing some commonly needed groupings and soliciting input on the overall plan, at least before a series of individual issues in each module's queue. On this topic, as I said above -- reasonable classification makes sense. However, saying all modules should be in a group and that we should never use "Other" seems like a bad move, that's all.

That said, this issue is about collapsing all the fieldsets on the modules page by default. I think it's a (very) bad idea, for the reasons I've explained in my earlier comments. No, it's not just about clicks required before a page load. It's about total clicks to get something done, regardless of page reloads. It's about seeing in one glance everything you need to see when considering the modules on our site. It's about being able to find new modules after you install them in your filesystem so you can enable them in the Drupal UI.

There's always http://drupal.org/project/util

Michelle

Whoops, title changed by accident.

Michelle

Remembering the collapsed state is just as bad as collapsing all, when you need to search for a module. You might need to search for that to install or disable or whatever. Pretending that you only collapse if you know exactly what is in there is not a really good idea. Look at what modules are in the CCK package, you would not guess that yourself. I agree with dww on the won't fix. Look into other options to declutter the page.

Thanks for that link to the util module!

Personally all those being expanded was a real pain in the but, so I searched for a solution and found this disscusion. Fact: there is WAY TOO much scrolling to do simple tasks, when those are all or mostly expanded, and you land on the modules page.

Most modules are sorted into a descriptively titled fieldset, so having them all collapsed makes it much quicker to get to that fieldset by simply looking at the titles, when you click on one, it expands in place thanks to the nice javascript in-place expandable fieldsets.

Admittedly it would be nice to have an "expand/collapse all" button.

Here is a screen shot of them all closed, I have 30+ modules and this cleans everything up great!
http://elementaltek.com/images/mod_page_snap.png

Pancho: While I was looking for a solution to saving a collapsible fieldset's state, I found your feature request.

I did not find a solution to my problem so I decided to take a crack at building a module that saves a collapsible fieldset's state.

Your feature request inspired me to tweak the modules page and implement both your suggested options 1 and 3.

The module is called 'Fieldset helper' and here is a link (http://groups.drupal.org/node/20014) to my post to the Contributed module ideas group

My module is saving the state of all collapsible fieldsets in a cookie so my solution is probably too heavy for D7 core. Still it is a working prototype of your idea and with some simplification a patch could be written for core.

Thanks.

The lovely "Administration menu" module has a setting for this:

Administer / Site configuration / Administration menu / Advanced settings / Collapse fieldsets on modules page

Now you have the choice!

Cant get that to work. Logged in and out several times, and the fieldsets always remain open.

That is working great for me for both sites I tried, (Drupal 6.14).

Usually I know what I'm looking for and have a fair idea where it's located so finding the module is no problem. Having the fieldsets collapsed by default makes the module listing page much easier to work with.
Tim

patch against core 6.19, where you can switch between collapsed/uncollapsed view flexible via links

I think the switch is a usefull feature and might be a good workaround.

Sorry, but it's about 3 years too late to add new features to D6 core...

@MagicBobson

Thanks, I always forget where that setting is!

Sam.