Make Block titles clickable and remove the configure column

This is something I may be reviewing at a more abstract level for d7 as part of the Season of Usability project. See #5 on http://groups.drupal.org/node/7965

the simpler solution discussed here is an improvement and is suitable for a newbie. plz tag for newbie

I'm certainly a newbie. I have attached a patch that removes the "configure" link (removed in both block.admin.inc and in the tpl.php file) and changes the block title to a link pointing to the configure page.

The "Operations" column is left in place to make room for the "delete" links for custom blocks. There is a lot of empty space if you don't have any custom blocks.

I have tested that the drag/drop functionality still works. No problems found in Firefox, Opera and Safari.

Nice patch, Andreas! It's surely not your fault if I'm marking this with -1:

• I'm not so sure such an isolated UI change is an improvement. In forum, menu and taxonomy we are having a dedicated "edit" or "configure" link. True, item titles in forum and menu are clickable, but are leading to the respective forum or menu target. This would be very confusing.
• Also, after the change the page doesn't look cleaner, but uglier, as there is a lot of white space in between (as Andreas admits).
• Finally, this would cause a string break, as we would need to change the introductory text.

Therefore I'm tempted to mark this issue as won't fix, for now I leave it open, so it can be discussed more.

I'm tend to agree with you, Pancho. I had to create the patch to see how the page would look without the configure links. If the 'delete' links where non-existant and the Operations column could be completely removed it would be a no-brainer to remove the configure links.

But since there has to be space for "delete" links the whole page looks tilted because of the nearly empty Operations column.

For good measure I have attached a new patch that updates the help text above the Blocks table (I know this kind of stuff effects translation work and it's a bigger deal) just so people can better evaluate. ...and I get more practice creating patches. :o)

Patch applies cleanly. UI is improved. Well done!

The delete column should only exist if it is required. But this is a great first effort. Coding style looks great. Please run the coder module on it to see if there's anything I missed with my visual check.

I think this is too late for d6, but let's leave that for a commiter to decide.

Woops, I should have refreshed before testing this and commenting. The previous comment was on the first patch, but it all applies to the second patch too. Additionally;

This will definitely need to be for drupal 7 because of the string change. Hopefully by that time the blocks won't even be in a table rows and it will have a better UI, but in the meantime this is great.

As for the help/intro text text, it's not quite correct grammar, and I think something like this is a little easier to read and clearer:
"Click the block name to configure its title, visibility and settings. Click add block to create a custom block."

Would this still be smart considering blocks are now sortable using a click and drag interface IIRC?

There have been lots of changes on the UI in D7. I don't think this issue still applies.

Feel free to reopen however if you don't agree.