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By archetypal on
I'm a few weeks new to Drupal and to a cms - I'm very glad I chose Drupal.
I've been a user for about twenty years and I develop W32 programs and SQL databases to support my research.
Today I decided to explore info on how close we are getting to the release of D7 and I read one instructor's comment that he is already using D7 for his new students, so I decided to install D7.
Aside from the standard error that at least many are getting, the install was a success and instructive about how good the install.txt is in telling you what you need to know, and it was empowering because now I'm not limited to the versions that my hosting company makes available.
However, I soon found myself held hostage to a horrific CPU hog and bug that is challenging our devoted developers:
Aside from the enormous resources this bug is drawing from the development community, I am _greatly disappointed_ that this community of wonderful developers has decided that Drupal will be a better web development tool with a large (animated?) graphic overlay to provide access to all of the menu items under Administer.
Why are we better of with the added resources of flash-type graphics for our day-to-day menu selections?
I seriously hope that more-graphics-is-better undergoes a greater philosophical examination before it grabs a permanent hold to our user and development consciousness. Please give me plain menus.
I also can appreciate that at least some foresaw that people like myself would prefer not to have them, and so provided a means to turn them off. However, in addition to the great conundrum of CPU time the overlay is grabbing, even though I have turned Overlay and Dashboard off, they refuse to turn off! This does not bode well. And since features may be locked now for D7 it may be worse. Please reconsider removing Overlay from D7.
Comments
This is a work in progress
Although not everyone agree on the usefulness of the large overlay, me included, rest assured that this is a work in progress.
Drupal 7 is far from being complete and performance development have not really started yet.
As for me, using the latest D7 code, I can turn off the overlay, the toolbar and the dashboard module without any problem. And turn them back on. However, sometimes I need to clear my browser cache. And with Drupal 7 frequent codebase changes, I also need to clear all Drupal caches.
With a final release of Drupal, clearing the various caches won't be necessary, unless for developing themes or modules.
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http://www.xmacinfo.com
Sorry (really) but the overlay feels like a modal dialog to me
I'm not seeing the advantage throwing users into a separate "overlay" mode (and I've been using and developing on Drupal daily since 2005).
The overlay does look pretty, but for me the big improvement is grouping the functions; that, to me, is the usability improvement. As an admin, absolutely the last thing I want to watch a fancy overlay with spinner before I can get to my tasks.
So, I'd prefer to start by not confronting the overlays along with everything else.
Couldn't we default the overlay to off?
From ksenzee: archetypal -
From ksenzee:
Helpful but not the same as 'default off.'
Heine, thanks for reinforcing ksenzee's solution for the Overlay but it's not the same at all as default off.
I wonder if the animated issue ties into an age thing:
The comment echoing my original post appears to be from another old fogy like myself ;)
Perhaps we could do a Poll on the Overlay and include age categories in the Poll to better evaluate the cultural momentum in favor and against.
I think it's an important evolutionary issue that should be more deeply discussed.
I know that my mouse is forever complaining of PTSD whenever we go to animated sites ;)
Substance
I know it is not the same as default off. I responded to your
What "animated issue" are you speaking off?
Personally, atm I fail to see your point. Give a week or two and a number of Overlay bugs will likely be solved. That said, I wish you and a number of fellow "crusaders" against Overlay would provide a little more substance to your posts. As in, show that Overlay (after the bugfixes) does not improve user experience in certain scenarios.
That would be more helpful than an "I'm an old fogy and do not like it".
I see...
What would be helpful to me, and perhaps others, would be if you could provide me with a link that describes why/how Overlay is supposed to of help. Or provide that description yourself. I wasn't aware that proposing an idea or opinion made one a 'crusader.'