I was sitting with a relatively novice Drupal user today, and he was looking at the Drupal 7 block page:
screen shot of blocks page

The left column says Block, and the center column says Region. This confused him, since the left column is actually mostly a list of regions, and then within each region, it lists the blocks that are displayed in that region. So, the column headers were confusing.

I'm not sure if this page in this format is still going to be used in Drupal 8.x, so I'm filing this under 7.x (where it's probably too late for it to be changed)... but anyway I thought it might be useful to record.

CommentFileSizeAuthor
#4 Block_layout_My_Site_-_2016-06-14_00.44.42.png38.24 KBDavid_Rothstein
blockspage.png16.02 KBjhodgdon
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Comments

Pasqualle’s picture

Pasqualle
Location 🇭🇺 Budapest
CreditAttribution: Pasqualle commented

What should be the left column header?

jhodgdon’s picture

jhodgdon
she/her
Primary language English
CreditAttribution: jhodgdon commented

I do not have an answer about what the column heading should be... Perhaps something long like "Region list", and the next column could be "Choose region"? I doubt that is ideal either, but the current screen is definitely confusing for a new user unfamiliar with Drupal terminology of Blocks and Regions, and in fact leads them to lasting confusion about these terms (at least in this one case).

jhodgdon’s picture

jhodgdon
she/her
Primary language English
CreditAttribution: jhodgdon commented
Issue summary: View changes
Status: Active » Closed (outdated)

This is obsolete. The block layout page is quite different from what it was when this was filed, and there are other issues.

David_Rothstein’s picture

David_Rothstein CreditAttribution: David_Rothstein as a volunteer commented
Title: Usability glitch on Blocks page » Usability glitch on Blocks page regarding "Block" and "Region" column headers
Version: 7.x-dev » 8.2.x-dev
Status: Closed (outdated) » Active
Issue tags: +Needs backport to D7
FileSize
Block_layout_My_Site_-_2016-06-14_00.44.42.png38.24 KB

Well, it looks exactly like the screenshot from the issue summary in Drupal 7 still.... and it looks pretty similar in Drupal 8 too (see screenshot below). So it seems to me like the problem still exists in both Drupal 7 and 8.

What other issues are you referring to?

Block layout page in Drupal 8

David_Rothstein’s picture

David_Rothstein CreditAttribution: David_Rothstein as a volunteer commented

One way to fix it might be to remove the "Block" column header entirely, and just put "block" or "region" inline with each item as appropriate (e.g., "Header region", "Site branding block", "Primary menu region", etc).

I think that would solve the problem, but the downside is that it would add a decent amount of repetitive text to the page.

David_Rothstein’s picture

David_Rothstein CreditAttribution: David_Rothstein as a volunteer commented

Fixing issue credits - there seems to be some drupal.org bug that is breaking them.

dcrocks’s picture

dcrocks CreditAttribution: dcrocks as a volunteer commented

There aren't any better one word possibilities for these table column labels than the ones they have. Since this is a 'Block' table, the word 'block' is really implicit in every table column header. 'Blocks by region', 'Block category', and 'Block region selected' are the functional headers but would appear redundant to many. Perhaps simply indenting the block handle and block name under the region name label would help indicate the tabular layout. Or changing the first column label to 'By region'. But I do agree this table layout is confusing until you think about it a bit.

Version: 8.2.x-dev » 8.3.x-dev

Drupal 8.2.0-beta1 was released on August 3, 2016, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 8.3.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 8 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 release cycle.

Version: 8.3.x-dev » 8.4.x-dev

Drupal 8.3.0-alpha1 will be released the week of January 30, 2017, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 8.4.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 8 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 release cycle.

Version: 8.4.x-dev » 8.5.x-dev

Drupal 8.4.0-alpha1 will be released the week of July 31, 2017, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 8.5.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 8 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 release cycle.

Version: 8.5.x-dev » 8.6.x-dev

Drupal 8.5.0-alpha1 will be released the week of January 17, 2018, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 8.6.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 8 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 release cycle.

Version: 8.6.x-dev » 8.7.x-dev

Drupal 8.6.0-alpha1 will be released the week of July 16, 2018, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 8.7.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 8 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 release cycle.

Version: 8.7.x-dev » 8.8.x-dev

Drupal 8.7.0-alpha1 will be released the week of March 11, 2019, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 8.8.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 8 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 release cycle.

Version: 8.8.x-dev » 8.9.x-dev

Drupal 8.8.0-alpha1 will be released the week of October 14th, 2019, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 8.9.x-dev branch. (Any changes to 8.9.x will also be committed to 9.0.x in preparation for Drupal 9’s release, but some changes like significant feature additions will be deferred to 9.1.x.). For more information see the Drupal 8 and 9 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 and 9 release cycles.

Version: 8.9.x-dev » 9.1.x-dev

Drupal 8.9.0-beta1 was released on March 20, 2020. 8.9.x is the final, long-term support (LTS) minor release of Drupal 8, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted against the 9.1.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 8 and 9 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 8 and 9 release cycles.

Version: 9.1.x-dev » 9.2.x-dev

Drupal 9.1.0-alpha1 will be released the week of October 19, 2020, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted for the 9.2.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal 9 minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal 9 release cycle.

Version: 9.2.x-dev » 9.3.x-dev

Drupal 9.2.0-alpha1 will be released the week of May 3, 2021, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted for the 9.3.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal core minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal core release cycle.

pameeela’s picture

pameeela CreditAttribution: pameeela commented
Status: Active » Postponed (maintainer needs more info)
Issue tags: +Bug Smash Initiative

I agree with #7 that there isn't a logical alternative that doesn't end up adding a lot more words to this screen. But I won't close in case someone else has a brilliant suggestion!

Version: 9.3.x-dev » 9.4.x-dev

Drupal 9.3.0-rc1 was released on November 26, 2021, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted for the 9.4.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal core minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal core release cycle.

Version: 9.4.x-dev » 9.5.x-dev

Drupal 9.4.0-alpha1 was released on May 6, 2022, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted for the 9.5.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal core minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal core release cycle.

Kristen Pol’s picture

Kristen Pol
she/her
Primary language English
Location Santa Cruz, CA, USA
CreditAttribution: Kristen Pol at Itty Bitty Byte for Salsa Digital commented

Thanks for reporting this issue. We rely on issue reports like this one to resolve bugs and improve Drupal core.

As part of the Bug Smash Initiative, we are triaging issues that are marked "Postponed (maintainer needs more info)". This issue was marked "Postponed (maintainer needs more info)" more than a year ago and there has been no activity since that time.

Although I can see the possible confusion, I don't have any amazing suggestions here. One thought is the first column could be Regions (plural) and block could be added after each block name like what was mentioned in #5. But, I wouldn't remove the table header.

Since we need more information to move forward with this issue, I am keeping the status at Postponed (maintainer needs more info). If we don't receive additional information to help with the issue, it may be closed after three months.

Thanks!

Version: 9.5.x-dev » 10.1.x-dev

Drupal 9.5.0-beta2 and Drupal 10.0.0-beta2 were released on September 29, 2022, which means new developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted for the 10.1.x-dev branch. For more information see the Drupal core minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal core release cycle.

quietone’s picture

quietone CreditAttribution: quietone at PreviousNext commented
Status: Postponed (maintainer needs more info) » Active
Parent issue: » #3273172: [META] Improve UX for block layout administration page

I was about to close this because of #18 and #21 but I asked in #bugsmash instead. acbramley asked if there is another issue around the block UX because they felt this UI needs work. I search and found quite a few. Thankfully they have been grouped in to two Meta issesu

I am making this a child of the second issue.

Version: 10.1.x-dev » 11.x-dev

Drupal core is moving towards using a “main” branch. As an interim step, a new 11.x branch has been opened, as Drupal.org infrastructure cannot currently fully support a branch named main. New developments and disruptive changes should now be targeted for the 11.x branch, which currently accepts only minor-version allowed changes. For more information, see the Drupal core minor version schedule and the Allowed changes during the Drupal core release cycle.