Sometimes it happens that an administration page doesn't open in the overlay as expected (but as a full page) and from then on if I keep visiting administration pages the overlay doesn't work anymore. As soon as I go back to the homepage (using the icon on the top-left corner) and than back to an admin page it starts to work again.
A way to reproduce this behavior is to visit update.php (even if you don't have anything to update) and then go back to the admin pages clicking the link that appears after the process. The link (http://localhost/?q=admin) is not a clean url and doesn't open the overlay.

Comments

David_Rothstein’s picture

Title: Overlay doesn't always work » Visiting an admin page doesn't always display it in the overlay

Yes, I have seen this too, and it's very confusing!

I think it is partly "by design" - what happens is that if you wind up going to a URL like /admin/whatever directly it doesn't open it in the overlay; it only does it if you go to /#overlay=admin/whatever. This might be not so terrible if it always happened intentionally, but there are a number of ways it can happen by mistake. Visiting update.php as you pointed out is one example; another would be double clicking a regular admin link fast enough that the JavaScript doesn't have time to rewrite the URL, etc. It is very unpredictable and confusing.

I think the best fix here would be to always force you into the overlay if you are a "overlay user" and visiting an admin page. In other words, perhaps the overlay JavaScript should redirect URLs like /admin/whatever directly to /#overlay=admin/whatever (same page overlaid on top of the front page of the site).

casey’s picture

casey’s picture

Also, clicking really fast on an admin link while still loading the page (before the javascript has been executed) will open the link without the overlay. We might be able to fix this by adding the click eventhandler outside $(document).ready() so it is active at once.

casey’s picture

My last suggestion doesn't seem to work out.

Mark Trapp’s picture

Issue tags: +Usability, +update.php

Still occurring in latest HEAD: go to http://example.com/update.php, click on Administration pages, and you get taken to http://example.com/?q=admin even if the Overlay and Clean URLs are enabled. The only way to get back into the Overlay—short of manually changing the address—is to click on the edit tab of your user profile.

Bojhan’s picture

Gonna up this to major, as its very confusing and often occurring when you are moving in Drupal at speed.

Bojhan’s picture

Priority: Normal » Major
rschwab’s picture

I can't get this to happen by double-clicking admin links as detailed in #1. Is that because it was fixed or I'm not quick enough on the draw?

I also haven't been able to reproduce #3, but none of my sites pages take very long to load so I could easily have just failed on that one too.

However, if noone can reproduce those two scenarios I think we can safely close this as a duplicate of #821248: Installing a module or running updates from the overlay makes you leave the overlay but doesn't bring you back.

casey’s picture

@rschwab

Alas, this isn't fixed. It probably depends on CPU power and browser, but the issue is still there. I am not sure whether we can fix it, but lets keep it open for people that experience this problem or come up with a solution.

Also, this is no duplicate of the issue you mentioned.

jcisio’s picture

Subscribe. Does anyone have an idea to track down the problem?

catch’s picture

Version: 7.x-dev » 8.x-dev
Status: Active » Postponed (maintainer needs more info)
Issue tags: -update.php +Needs backport to D7

This needs better steps to reproduce, I've never seen it.

David_Rothstein’s picture

Status: Postponed (maintainer needs more info) » Active

1. Click on a link in the toolbar before the page has fully loaded. (Helps if you have a slow browser or a site whose JavaScript is slow to load.) It will happen sporadically, if you click fast enough.

2. Go to admin/modules inside the overlay, click "update script" in the help text, run through update.php, click "Administration pages" at the end. You are back in the admin area but no longer in the overlay - happens every time. (That one is basically the same issue as #821248: Installing a module or running updates from the overlay makes you leave the overlay but doesn't bring you back. though.)

catch’s picture

Category: bug » task

OK #1 sounds like a performance enhancement of the overlay (or site-specific javascript), moving to a task but leaving at major.

mikey_p’s picture

Note that the behavior related to links on admin pages (not in the overlay) not opening the overlay is by design per: #650528: Overlay should not appear when an administrative page is being viewed in the parent window and #714464: Don't open a new overlay within /admin

rooby’s picture

1. Click on a link in the toolbar before the page has fully loaded. (Helps if you have a slow browser or a site whose JavaScript is slow to load.) It will happen sporadically, if you click fast enough.

2. Go to admin/modules inside the overlay, click "update script" in the help text, run through update.php, click "Administration pages" at the end. You are back in the admin area but no longer in the overlay - happens every time. (That one is basically the same issue as #821248: Installing a module or running updates from the overlay makes you leave the overlay but doesn't bring you back. though.)

Also:

3. If you get directly to an admin page in some other way (like typing in the url), from then on you don't get the overlay. So as was mentioned in #1, it might be good in those cases to redirect to the homepage, with the requested admin screen in the overlay, so that there is consistency and you always get the overlay.

YesCT’s picture

Priority: Major » Normal
nod_’s picture

Version: 8.x-dev » 7.x-dev
Issue summary: View changes

Overlay is dead to D8 #2088121: Remove Overlay.

rooby’s picture

Yay! :)