There are technical reasons to deprecate Idots and Jerryr template and,
if I find time, they will be removed in next release 15.1. We recommend
to use either Pixelegg or Stylite template.
Ralf
Ralf,
I spent several hours today trying all themes, Stylite, Pixelegg and Idots. I
worked through each of the applications looking at the strengths and weaknesses
of each compared to each other. At the end of the day, the one truth that stood
out was just how good Idots was from a screen management standpoint compared to
any of the others. Rather than deprecating idots, it would seem to make a whole
lot more sense to simply fix it, and let it remain the lightweight, efficient
default theme it has been for the past 8+ years. Jerryr can go.
The reason I say this is I have watched a fair number of good open-source
projects find some new widget and then completely abandon what made the project
exceptional to begin with. To a large part that can be said of idots. Idots is
what made egroupware egroupware.
For 8+ years users have, to a large extent, standardized on idots and have
built their use around the way it looks. Stylite and Pixelegg are good, but they
represent a radical shift for the interface and each have significant drawbacks
compared to idots, both from a resource and ui-design standpoint. Each also have
their advantages, but to wholesale throw idots under-the-bus would be a mistake.
To get rid of idots at this point would git rid of 1 of the 3 or 1/3 of the
themes available that provide the users a “choice” of what interface works best
for them. Both Stylite and Pixelegg attempt to implement a “gui” interface over
what is a traditional table/form rendered page. No matter how you slice it, you
just cannot do with images and layers what can be done simply and elegantly with
the interface idots provides.
After taking the time to go though all themes, I thought it was worthwhile to
collect my thoughts and pass them along to the project. I don’t know what other
feedback you have received, but I would be willing to give whatever limited help
I can to fixing idots to work correctly with 14, 15 and beyond. I do not think
the project is well served by deprecating idots. Forcing the community to
abandon idots for Stylite or Pixelegg just seems like a bad decision. Especially
when the alternative do not provide anywhere near equivalent screen utilization.
There is far more “right” with idots than is “wrong” with it. A lot of good
thought and good fundamental ui design went in to idots. The others, by
comparison, seem to be more proof of concept ui’s at this point than actual
final products. The project would be much better served by time spent brining
idots up to speed to fully work with 14, than it would be by deprecating the ui
that made egroupware what it is today.
Just my $.02 from an almost decade long user since the pre-1.0 days.
–
David C. Rankin, J.D.,P.E.
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