Support for Drupal 7 is ending on 5 January 2025—it’s time to migrate to Drupal 10! Learn about the many benefits of Drupal 10 and find migration tools in our resource center.Problem:
Vertical tabs contain a summary of their selections, but not a description of what they are.
Suggestion:
Add a sentence of helpful instructions to advanced settings on vertical tabs.
Comments
Comment #1
jefflinwood CreditAttribution: jefflinwood commentedUsing Add Content->Article as a model for this, we made several observations
1) The vertical tabs need a description and heading of their own - for instance:
Heading: "Advanced Settings"
Description: "Changing these settings will affect this article only."
2) Each tab needs useful help text at the top.
3) Add visual icons to each tab for site builders to visually recognize
Comment #2
bryancasler CreditAttribution: bryancasler commented+1 for visual icons and help text at the top of each tab
Comment #3
Todd Nienkerk CreditAttribution: Todd Nienkerk commentedSome feel that adding icons to a UI creates two levels of translation for the user: (1) "what does the icon mean?" and (2) "what does the title/text mean?" Users would have to be trained to know what the icons mean.
Also, new icons would have to built for each new vertical tab; this is a problem because site admins and module developers can choose to put configuration UIs in new vertical tabs. Inevitable, some tabs will not have icons, and they will seem less important to the user because they don't have a unique icon to call them out.
I recommend not adding icons.
Comment #4
svenryen CreditAttribution: svenryen commentedI agree with the suggestion not to add icons.
In addition to what Todd just mentioned,
many module contributors may not be the
best icon makers, so you could end up
with a cluttered interface.
Comment #5
svenryen CreditAttribution: svenryen commentedSome vertical tabs are not useful for all users.
Even though a module exposes settings in a vertical
tab, this doesn't mean that all users have a need to
interact with the settings.
Making it possible for the site admin to choose which
tabs to show/hide on a _per user role basis_ from the
content type UI would be a significant improvement.
Comment #6
jenlampton@svenryen, what you are asking for is already governed by permissions. If you don't want a specific role to be able to add a URL alias, then don't grant them the permission to add a path, and the vertical tab will not appear. Not only does this keep your UI clean, but it keeps your site secure, too :)
Re #1
I agree with 1.
I could go either way on 2. I can see how consistent description text on every fieldset on every form could be really beneficial. But I think we might end up adding a lot of unhelpful text that might just clutter the UI, stuff like "these are the settings for X module".
I strongly disagree with 3. Icons are excluded from pluggable interfaces for a lot of good reasons, as mentioned above. If people want them they can be added via themes or modules, but should certainly not be included in core.
Comment #7
jenlampton@svenryen, what you are asking for is already governed by permissions. If you don't want a specific role to be able to add a URL alias, then don't grant them the permission to add a path, and the vertical tab will not appear. Not only does this keep your UI clean, but it keeps your site secure, too :)
Re #1
I agree with 1.
I could go either way on 2. I can see how consistent description text on every fieldset on every form could be really beneficial. But I think we might end up adding a lot of unhelpful text that might just clutter the UI, stuff like "these are the settings for X module".
I strongly disagree with 3. Icons are excluded from pluggable interfaces for a lot of good reasons, as mentioned above. If people want them they can be added via themes or modules, but should certainly not be included in core.
Comment #20
smustgrave CreditAttribution: smustgrave at Mobomo commentedWonder for D10 if this is still a valid task? Never noticed this to be a problem personally.