Follow-up to #2732443-34: Finalize the behavior for triggering view/edit/build modes from the toolbar (and fix the "disappearing toolbar")

Problem/Motivation

Regarding the Settings Tray toolbar section, from @xjm #2732443-34: Finalize the behavior for triggering view/edit/build modes from the toolbar (and fix the "disappearing toolbar"):

When I toggle the "Manage" or "Shortcuts" buttons on the toolbar, their relevant elements are exposed and hidden. I can also just switch to another button by clicking on it.

Manage menu on

Manage menu off

When I toggle Edit mode, the whole toolbar disappears. I cannot toggle directly into a different section; instead I have to figure out how to turn off editing mode to get my toolbar back.

I thought this was a major bug when testing the patch. Apparently it is by design? I'd encourage us to reconsider whether we can just make it behave like other toolbar buttons, because it seems really broken (and was bad user experience at least for this user) for the top-level toolbar I rely on to vanish.

Proposed resolution

TBD

User interface changes

TBD

Comments

tedbow created an issue. See original summary.

tedbow’s picture

Just to be clear. I create the issue because it was part of larger issue that is broken up into sub-issues. I don't actually think the current design has a probelm

I am not sure remove the items in the toolbar as outlined is really a WTF.

I believe when #2773601: Display "You are now in edit mode" prompt when user enters edit mode: Display is in the user will know they are in a different mode and how to get out.

There was also no mention as far as I know that this ever came up in user testing.

Also in the 10 months in has been in core as an experimental module it has also never come up.

tedbow’s picture

Title: Finalize the behavior for triggering view/edit/build modes from the toolbar (and fix the "disappearing toolbar") » Determine if elements should be removed from the toolbar during edit mode.
Issue tags: -Needs design, -Outside-in, -sprint, -MWDS2016
Wim Leers’s picture

Issue summary: View changes

I was very very confused by this issue. Formatting really helps ;)

Wim Leers’s picture

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.

tedbow’s picture

Component: outside_in.module » settings_tray.module

Changing to new settings_tray.module component. @drpal thanks for script help! :)

jonathanshaw’s picture

@tkoleary gave a very considered reply about the empty toolbar in the original issue's #38:

This ... goes to the long-view of the outside in editing mode. While it is true that in the current patch it feels rather empty at the moment and not having the toolbar takes the experienced Drupal user out of their comfort zone that will not be the case for long.

Very soon we will want to integrate the block place module with outside in, this adds another tab to the edit mode toolbar. Once we do that we need to take into account feedback on the block place designs that necessitates a select for all blocks on the page since some blocks may be put "behind" other page elements by the theme (for example an auto-play video block z-indexed under banner text). Since it covers the whole page, that select would need to be in the edit mode toolbar as well.

Moving on from there as we start to get into questions of block context in outside-in design feedback has also surfaced the fact that we will need a way to "contextualize" the page by "impersonating" a certain role or set of roles. Since this type of impersonation applies to the whole page also it could not be in the off-canvas tray (which by definition is focused on editing selected sub-sections of the page and not contextualizing the whole page) and would IMO also belong in the edit mode toolbar.

What about layout? Blocks and layouts initiative seems to be moving in the direction of a kind of "Panels IPE for core" if that comes about should the trigger for editing layouts in place exist in yet another toolbar (as it does now) or simply be another tab in the edit mode toolbar?

Finally we have quick-edit itself. It seems obvious to me that, ultimately, the experience we are looking for should be one in which clicking into edit mode also presents a toggle to quick edit the node itself, thus unifying all of the "in-place-editing" things in one mode. That toggle would naturally also live in the edit mode toolbar.

Now at that point it's not simply that we have an edit mode toolbar with a bunch of links and an administrative menu with a bunch of links and that's too much stuff on the page for the user to grok, it's that the types of items in each are of two fundamentally different classes. The administrative menu is just that, a menu, it contains links that bring you to other places. The edit mode toolbar on the other hand is not a menu, it is an application toolbar in the true sense of the word. Every button it might contain should perform an action that changes some aspect of the display of the page you are on and if it contains things that are links that bring you elsewhere that can only introduce confusion and ambiguity.

I could be wrong, but we can also look to how users actually interact with this and if not having the menu is a real obstacle or not.

tedbow’s picture

I agree with the arguments in #8

tedbow’s picture

Status: Active » Closed (works as designed)

Closing this as works as designed. I have done at least 3 reviews with the UX meeting about various aspects of Settings Tray. Running through the module we have determined that removing the items is the way it should work