Design the content creation controls

I like it very much, proposal and Toro Y Moi! :)

More seriously, when I was thinking about new activity stream, specific icon for each content type was something that crossed my mind, maybe to even replace user avatars with them..but, one step forward is for sure to have concise visual icon representation for content types.

Also, if we could avoid using dropdownies at all, that could be great, even if we are talking about filters in views.

BTW, if I can see correctly, we will not have anymore status updates? That would be great! :)

The challenge I see is

- 6 is still a lot of content types. presenting 'wiki' and 'discussion', without context, may be difficult (design challenge - design icons to represent each)
- The Tumblr layout works because each content type is 4-5 characters. Ours would look more jarring.
- If site admins add or take away content types, we'll need to provide a means to keep the UI from looking disgusting.
- We want people to create content from anywhere in the site. Need to strike a balance of not making every page about creating content.
- The Event page probably only wants a 'create event' call to action... maybe

I started designing these, but while clear, they do take up a lot of space
https://skitch.com/lisarex/83bpf/content-creation-widget

Jeff and I both like the Google Docs approach (one click/tab to reveal the content options) ... it's hard for me to get a screenshot of it but I think most can see what I mean.

I like the search/explore/add navigation here: http://wiser.org/

While maybe not the most futuristic design, it is familiar and highly functional. Adapts well when content types are added or removed. And +1 for getting away from "create content" -- "add" feels like a good non-technical term here.

I have use cases for other content types that may be role based. So I like the icons, but I really wouldn't want them to be yucky if I added / remove one. Though having it be more "in your face" would be useful for non-technical types to understand what to do. I am a bit concerned about the idea of hiding the bar. Will folks understand why it shows sometimes and why not others? If it "disappears" when the bar is hidden, will technically challenged users understand that they should expand the bar?

Speaking of metaphors, would "Participate" work for adding / creating content? That would reflect the community aspect.

I think commons will prove popular if you make it easier for the end user, people like me to update easily.

@RaisingHappyKids.Co I understand your concern about removing blogs. It would be a lot more helpful if you stated those concerns on that issue so everyone has an opportunity to see it as it relates to that portion. To answer your question, I believe all you would have to do is set up another content type with a pathauto setting that uses a token to determine the path ( ie, blog/[uid]/article-name or vice versa ). If you wanted to, you could even name the content type "blog" and no one would be the wiser.

As for the theme concerns, Drupal 7 is substantially different than D6 from a theming perspective. No matter which theme was chosen there will be a lot of work to upgrade it. Also, although commons comes with a different theme, I'm pretty sure you could enable any other one you wanted regardless, including Fusion.

No one is forcing you to upgrade to D7, D6 will continue to be supported until D8 comes out at the earliest Aug 2013. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be unsympathetic, I'm just not seeing why this is a huge problem.

@crimsondryad I did mention on that issue http://drupal.org/node/1613092.