Remove overlay and toolbar from Drupal core

Absolutely.

Keeping the clicks to a minimal to access a specific feature is very important. As an example to manage the display of a content type that currently takes 4 clicks with the default drupal 7 toolbar.

structure > content type > article > manage display

With admin_menu this can be achieved in just one. With that in mind how much extra time are drupal users spending just navigating the backend UI to achieve these basic tasks?

If usability is what matters admin_menu should be implemented asap.

I'd rename the issue to more constructive "Provide a viable and future-looking replacement for overlay [and shortcut] modules" what do consider the dawn on mobile / tablet contexts, UX problems of overlay what we forgot during D7 development (preview functionality, add to shortcut widget etc) and our widened post-D7UX experience and user tests results. Also, some D8 new functionality (Blocks everywhere) very likely need a fresh thinking on overlay. Also, some old ideas might be taken out of the attic, for example #885690: Reverse the overlay implementation (put the parent page in an iframe underneath the administrative page).

It's 2012 and there a whole new world of ideas around how to organize user-facing / admin parts UI level such as seen in Basecamp Next http://37signals.com/svn/posts/3111-basecamp-next-ui-preview or SquareSpace 6 http://vimeo.com/user8989126/review/30922118/41c166af97

Do we REALLY need to discuss this again? I actually enjoy the overlay and toolbar. Lots of time, money, and energy was spent on those two features, and they should be included with core. In addition, Dries doesn't want to unbundle a bunch of stuff from core.

Short answer: If you don't, turn it off. Don't use it. If you have a better alternative to either the overlay or the toolbar, and it's backed up by usability studies, then please open an issue and we'll talk about it. For now, just removing the modules from core is a waste of time and energy.

I question those usability studies if your'e saying that the default toolbar is better and more usable. In no way, shape or form is it stronger than admin_menu. It takes a lot more clicks (and time) to access areas of the backend admin with the current toolbar.

I'm in the position of having used the default toolbar from the beginning of d7 release - with no prior drupal experience. I like the default toolbar layout. Yep I said it - so much so that I refused until only a month ago to go to admin_menu. The problem is that I can get things configured and setup in far less time and with far less clicks with admin menu.

To take 3 more clicks as an example to access manage display of a content type = inferior UI.

Keeping a module in core because a lot of time has been spent on it - is not a good enough reason. :)

A lot of work has gone into admin_menu as well.

Just launched my first D7 site and having to use Overlay is dreadful. (I'm using a distro where I'm forced to use it on account of dependencies.)

Firefox is absolutely glacial for admin now, so I've had to change how I work. And disabling permissions for superadmin doesn't work either, so I can't turn the darned thing off, dagnab it. At least there should be some options!

Any ideas on how I could get rid of overlay for admin pages would be greatly appreciated - thanks!

There's an option to turn the overlay off on your user account page, and it works for user 1 also.

If you're seeing performance problems with the overlay, please file a separate issue with more details (version of Firefox, etc). I wasn't aware of performance issues recently (the last big ones were years ago with older browsers and were fixed)... but it could be there are some scenarios where there are.

This also seems a bit off topic for this issue. If you're using a distro that forces the overlay module to be on, that wouldn't change at all if the overlay module were removed from core; the module would still be part of that particular distro. Forcing the module to be on is either a decision the distro maintainer made for some reason, or they were actually trying to simply install the module by default but not prevent it from being disabled, and therefore it's a bug :)

There's an option to turn the overlay off on your user account page, and it works for user 1 also.

Brilliant... thank you! Hooray! (I'm new to D7 and never would have found that.)

Forcing the module to be on is either a decision the distro maintainer made for some reason, or they were actually trying to simply install the module by default but not prevent it from being disabled, and therefore it's a bug :)

Certainly - and there have been complaints about it, too. Sorry for posting here; yes, this is off-topic, but there didn't seem to be an issue queue.

In any event, I'm grateful for the tip about there being a user preference; choice is good! Thanks much, David - greatly appreciated... woo hoo!

I've changed my mind regarding overlay - not the default menu toolbar though.

Overlay kind of provides the user with an awareness that they are in the backend and with a simple click can go back into the front. Sounds obvious but I think that clients will appreciate this. Regarding the performance hit - I havn't noticed any performance hits.

Keep overlay
Remove default d7 toolbar - use admin menu instead :)