Symphony.

I just created a new author and was a little surprised not to be redirected to the list of all authors after saving (is this behaviour intended?). After a moment I realised that the system message (which is really, really small) had changed from This site is currently in maintenance mode. Restore? to Author updated successfully. Create another?.

I'd like to request some visual help:

• It would be great if the system message could change color for a moment and maybe fade back to grey a little later. Something to attract my interest.
• It would be great to have a differentiation in terms of color between maintenance mode, system messages or errors.

Hey Nils, I like this idea a lot and have added it to my feature to-do list. :)

System messages actually do (or at least should) have a different colour to error messages, but I think it's also worth drawing attention to new messages like you mentioned.

The behaviour of taking you back to the related list has been removed in 2.0 since we think it's more often that you'd want to edit, or at least review, the form you just saved (e.g. entries - spelling mistakes; pages, utilities - coding bugs).

The behaviour of taking you back to the related list has been removed in 2.0 since we think it's more often that you'd want to edit, or at least review, the form you just saved (e.g. entries - spelling mistakes; pages, utilities - coding bugs).

I think this is a good change. I just wasn't sure at first if anything was saved at all because I didn't see a change.

I just noticed that errors are highlighted differently - so that's fine. I just hadn't produced any error before starting this thread.

It's good Skubidu, we really value your input and your expectations with the system helps us realise issues with Symphony 2 that we would not have known about.

Keep them coming :)

I have been thinking about system messages for a while now. Besides colors, I'm wondering why the font size is smaler and why the layout is so narrow. I attached an image with an alternative solution:

1. error message as is
2. proposal: error message
3. proposal: confirmation
4. proposal: warning

Skudidu, I like your proposals. However, I think the link color would need to be adjusted from its current white because it's too difficult to read.

However, I think the link color would need to be adjusted from its current white because it's too difficult to read.

You're right. I thought that, too, but was to lazy to change that in the screenshot :)

This is quite an old topic, but it is still a current one:

Last week I had a discussion with a colleague that was trying to save changes and didn't notice that the saving process succeeded (there is still this grey message on top of the page). Would it be possible to rethink the system message and make visually more clear that they are there and what they stand for (error, warning, success)?

Furthermore, thinking of translations, it would be great if the shown messages could be distinct. By now they say "%s created successfully. Create another?" which has to be translated differently depending on the context. So there should be different message without using a variable.

Last week I had a discussion with a colleague that was trying to save changes and didn't notice that the saving process succeeded

I had exactly the same conversation. Although they need a little tweaking, the idea of different colours is a good one.

A thought:

Yes, sometimes after creating or saving an entry, you want to go and create another. But sometimes, you create or save an entry and want to return to that section's publishing index. It would be nice if the system message gave you that option, as in:

Entry created/saved. Create another or view all entries

I've noticed that sometimes Symphony does redirect me back to the section's publish table. I imagine it's storing the referral. Under what circumstances this occurs I'm not sure. But yes, many times I've had to use the Back button twice to get back to the Publish page. A direct link would make sense.

All this sounds good, my 2 cents:

I often find the 'success' message of limited use. Since I am saving to a Page multiple times while it is loaded, the success message is meaningless after the first save. What if it could be removed/modified with dhtml after a time period, be timestamped, or both.

Colour-coding system messages would be a great improvement. I also like ashooner's suggestion of removing them after few seconds, though perhaps that's not all that wise for error messages.

Additionally, I think there should be a true/false configuration setting to indicate whether one should be redirected upon a successful save to that sections index listing. I only find saving and staying on the same page helpful 50% of the time.

I think all these red warnings are quite painful. They could be replaced with orange colored messages which make mistakes less serious (unless something made the system vulnerable, then it'd be reasonable to use a red hue).

Perhaps system messages are neglected because of their position in the interface. It could be worth a try to "shift" them down just before the main content in order to look and see if they gain more prominence. My theory is that these alerts are too close to the top of the mainframe, thus being overwhelmed by the surrounding elements (e.g. the browser chrome and the backend header).

Just thinking out loud anyway... Firefox uses the same mechanism and it seems like it works well!

I was wondering if keyboard shortcuts would be good enough to solve the "create new or view all entries" issue. By choosing which page to display, in accordance with the keys you press, it'd be easier for experienced people to speed up their workflow without affecting who approaches the system for the first time. Does it sound good?

My 2 cents, Simone

I've given this some thought and adapted Nil's suggestions. The updated success message in 2.0.1 with a blue background really didn't sit well with me. Blue in Symphony has previously been used to mark elements that have been selected by user interaction, so it looked a bit wrong.

I'm tending towards keeping the same style of design, but tweaking to make them more obvious:

• A generic notice
• A success, using a mid green derived from the "Create new" button colour
• An error message, very similar to the present

I made the bar slightly taller and made the borders more prominent.

I'm not a fan of the "Create at hh:mm" format of 2.0.1. I think the time is unnecessary information in this context, so adds clutter.

I think Nick's suggestions make sense.

Nick, I like your version of the page alerts. Could you send in a patch via GitHub?

I'm not a fan of the "Create at hh:mm" format of 2.0.1. I think the time is unnecessary information in this context, so adds clutter.

Me neither! I think ashooner's idea of fading the message away after a while is great.

I send a pull request to Alistair last week but didn't hear anything. I'm a git newbie, so may have done something wrong...

http://github.com/nickdunn/symphony-2/commit/4c93bbc56741ef65b5fd6be28745c9b2d8ab1206

I send a pull request to Alistair last week but didn't hear anything. I'm a git newbie, so may have done something wrong...

Don't worry, sometimes it might take a while before Alistair integrates the changes, but I absolutely guarantee he knows about them.