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PI1: UI Improvements

Implement various "small" improvements that users have requested & will have broad impact. For Q3 we will focus on the following:

Improvements to asset/log edit forms (15hr): #206

The current default forms for editing assets and logs are long and make it difficult to quickly submit and edit specific fields of interest. This editing experience can be improved in a few major ways:

  1. Implement the Gin admin theme's "Content Form Sidebar":
    1. This adds a sidebar on the right-hand side of the form that is an ideal place to put the "metadata" fields that are frequently updated, yet take up less vertical space in the form (status, revision information, flags, categories, etc).
    2. The Gin "Content Form Sidebar" also moves the "Save" button to the top right corner of the form. This is a huge improvement for quick creation/edits because you do not need to scroll to the bottom of the page to click "Save".
  2. Allow adding vertical tab groups in asset/log edit forms:
    1. Grouping fields into relevant categories (Default, Location, Files, etc) makes it possible to quickly navigate to specific fields of interest without scrolling through the entire form and keeps fields that are logically related to each other in the same isolated space.
    2. Also decreases the overall height of forms.
    3. Provide a mechanism for additional "bundle" or "contrib" fields to be added to their desired tab groups.
    4. Likely provide a mechanism to turn of tab groups if desired (perhaps simply override the default display)

Improvements to asset/log display (15hr): #207

The current default display of assets/logs is simple, placing fields in a two column display. When many fields are populated on an entity there is a wall of information that is difficult to parse out. Additionally, some fields like entity references (log w/ many assets) and files or images can take up a lot of space. The default view can be improved in various ways:

  1. Use tabs to group related fields together:
    1. Similar to tabs in the edit form, this isolates logically related fields
    2. Decreases the overall height of the display when fields take up lots of vertical space
  2. Improve the rendering of specific field types:
    1. Long entity reference (log asset reference w/ > 5 references
    2. Condense image + file renders

Improvements to record table display (10hr)

All record types in farmOS are displayed in Views tables. We chose to build these tables using views because it is the easiest & most maintainable way to provide an interface with access to lots of data along combined with robust filtering and export options. Functionally these tables work great but common user-feedback we have received is that the tables often include/display too much information and could be improved in the following ways:

  1. Hide columns when they do not contain any data
  2. Make it optional to show the log/asset/record ID columns
  3. Re-evaluate the column order in these displays, consider any general improvements
  4. Limit the length/size/height of data that is returned in a column. Eg: to prevent long lists like log->asset reference
  5. Decrease the amount of space that tables take up. Greg has provided some mockups/ideas for what UI elements could be condensed on these pages.
Edited by Paul Weidner