Placement of the 'Save' button on settings pages
While working on gitlab-ce#47405 @jeremy_ raised a good point about the placement and repetition of the 'Save changes' button. From as it is now, it's not clear whether clicking the button will save changes made on the whole page or just that section. It's placed locally but it has a global effect.
Notice the disabled 'Save changes' button at the bottom of the first section
I quickly came up with a mockup where I placed the button on top right of the page (right of the breadcrumbs).
No changes, button is disabled | Changes made, button gets enabled | Changes saved, message appears for a while, button disabled again |
---|---|---|
The breadcrumbs row would have to be sticky for this to work because some settings pages are very long and the button (and its change of state) needs to be visible at all times.
One potential problem I see with this approach is the fact that the button doesn't go along with the flow in which the users go through settings (top down). They would have to go top down and then back to top (but a change of state of the button from disabled to active should attract their attention).
I'd love to get more eyes and thoughts on this.