Toolbar issues

[hvelarde]

The purpose of this issue is to keep track of all toolbar problems found:

Bugs

• Toolbar difficult to remember and predict (Toolbar difficult to remember and predict #802)
• Personal tools overflow (Personal tools overflow when using horizontal toolbar #946)
• Missing personal toolbar when expanding the toolbar (Missing personal toolbar when expanding the horizontal toolbar #950)
• More… menu completely misplaced (More… menu completely misplaced #952)
• Duplicated menu item on toolbars (Duplicated menu item on toolbars #1007)
• Toolbar switches position on screen resize (Toolbar switches position on screen resize #1127)
• Horizontal toolbar breaks when expanding/collapsing (Horizontal toolbar breaks when expanding/collapsing #1128)
• Actions with no icons are not visible on collapsed toolbar (Actions with no icons are not visible on collapsed toolbar #1569)
• Hide some menu items on folder_contents view (Hide some menu items on folder_contents view. #1475)

Regressions

• User should know easily who is logged in (User should know easily as who he is logged in #962)
• Last modification date button is redundant on the toolbar (Last modification date button is redundant on the toolbar #999)
• Locking icon on toolbar is not clear (Locking icon on toolbar is not clear #1056)
• Missing @@dashboard link in Personal Tools (Missing @@dashboard link in Personal Tools #1132)
• Not immediate way to know who is the author of an item using the toolbar (Not immediate way to know who is the author of an item using the toolbar #1560)
• Toolbar should not be shown when user is authenticated but has no certain roles (toolbar should not be shown when user authenticated but has no edit, contribute or review role for the current page #1570)
• It is not clear which date is being displayed on the toolbar (It is not clear which date is being displayed on the toolbar #1575)
• Access to History view is not explicit (Access to History view is not explicit #1576)
• Not immediate way to know if an item has expired using the toolbar (Not immediate way to know if an item has expired using the toolbar #1577)

Usability

• Don't change button contents on hover (small/collapsed edit toolbar usability: Don't change button contents on hover #1610)

[vangheem]

We've noticed these problems as well. We ended up going with a toolbar on top and bottom. There is just no way to fit everything you need on the toolbar otherwise.

Here is an example:

Then you also have more room to have breadcrumbs and other things in the toolbar.

[djay]

I think that part of the problem here is that plugin authors don't have much options with regard to where to make their items available on the toolbar. Greenbar/toolbar tabs has always been easiest. But from a UX perspective this is not ideal. Not everything is top level and needs to be one click away. For example, in that list Sydication, aliases, Analytics and even history I think wouldn't be used often enough.
I think we can do a few things

1. Do a vote/survey on what are the top 3-4 things people want to be one click away. Make people priotise. That should give us data to work from. Include end users in that as well.
2. Have a way to easily put more forms into the edit view. For example, aliases could be available from edit, since it is conceptually about working with the url of the content. Syndication might be within edit to. Perhaps within edit > settings there could be a menu of extra settings.
3. Have 1-2 generic dropdowns similar to Actions. The idea of having metadata/history dropdown has been suggested. Analytics might fall under that menu.
4. I've mentioned before how sharing and state are tightly related and can be combined.

[rioksane]

I mostly agree with vanhgheem and djay here. After using Plone 5 in various sites in the last months, I agree that there's room for improvement, even though I do like Plone 5 and its new toolbar very much. Right now I'm working on a site that has 11 links on the toolbar - and they all look as important compared to each other.

It doesn't or shouldn't have to be major changes - just make the most important links bold (Add, Edit, Contents) and put some horizontal lines and/or marging to separate primary and secondary function sets.

A more radical change could be a new "More..." or "Settings" -menu item that could contain not so frequently used functions such as Rules, Sharing, History and others that come from add ons.