Design forward: Apps management

[jancborchardt]

Currently the apps management uses the left side for listing apps and the right big content area for the app details. This is suboptimal for various reasons, including the initial empty space on the right, the lack of quick filtering, no scaling when many apps are in there, and the long clickery needed to just enable/disable an app.

Let’s redesign it simple. Basically the left list is used for grouping, and the right content area is used to show a list of apps, nice big entries with a logo or screenshot, short description preview (expandable on click) and enable/disable button right there.

Left list

Would be a filter for the apps shown on the right. By default, All apps is selected.

• All apps
• Installed
• Featured (great outstanding apps, picked from core & community)
• Highest rated

Previously I also thought about 2 entries for »core« and »Community«, but I think that distinction is not necessary – rather we solve this through the inherently shipped apps and the recommended ones.

Then below that we could have a list of categories, which also includes apps from core & community (this are the categories from the Chrome webstore):

• Business Tools
• Education
• Entertainment
• Games
• Lifestyle
• News
• Productivity
• Social & Communication
• Utilities

The app manifest should probably have an entry for »category«, and enable multiple categories maybe.

Right content

By default this will show the list of installed apps. Entries should be big (~100px high), with a screenshot or logo to the left, the app title, first 2–3 lines of description (expandable on click), and the enable button to the right of each entry.

In each group the sorting is recommended ones first, and then everything else, alphabetically (for now, until we can get ratings or such).

There is no extra detail page for an app, at least for now. As it’s only visible for admins anyway we don’t need to go too overboard with the design and snazzyness in this iteration.

Feedback for these early thoughts @Raydiation @karlitschek @DeepDiver1975?

[jancborchardt]

Oh and I forgot the currently existing top bar: That will be removed. The »Add your own app« function can be added on the top or bottom of the left list. The »More apps« link to the app store is actually superfluous because all the apps are pulled in directly here anyway, so it can just be left out.

[ewildgoose]

This sounds exactly like your idea for the Contact and Users list! Wahey, even a search box above the group list would work here also!

Fantastic idea to test the UI on all three areas, the contacts / User list and the App list. Good luck

[karlitschek]

good idea

[PVince81]

The new app management already looks good on master.

I still miss a "search" field or "quicksearch" that will hide all apps except the ones that match the search text. Maybe the existing search field could be used somehow.

[PVince81]

Raised search box case as #11635

[BernhardPosselt]

@jancborchardt Changelog would be important to show apart from the description. Android does that too :)

[jancborchardt]

The new apps management is done since some time now. High five @DeepDiver1975 ✋

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