The Joomla! People Portal ™

Name: Jonathan Shroyer Short Bio: Co-owner of 'corePHP', LLC. Full-time web developer specializing in CSS. Skills: HTML, CSS, PHP, graphic design, accessibility, usability, semantic coding. Hours: As needed Availability: EST - whenever available

Hi Joe, I agree that JS could be a requirement but not a "indispensable aspect". First of all accessibility is not just about users with disabilities. Accessibility also means accessing from a mobile devices (boom happening right now), users with javascript turned off, screen readers, users with low connection speed and etc. Normally I wouldn't bother with a tiny percentage of users that have javascript turned off (and it has been decreasing over the past few years) but as Joomla! has some millions websites out there that small percentage can become a big number. So it's something to consider. If we want to follow some "Progressive Enhancement" guidelines then Javascript should be used as an enhancement (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_enhancement#Core_principles). And that's why I critised having to depend on Javascript for form submissions. We are talking about a popular CMS here right? and it's a CMS not just a specific web app. Javascript itself is fine (screen readers support it) but there are some things here we need to address. Absolutely requiring Javascript requires some cautions such as: * "Make all functionality available from a keyboard". Drag and drop is the danger here. Can a user use the drag and top interface with the keyboard? Nope. - http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG20/#keyboard-operation * Can the user perform a core task without AJAX? Found this interesting point of view at stack overflow from a screen reader user: "If you want to use JavaScript to generate links, form fields, and other valid HTML elements it should work fine. Where JavaScript and other web technologies can cause problems is when you create nonstandard ways of performing an action on the page." - http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3994694/is-screen-reader-able-to-read-web-page-dynamically-created-by-javascript/3997028#3997028 There is also an interesting test performed by a web developer, but it's from 2006: "I’m forced to conclude that, unless a way can be found to notify screen readers of updated content, AJAX techniques cannot be considered accessible, and should not be used on a production site without a truly equivalent non-script alternative being offered to users up-front." - http://www.sitepoint.com/ajax-screenreaders-work/ AJAX drawback: "Any user whose browser does not support JavaScript or XMLHttpRequest, or simply has this functionality disabled, will not be able to properly use pages which depend on Ajax." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ajax_(programming)#Drawbacks Most of the drawbacks listed there doesn't really concern us for a back-end interface (such as web crawlers). Plus there are a lot of new techniques coming now that will help this, such as WAI-ARIA attributes. BUT using AJAX still requires caution and testing. * The old WCAG 1.0 had something about depending on Javascript: "Ensure that pages are usable when scripts, applets, or other programmatic objects are turned off or not supported (…)" - http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10/wai-pageauth.html#tech-scripts 1.0 is really old though (10 years I think?). The latest draft is the 2.0. "Section 508" also doesn't state that the page must be functional with Javascript turned off but it does require some information about it (like no script tags). === Anyway, the point here I'm trying to make is to have a strong foundation and add javascript on top of it progressively. I am a strong supporter of using the latest technologies and techniques such as drag and drop, AJAX, HTML5 features etc. But I don't have millions of users using my template or experiments. I think javascript should be heavily used in the interface for a better experience - but now that we have a chance (if we do) to improve the admin UI then let's step back for a moment and see what's really missing for a strong and solid foundation. Cheers.

Hi Everyone, I'm back, this time I have some cool announcements. The project I'v set out to build for changing the day to day management behavior of the Joomla back-end as it currently appears is entering alpha stage. We actually have working code. Sometime in the next week we will have a functioning widget system, with real data being pulled from the Joomla API through an abstraction layer we're designing and implementing as a system library. The name of the project is called Nexus and you can read more about it at: http://www.joomla-ology.com/ Btw, If some of my posts on the site come across as intense, it's just my motivation to move beyond the current admin interface. I'm aware of the fact that the core team had to use the technology available at the time of Joomla 1.0 to 1.5 for the backend, there simply wasn't any newer technology or technique at the time. Times have changed :-) In the next week or two I'll be submitting a patch to the Joomla project which allows for the Nexus environment to function properly. It's a small change, applicable only under controlled conditions and not active during general site operation. It's a couple of lines in one system file, that affects module chrome in a very specific and controlled manner. Under non-Nexus created interactions this logic isn't even called unless the user goes out of their way to invoke the display mode. Feel free to peruse the forum and ask questions and post! -- Joe

Thanks posting David, I've got to figure out how to get the J people site jomsocial notifications :P I'm presenting at several JoomlaDays, and my topic will be JUX and standards. This will force me to type out and organize all my ideas and then we can collaborate and refine, then actually make all this happen in 1.8 or 2.0

Hi Chris and others Just asking as we are discussing a change to the installer here: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/joomla-dev-cms/3lDjv8-U5ms Might be of interest to you to join in or at least know about the discussion :-) Wouldn't want any duplicate efforts Regards David

Hi Marco, Thanks for your kind words. I have fixed the php tag issue. And Minima really is a very cool template, that I hope inspires the default Joomla! 1.7 admin panel. As has been discussed elsewhere, Joomla!'s been stuck with basically the same admin layout since the start, so it's great to see something fresh, ditto with the work on AdminPraise.

Why User Experience Cannot Be Designed http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/03/15/why-user-experience-cannot-be-designed/

What's ironic about this is I'm also using Projectfork to organize my component development effort as well. Go figure.