Tine 2.0 mock-up challenge

[Balazs]

It is really great to work with such an active community, as the Tine 2.0 Community. Your feedback on our work helps us a lot, and as we can see from our surveys you pretty much like Tine 2.0. Now we want to take the chance and improve something very fundamental in Tine 2.0 - the application frame. This is the part of Tine 2.0 that is always visible not matter in which application you are.

There are two main reasons for this:

• extJS has added new features which we think Tine 2.0 could profit from. Take a look at what extJS offers:
  • New Buttons: http://www.extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/button/buttons.html,
  • New Toolbars: http://www.extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/toolbar/toolbars.html and
  • for a general overview of features go here: http://www.extjs.com/deploy/dev/examples/samples.html.
• We have learned a lot about Tine 2.0 since we originally designed the frame. We have added functionality that does not fit perfectly, e.g. the saved filters.

So we decided, that we need rework this fundamental element of Tine 2.0 - and we would like to give you - our users - a great chance to participate in this process:

Tine 2.0 community mock-up challenge

Create the Tine 2.0 application frame and show us how you would like Tine 2.0 to look like

How does it work?
Illustrate how you would like Tine 2.0 to look like in the future. You can do that any way you like, as long as you have in the end a picture you can upload here. So scribble on paper and scan it, draw, wireframe, photoshop... - and post the result here. Explain your ideas and discuss all the suggestions together with the community. Let us together improve the ideas and find a great solution, we can realize in hopefully the next release of Tine 2.0.

What should it look like?
Have an inspirational look at a suggestion from Thasmo (thanks for bringing us to the idea for this challenge) to see how easy it is to Contribute: http://www.tine20.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=850

What can I win?
You can win the ultimate price: an even better version of Tine 2.0 with your personal fragrance in it!

When does it end?
We need to start with the implementation about mid of January. As we will not stop any discussions here, you will have to see, that new ideas posted later then the 17th of January 2010 will be very difficult to consider.

Any questions?
Well, just ask here. I will try to answer as quickly as possible!

[Thasmo]

Do things move along? ;o)

As I'm no designer, nor GUI specialist, not having any experience in
creating GUI mockups, it costs me a lot of time, gettin' my idea to paper -
and any experienced designer will do better and faster - I may ask if my previous
approach/mockup/idea may act as competetive mockup for this challenge also?!

Furthermore I've fun doing this - or, had fun doing this - for Tine 2.0,
maybe I'll come up with some more advanced examples, including
those new GUI elements coming from ExtJS 3.

Anyone else participating in this competition?

[Balazs]

Hi Thasmo,

yes - your post inspried us to this challenge - and it is of course part of it. If you like to do some more - great!

Hope some more people will bring in ideas - but this challenge is also some sort of test - what kind of user participation works out?

And do not be worried - what ever you bring in - it does not hve to be designed. Mock-ups, skribbles,... are absolutly sufficient!

Happy New Year to everyone!

[phsc]

Hi everybody

I scribbled down my ideas how Tine 2.0 could look like in the future. In my opinion Tine 2.0 is already quite beautiful and user friendly but needs to be polished a bit. And now, please discuss my proposal!

Regards
Philip

[Thasmo]

Nice - I also thought about the applications accessible by tabs.

One more idea/challenge: How to access application functions without
actually loading/entering the desired application?

Think of kinda tabbed navigation with an arrow below each actual tab
folding out more functions/options refering to this application/tab.
So you could access 'add task' without actually opening 'tasks'.

Furthermore, what about the idea of having 'windows' which actually
hold any kind of application/form which is opened. Think of a kind of
'desktop' environment, where you can open an application, which opens
in a window or a tab. So you could open your favourite apps and close
everything else, you don't need instantly.

[Balazs]

Hi phsc - and thanks for your idea which I quite like!

I have two questions / ideas concerning it:

1. There is no place provided for saved filters. Do you forgot them or do you think we do not need to save filters?

2. I was thinking about a tabbed-application-launcher or -display as well. What I am not so sure about: Do you really want all applications to be in the top row at any time? There will be quite a few applications available and for some users with smaller screens there will simply be not enouge space in the horizontal row. Or do we want users to add new (and close existing) tabs and fill them with whatever application they like? This would allow a user to have e.g. two views on the addressbook open at the same time. On the other hand - this way we only emulate what all state-of-the-art-browsers already allow. I can open more then one Tine-Session in my browser and can do whatever I like in there... (e.g. open two addressbooks with different views / filters).

What do you and the others think?

P.S.: Thasmo, perhaps you like to re-post your design suggestion here as well? So we have different approaches in one thread?

[Thasmo]

Investigating the actual Demonstration of Tine 2.0
and studying the available sets of GUI elements of ExtJS 3.1
I'm currently working on a Photoshop Mockup, fitting to a
resolution of 1.024 x 768 and above.

For simplicity I used a simple set of the new grouped
buttons, as I don't think Tine 2.0 needs the more complex
ones (yet) - there is no huge amount of functions per
application, so this is imho a not needed overload.

Some functionality in the mockup is not yet set on paper
to 100% yet, so I will need some more time for this, but hopefully
I will come up with one screenshot until the end of the week.

Keep it going! =o)

[Balazs]

Great! Looking forward to see your ideas! Dont go too much into the details, the idea is what counts and the details is what costs most of the time.

[kaystrobach]

i like the interface as it is.
I think we should orientate the interface on common interfaces for groupwares like outlook or evolution:
http://projects.gnome.org/evolution/screenshots.shtml

Most users are using such software and so there is no need for so much explanation in the manual. -> That's why i dislike the tabbed interface idea - even if it looks great.

[Balazs]

This was one of our principles when we created Tine 2.0 - to make it feel like a desktop application - and evolution, outlook and others were used as model when we created the design. But we are actually having problems, at least with the "saved filters" component - or how do you see this? Do you like the way they are integrated into Tine 2.0?