Well some of you may have known that I am currently working on some preliminary tasks for the current ACP before Mys v1.3.2's release. I personally consider these steps necessary before Mys v1.4.0's ACP overhaul project is launched. The current ACP surely aint quite user-friendly, and it should not come to you as a surprise that many admins prefer using phpmyadmin to edit user/adopts records directly. It is not recommended for beginners though, so we definitely feel a need to improve the ACP asap.
What I've been doing with the ACP lately? The ACP is getting a new look, something I'd thank Nyxi for her excellent work. The menu is now displayed at left sidebar, in which you can expand/collapse a submenu by clicking on it. To collapse all submenus, simply click on 'DashBoard' and you will be directed back to the index page of admin control panel. So yeah, despite the fact that ACP overhaul project hasnt begun, the proposed layout for new ACP is here already. We'd also like to receive feedback from you on the new ACP layout, since its final version will be based on this new layout we have right now:
[image unavailable]
In the meantime, I've designed a security ACP login system in which an admin has to manually log into Admin Control Panel even if he's already signed on the main site. Guests and Members are blocked from entry, as usual. It isnt something special, but I'd say it is more professional to have a separate ACP and main site login system. A screenshot of the login page is shown below, it is the default page for non-Admin users and admins prior to logging in:
[image unavailable]
On the other hand, the new ACP's coding structure is having a drastic change at the moment, which is why it's been taking me a while. Starting from Mys v1.3.2, you will no longer be accessing each page of admin control panel by urls such as yoursite.com/admincp/adopt.php?do=new&id=1. Instead, there's only one url that you need, yoursite.com/admicp/index.php. I've designed a front controller that handles all incoming requests from admin control pages and actions. The index.php page then delegates different categories of responses to each app controller, which are responsible for generating the desired content you are requesting. You will hear the term 'Controller' a lot in not so distant future, since Mys v1.4.0 is planning to incorporate a simple custom model view controller framework. I'd call it a simple framework for now, it will get complex by Mys v1.4.x, v1.5.x and v1.6.x.
And what are the issues with ACP? Well, for some reason the text's vertical alignment is 'center', which moves the text up and down whenever you click on a submenu to expand/collapse the menulist. It proves to be uncomfortable aesthetically, hopefully we can resolve this soon. The actual content of ACP is still not much different from the old ACP in Mys v1.3.1, since the overhaul project has yet to start. For this reason please do not hype up this project for now, it needs much more time to finally develop into a powerful ACP like Vbulletin's(yeah, I am a huge fan of VB's ACP design).
I'd like to apologize for postponing the release date of Mys v1.3.2 again and again. The original plan was to overhaul the user/usergroup system for this minor release, but soon I found that this cannot be accomplished without overhauling the core system. I am using 4-5 times more OOP than Mys v1.3.1, but I still can hardly call it an object-oriented project at this point, at least not till an MVC framework is there. Good news is that we are moving towards this direction. Guess what? Mys v1.3.3 will be using Smarty template system. Some of you may not understand what I am talking about, the only thing I can say at this moment is that it will affect the styling of Mys sites in future.
So have a great sunday everyone, I am having a four-days weekend right now so I can speed up the development of Mys v1.3.2 considerably at this point. Dev staff will have a beta version of Mys v1.3.2 by the time ACP's revision is completed, and we will know exactly when the new script will be ready for public by then.
What I've been doing with the ACP lately? The ACP is getting a new look, something I'd thank Nyxi for her excellent work. The menu is now displayed at left sidebar, in which you can expand/collapse a submenu by clicking on it. To collapse all submenus, simply click on 'DashBoard' and you will be directed back to the index page of admin control panel. So yeah, despite the fact that ACP overhaul project hasnt begun, the proposed layout for new ACP is here already. We'd also like to receive feedback from you on the new ACP layout, since its final version will be based on this new layout we have right now:
[image unavailable]
In the meantime, I've designed a security ACP login system in which an admin has to manually log into Admin Control Panel even if he's already signed on the main site. Guests and Members are blocked from entry, as usual. It isnt something special, but I'd say it is more professional to have a separate ACP and main site login system. A screenshot of the login page is shown below, it is the default page for non-Admin users and admins prior to logging in:
[image unavailable]
On the other hand, the new ACP's coding structure is having a drastic change at the moment, which is why it's been taking me a while. Starting from Mys v1.3.2, you will no longer be accessing each page of admin control panel by urls such as yoursite.com/admincp/adopt.php?do=new&id=1. Instead, there's only one url that you need, yoursite.com/admicp/index.php. I've designed a front controller that handles all incoming requests from admin control pages and actions. The index.php page then delegates different categories of responses to each app controller, which are responsible for generating the desired content you are requesting. You will hear the term 'Controller' a lot in not so distant future, since Mys v1.4.0 is planning to incorporate a simple custom model view controller framework. I'd call it a simple framework for now, it will get complex by Mys v1.4.x, v1.5.x and v1.6.x.
And what are the issues with ACP? Well, for some reason the text's vertical alignment is 'center', which moves the text up and down whenever you click on a submenu to expand/collapse the menulist. It proves to be uncomfortable aesthetically, hopefully we can resolve this soon. The actual content of ACP is still not much different from the old ACP in Mys v1.3.1, since the overhaul project has yet to start. For this reason please do not hype up this project for now, it needs much more time to finally develop into a powerful ACP like Vbulletin's(yeah, I am a huge fan of VB's ACP design).
I'd like to apologize for postponing the release date of Mys v1.3.2 again and again. The original plan was to overhaul the user/usergroup system for this minor release, but soon I found that this cannot be accomplished without overhauling the core system. I am using 4-5 times more OOP than Mys v1.3.1, but I still can hardly call it an object-oriented project at this point, at least not till an MVC framework is there. Good news is that we are moving towards this direction. Guess what? Mys v1.3.3 will be using Smarty template system. Some of you may not understand what I am talking about, the only thing I can say at this moment is that it will affect the styling of Mys sites in future.
So have a great sunday everyone, I am having a four-days weekend right now so I can speed up the development of Mys v1.3.2 considerably at this point. Dev staff will have a beta version of Mys v1.3.2 by the time ACP's revision is completed, and we will know exactly when the new script will be ready for public by then.
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