Planned for 11.34 Forwarders UI becoming worse with each upgrade [case 53001]

[danhallin]

When I started using forwarders in Cpanel they were powerful and easy to use. With each upgrade of that system it has become worse and worse, until now being almost completely useless because the interface is so awkward to work with. There is a multitude of posts on the forums noting how difficult the interface is to work with and I'm surprised it has not been dealt with properly.

Here's what was worsened:
It used to be possible to add addresses formatted with "Bob Smith" <loverboy1764@hotmail.com>, this would display the name in the list, which was more useful than the address which is often arbitrary and difficult to tell to which person it belongs to.

Used to be able to add several addresses separated by ;
The lookup and confirmation of address that disallows this is a nice touch, but not really all that useful since you will generally copy addresses from somewhere and they will thus be correct.

The process of deleting a forwarder has quadrupled in complexity, from:
1. find address in list
2. click 'delete' (load page)
Into:
1. select 'Showing 500' (load page)
2. find address in list
3. click 'delete' (load page)
4. click 'delete forwarder' (load page)
5. click 'go back' (load page)

The good:
CSV import was added, but is essentially worthless since there is no 'delete all' or 'overwrite' option.

For me personally just fixing the delete all / overwrite would be enough. Adding a 'export' option would be a bonus.

Generally I think you should overlook the interface though, look at this post for example http://forums.cpanel.net/f43/multipl...ers-86081.html
There one administrator says he gets the request to be able to add several addresses 'all the time'. And that is just one host. There must be a LOT of users annoyed by this.

[notuo]

I have to add mine to this request.

+1

[dogbot]

I add myself to this. I am new to cpanel and was here looking for this functionality only to find out is non-existent. Yes please this seem like such a a basic thing. Thank you

[cPanelDavidG]

There must be a LOT of users annoyed by this.

These alleged masses are more than welcome to voice their +1 on that thread so it doesn't look like a feature only one person wants when we go to analyze demand for specific feature requests .

[cPanelDavidG]

1. select 'Showing 500' (load page)
2. find address in list

Any particular reason you are not using the search box on the forwarders page to find an address? It will find items even if they are not listed on the page you are currently viewing and it does support partial-text, so you can just enter a few letters of either the forwarder address or the address being forwarded to to locate that forwarder. This would bring this down to a single step unless there are very many matches for all of your searches.

3. click 'delete' (load page)
4. click 'delete forwarder' (load page)
5. click 'go back' (load page)

Would it be okay if we use AJAX here to avoid all this unproductive page loading? I ask because it would be consistent with a goal we already have for future UI enhancement so this might be something we're already working on. This would collapse this down into a few clicks rather than 3 page loads.

[Kent Brockman]

Well, +1 on this.

Would it be okay if we use AJAX here to avoid all this unproductive page loading? I ask because it would be consistent with a goal we already have for future UI enhancement so this might be something we're already working on. This would collapse this down into a few clicks rather than 3 page loads.

A bit of Ajax even in the search box to automatically filter data will be great.

[malidani]

+1 from me too. I'm hoping to move our email system to one with cPanel, and the very awkward Forwarders UI is the ONE reason still holding me back.

Great that there is an ETA 11.34 on this. Any rough idea when this release might come out?

Would it be okay if we use AJAX here to avoid all this unproductive page loading? I ask because it would be consistent with a goal we already have for future UI enhancement so this might be something we're already working on. This would collapse this down into a few clicks rather than 3 page loads.

Are you thinking of a similar UI implementation like currently under cPanel "Email Accounts"? That would be a huge improvement.

I suppose that would then also not reset the search results after each deletion?, which would be extremely helpful. Example: If I'd like to delete several forwarders with the same alias forwarding to several addresses, e.g.:

alias@domain.com fw to abc@domain.com
alias@domain.com fw to def@domain.com
alias@domain.com fw to ghi@domain.com

As it is now, I have to search for the forwarder, delete ONE (with the multiple steps that danhallin mentioned), then the search gets reset and I have to search for the alias again to delete the second etc.

The cream of the crop would be if multiple forwards could be deleted through tick-box-select and one deletion process. (That actually would be awesome for the "Email Accounts" UI too.)

[cPanelDavidG]

+1 from me too. I'm hoping to move our email system to one with cPanel, and the very awkward Forwarders UI is the ONE reason still holding me back.

Great that there is an ETA 11.34 on this. Any rough idea when this release might come out?

My general rule of thumb is wait until it reaches the EDGE tier then it will reach the RELEASE tier weeks/months afterwards. EDGE is basically our "public preview" where people can submit their final input and we apply it to the product before it goes into production tiers. A pre-production version of 11.34, which will be version 11.33, is being targeted for 2-3 months from now but that all depends on QA issues that could arise before we are comfortable publishing it even to the EDGE tier.

Are you thinking of a similar UI implementation like currently under cPanel "Email Accounts"? That would be a huge improvement.

Yes. Our UI team's ultimate goal is to make all parts of the cPanel UI where there are lists of accounts you want to modify be AJAX-ified (for browsers where Javascript is enabled, of course).

I suppose that would then also not reset the search results after each deletion?, which would be extremely helpful. Example: If I'd like to delete several forwarders with the same alias forwarding to several addresses, e.g.:

alias@domain.com fw to abc@domain.com
alias@domain.com fw to def@domain.com
alias@domain.com fw to ghi@domain.com

As it is now, I have to search for the forwarder, delete ONE (with the multiple steps that danhallin mentioned), then the search gets reset and I have to search for the alias again to delete the second etc.

I completely understand this scenario (having dealt with it a few times myself). Delete, get back to that page, delete again, repeat... it gets annoying and yes, moving the interface to AJAX would get rid of that "get back to that page" step.

The cream of the crop would be if multiple forwards could be deleted through tick-box-select and one deletion process. (That actually would be awesome for the "Email Accounts" UI too.)

This is something that is also being considered as part of Case 46014 (which is a component of Case 53001), but this is still in the planning stages. Our UI team realizes many people often use forwarders in groups (e.g. your alias@domain.com example) and they are working to devise ways to better accommodate that workflow via an improved interface.