Great New Look

[Pagemonster]

And as soon as everyone stops using IE and any old browser, I'm sure some more of these things will be quite possible, however unrealistic While 1997 sounds like you are going a bit overboard, we do have to make sure older browsers work. As for tables, checkout quirksmode.org for the very long list of div bugs that IE has (http://www.quirksmode.org/bugreports/archives/explorer_windows/index.html to start, http://www.positioniseverything.net/index.php is another favorite of mine.). Tables are still unavoidable, and render faster in a lot of cases.

Frames are fast, its better to only update some content then everything at once. Also if you don't like javascript, everything should work fine if you disable it.

I didn't realize there was a standard for using fieldsets in labels, must have missed that rfc , also searched google for "fieldsets and labels standard."

This post is wrong on so many levels - at no time in the forseeable future will "everyone stop using IE". Period. Yes, v6 does have a truckload of problems, but since it is the single browser with the largest audience, attention should be paid to development/design with IE in mind. Any professional developer will agree with that or it will cost him. With v7 knocking on your door, you can expect the crowd to get larger, not smaller, so keep that in mind as well.

Tables can be avoided if you have the time and experience. Also, I don't believe tables ever render faster than CSS. The people that code should never touch the front of the application. The people that design the front end should never touch the back of the application. O how I do wish the cpanel developers would adhere to that.

And finally, you shouldn't just quickly dismiss the javascript comments by saying 'disable javascript'. The person who you were responding to in your post made several completely valid points, one of which was that everything necessary could be done without leaning on javascript - to simply sweep it under the rug by saying to disable javascript totally ignores the point of his post.

I like cpanel. I use it dispite its many quirks and problems. The front-end, however, is the ugliest, most ancient piece of junk anywhere. It's a shame that when someone posts such valuable input that it's summarily dismissed like this.

 

[procam]

This post is wrong on so many levels - at no time in the forseeable future will "everyone stop using IE". Period. Yes, v6 does have a truckload of problems, but since it is the single browser with the largest audience, attention should be paid to development/design with IE in mind. Any professional developer will agree with that or it will cost him. With v7 knocking on your door, you can expect the crowd to get larger, not smaller, so keep that in mind as well.

Tables can be avoided if you have the time and experience. Also, I don't believe tables ever render faster than CSS. The people that code should never touch the front of the application. The people that design the front end should never touch the back of the application. O how I do wish the cpanel developers would adhere to that.

And finally, you shouldn't just quickly dismiss the javascript comments by saying 'disable javascript'. The person who you were responding to in your post made several completely valid points, one of which was that everything necessary could be done without leaning on javascript - to simply sweep it under the rug by saying to disable javascript totally ignores the point of his post.

I like cpanel. I use it dispite its many quirks and problems. The front-end, however, is the ugliest, most ancient piece of junk anywhere. It's a shame that when someone posts such valuable input that it's summarily dismissed like this.

If it were within my power to grant you an award of some kind for that post I would do so PROMPTLY!!

I second that post and frankly am shocked that he said that at all!

 

[Edizon]

As much as I like cPanel, I would have to agree that thier frontend is inadequate in both code and design. I just spent 3 weeks parsing and extracting every file in WHM and cPanel on a new cPanel/WHM project so please... :D

The people that code should never touch the front of the application. The people that design the front end should never touch the back of the application. O how I do wish the cpanel developers would adhere to that.

I have been thinking that for years!!!


Nick have you ever considered hiring a contractor for the design? You and your staff are amazing and have brought many innovative ideas and features to the hosting community. cPanel is still the best solution on the market for its features and support. It is just a shame that such a product falls short in the design of the output. I would love to help in this aspect even at no charge.

It would be great if it were coded by newer standards (would be great for me!), however considering this is a browser based control panel by design. It is important that it is operative in all possible browsers (even antique browsers).

As far as the new design goes it is like moving sideways. A whole new design, same inept design concept.


WAP or Blackberry support would be grand!

 

[nickp666]

I would love to help in this aspect even at no charge.

I would also help at no charge.

 

[RavenSoul_]

Nick have you ever considered hiring a contractor for the design?

I think the previous site lay-out was one made by a contractor. Including X.

 

[gorilla]

Sorry to say so, but i still think cPanel can do much better then the present design layouts and skins.
I mean , look at kayako or plesk or the new modernbill design .

cPanel has a fantastic backend structure , but still is missing the frontend.
Its like an old VW beetle with a porsche turbo engine in it.

 

[Edizon]

The X was a distributed free theme by Bert, which was later purchased by cPanel and adopted as the new default theme. The X series were actually very good themes. After they purchased the X themes, I think from that point cPanel made all of the modifications needed to update newer feautres, therefore faltering the appearence of X.

My suggestion was more to hiring a contractor to continually modify and enhance cPanel/WHM. Perhaps of similar quality to the X Themes or of comparable design structure.
Everytime they seem to add new features of update a function, thier html output seems to distort the integrity of the original theme.

may I suggest Ceonex... :D. That would be great, however I don't see that happening.

 

[Infopro]

....My suggestion was more to hiring a contractor to continually modify and enhance cPanel/WHM. Perhaps of similar quality to the X Themes or of comparable design structure...

I think this is the single best comment in this entire thread.

The greatest control panel available today for hosting, deserves nothing less than the best man available to skin it. Something as important as the presentation layer should not be left to a novice.

I think it's a waste of time to have anyone other than a hired professional working on a new look.

 

[rvskin]

The evolution theme is a good attempt, fresh look but not good enough. I would suggest keep all subpages, and redo the theme homepage from scratch again.

The only my concern is your page encoding now is UTF-8. Are you sure it will not cause any problem with the old cPanel data? Is there a need for UTF-8 to ISO-8859-1 conversion, and vice versa?

And How can I get the information for the new API? I need to update RVSkin to compatible with new coding. Can you put it on the BETA version?

 

[DavidR]

....My suggestion was more to hiring a contractor to continually modify and enhance cPanel/WHM. Perhaps of similar quality to the X Themes or of comparable design structure...

Add my vote to this sentiment. I don't mean to be critical, but I sincerely hope that the X theme will be maintained. I don't think Evolution is an improvement and X is quite functional. If you really want to create a new theme, hire someone who does that sort of thing well and maintain the existing default so as not to force people to change just for the sake of change.

David

 

[flen]

At my opinion the X skin is much beter looking. The AJAX things in the new skin are great, but the looks could better.

 

[cPanelNick]

It looks like we have about a 50/50 split on the new theme. We will probably end up maintaining both themes for quite a while. Sadly this will push of the cPanel 12 release date by at least a month as improvments/api2 things are backported to the x theme.

 

[electron33]

The new design is not necessary the best way forward

I'd prefer the current cPanel/WHM structure. The new cPanel design might appeal to people who like "jazzy" design, but as far as I can see the design is over crowded with lots of little icons (especially the left navigation). The stats on the left, for example, is far too busy with many little squares cramped into text.

More importantly, the DHTML menus may not work on portable devices. I love controlling our servers and hosting accounts from my little PDA and if I lose this, it would be a big problem for me.

The current x2 theme is clean, usable and robust. The colours are very easy on the eye making the whole user experience more smooth and pleasing.

How could anyone justify destroying the minimal-click, easy-to-use, and browser-friendly design of x/x2 in favour of pleasing a small number of flashy-design fans?

Someone also mentioned frames as being a negative navigation strategy. Frames are in fact one of the most suitable ways to create navigation for control panels, especially if compatibility is a priority.

Although frames do make sense for WHM, they are totally unnecessary for cpanel (end users).

Nick, please keep x2.

Thanks

 

[chirpy]

I have to say that I personally really dislike the X theme. I don't find it at all intuitive and always end up using the browser search to find the pesky link I want. I preferred bluelagoon in its day

 

[myusername]

I have to agree with the suggestions here about hiring a design team to skin cPanel.

I actually saw this at hostingcon running on a mac at the cPanel booth and I was very sad to see what was sitting on their Macintosh display demo.

I was hoping to have something fresh after dealing with X for soo long and all of its quirkyness. I have to say I like having items organized into areas, like:

Email
Stats
Etc

But your current layout is still non sensical. I What does a file manager have to do with statistics?

If you are going to release a new skin I'd seriously consider at least having some designers give you some mockups and let the community vote on the best ones.

You guys can afford that, and we are the ones that pay the bills so why not?

Requests are a

1) "lite" version for Mobile access especially in WHM that one can be a real PITA with 3 frames or more all competing for a 4 inch screen.

2) Professional desgn

3) And one I think that has been asked for a very long time and that is a template-able control panel skin so that average people can just skin their own. You'd never hear a complaint if you made your API open to developers so they could do what they want with the skins.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could just build our own themes? That sure would free up some dev time you guys spend on the front end and would let you focus on the backend. Hey maybe thats already there but there are no docs on it other than what is found in these forums. How about some classes and functions our programmers can work with from the API? the cPanel accounting module is something like circa cPanel 3 and has about 4 functions.

#3 should probably be number one on the list.

We put off paying for someone to do a custom cpanel skin for us but if this is what is coming out, I guess we will be paying someone else afterall

It is a very nice skin though compared to X though, and definately a step in the right direction.

PS file manager: If that has to stay like that, hopefully there can be a setting to disable browser mode. Too confusing, at least in the demo. Take a look at propanel systems file manager. Actually take a look at their entire package. I have.

PSS those progress bars on the left colum of the main pages have got to go. If you have to use them, solid progress bars will look 10x cleaner. As a matter of fact, someplace in that theme I saw solid progress bars.

How about some semblance of a well put togather layout? Its like someone had ADD and decided to change their mind halfway through then never went back to choose the final design. Whats the point of 2 or 3 different progress bars?

It reminds me of a pair of patchwork hippy pants.

Sorry for the overwhealmigly negative post but I don't think we are 50/50 from what I am reading in this thread. I am seeing about 75% dislike 25% like.

Maybe I'll count it later. New site looks good though.

 

[rpmws]

This whole issue is screaming for an all out contest!!! There is nothing like having a couple hundred people all over the globe taking an honest shot at a new design. It would of course have to support all the new and improved "features" that the new API has ..you could have people privately submit mock-up proposals ..then cpanel can have a private screening to confidential sworn people in the industry who themselves can screen their customers if they would like. If there is an overwhelming result in a certain direction .. the cpanel design team may want to then make either arrangements to compensate the submitter for the basic idea(s) and continue with that direction and possibly improve on it ..or something else. The input from the world community can't hurt. Bottom line this entire industry is about networking with people from around the globe,.. NOT limiting yourself to talent that's stuck in the same office in one area. Think of the possibility and choices that would be presented in a real contest and it would be one a huge sign to everyone that the "customer" and their opinions and feedback and needs are job #1. Why not use the power of the global reach that cpanel has to let the "cream" rise to the "top". Doing this can ONLY improve the product and give fresh ideas to the design team. It's basically what happened with X and we all know that at the very least when the X "look" was adopted ..cpanel took on a whole new "professional" look that helped make cpanel what it is today ..a leader.

I know investing in people you trust and know are talented makes it hard to consider ideas from "outside" but if you think about it ..great artists get inspiration from outside ..not just from within. Why limit it all to what we are looking at now ..open the damn box up a bit

that's my 10 cents worth.

EDIT ..just read the post by "myusername" right before mine that I had not read prior to hitting "reply". I think he hit the nail on the head and looks like the contest idea as well. I just tried whm today for the first time on a WM5 phone and it just simply doesn't work at all. A text based version would work without frames for low bandwidth, low memory , low screen devices. We also need a "warning panel" that is clear and visible when people logon to cpanel .. "you have issues to resolve" and the #1 thing that it needs to tell people is about account quota and email account quotas!!!! It needs to be something they normally do NOT see when things are normal. A "problem resolution center" if you will ..where people can fix stuff themselves. Why do I need a warning to tell me I am out of parked domains on a package that has zero available in the first place or has 2 available and I only need 2? A parked domain is not like gasoline ..where I am going to run out at some point ..same thing with mySQL and FTP accounts and email accounts for that matter. These are not consumables ..they are static things we either use or we don't. It's not the same as space and bandwidth. don't get me wrong ..we need to tell people what they have available and how many they are using ..but it's not a thing they need to worry about that changes daily like space and BW ..that's all. The thing is also very heavy in size / download. When testing various methods and connection speeds at first on a simulated 60k connection it takes like a full minute to see anything. I can see customers right now ...It's broke ..won't do anything!!! and give up. We just can't have that.

On the skin idea from "myusername". My comment would be NOTHING makes a product more popular than one that has been made easily "skinable" and "marketed" as just that. True ..you can make cpanel look and feel pretty much like you want already ..been that way for a long time now ..but if you make it easier and tell people by advertising the fact ..skins will be popping up all over the place, free, paid and custom ..even MORE so than now.

And you know ..the sad thing about all of this is many people in these forums will never post anything in regards to this post... and many new perspective buyers may not give cpanel a serious look if it doesn't appeal to them. You can't please everyone. Some people may love the new direction of the look and it may be a deciding factor that makes them decide to try a cpanel based server or end user hosting account based on cpanel. There is no way to tell at this point. But it's obvious that it doesn't just take an idiot like me to appreachate honest feedback and do something with it. You can never go wrong when you take your time and think things out and listen to your customers and consider all the angles. The simple fact that this thread even exists is proof that cPanel does listen to us ..and no matter what your personal opinion is,.. yes or no on the current design direction .. we should all agree that cpanel has to be commended for their efforts to improve the product we all depend on and use daily to make a living.

 

[Infopro]

As a side note, the forums "lite" theme for handhelds? has no way back once you choose it. There is no usercp link that I could find.

 

[Edizon]

I suggest perhaps this one:
http://www.edizon.com/themes/x3/

This is just a rough draft. I am working a a lightweight theme for mobile devices already. I am too tired to post more here. Talk to you guys later

 

[WireNine]

Might I suggest more of a Plesk 8 theme look? It's so much more organized, and professionally done.

Maybe you guys should really look into hiring ceonex.com to do a new design. The sub pages are really crowded, especially the email accounts page, mysql databases page, etc.

If not ceonex, hire a professional designer. CPanel really needs a great looking style, easy to the eyes, the whole GREEN is not that great.

Just a suggestion

 

[nickp666]

Might I suggest more of a Plesk 8 theme look? It's so much more organized, and professionally done.

Maybe you guys should really look into hiring ceonex.com to do a new design. The sub pages are really crowded, especially the email accounts page, mysql databases page, etc.

If not ceonex, hire a professional designer. CPanel really needs a great looking style, easy to the eyes, the whole GREEN is not that great.

Just a suggestion

I dont think I could disagree more with this, I absolutly despise the way plesk looks and works