Great New Look

[ryno267]

That new evolution design sucks... sorry but I have to be honest.

Frames? WTF
Can Cpanel PLEASE PLEASE hire a UI designer?

I'd stick with x2 if this was my option, or rvskin if I wanted the pretty graphical representations of 1/1 parked domains...

and... Frames?? come on.
I also saw some wanna-be LightBox popup for the creating an email address... sigh... if you want to be lightbox - use lightbox, or use thickbox from jquery, at least those are unobtrusive.

No vote from me on that new skin... Seriously get a UI designer - for so many people having to use it effectively - it would be so worth it.

my 2c

 

[WireNine]

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

The point was that Plesk's theme is done professionaly, I can't say the same for CPanel.

http://www.swsoft.com/r/upload/skin_big.gif < That looks pretty good to me, I am not sure why you would despise the way that looks.

 

[rpmws]

i just read this and found think it makes sense:

http://www.sourcelabs.com/blogs/ajb/2006/08/how_to_provide_a_web_api.html

 

[dgbaker]

I also saw some wanna-be LightBox popup for the creating an email address... sigh... if you want to be lightbox - use lightbox, or use thickbox from jquery, at least those are unobtrusive.

You bring up a good point about pop-ups, since the trend now a days is to BLOCK pop-ups, this is completely useless.

Also something along the lines of the RvSkin Light themes would be much better.

 

[qwerty]

I have to agree with the vast majority of people both here, WHT, the cpanel IRC channel and elsewhere on the interweb that the new Evolution theme is just not good enough.

Like someone said already - it's a step sideways, not forward. It's quite obvious that it wasn't designed (or rather "is being designed" since it's still in the works) by professional UI/GFX designers.

It's quite sad to see the massive resistance Cpanel are putting up to all the negative feedback that's been provided instead of listening to those same people - after all we are the ones who will be using this on a day to day basis. What's worse is when the boss says it's 50/50 when that's clearly not true based on all the feedback and the vast majority of people seem to dislike Evolution. Personally I find it abhorrent and quite scary I just can't shake the feeling that the only reason that Cpanel is going forward with Evolution is due to cpanel office politics - someone's job obviously depends on Evolution being developed and the people in charge are reluctant to tell them "ok you've had a shot at it, time to hand it over to pros now". Anyway, just my opinion.

In any case, even if cpanel decide to ignore all the feedback and simply go ahead with Evolution/X2 side by side, there is still light at the end of the tunnel (http://www.stylesmooth.net/ - a decent looking skin that's being developed right now)

Oh and I think a lot of the 'positive' feedback has been for the new cpanel.net web site - not Evolution. And I would agree, the new cpanel.net site looks a lot better. But Evolution is NOT a step in the right direction. Sorry, had to be said!

 

[lucaslim]

cPanel needs to maintain the clean and simple look that users are looking for in a layout. The new layout feels incomplete or something but it can be improved.. I kinda dislike the fade in fade out on the left navigation. It's irritating. cPanel X skin is straight forward and have a great looking interface. We love the backend of cpanel but the interface could be improved. : )

 

[qwerty]

Well I just did an official tally and the results do not surprise me one bit - although they might surprise you cpanelnick. A total of 27 people in this thread alone have voiced their opinion on the new Evolution theme.

4 out of 27 people (or 15%) generally like the new Evolution theme.

and

23 out of 27 (85%) generally do not like the new Evolution theme.

That's 15% for and 85% against. I did the tally twice to make sure I am including each feedback/vote only once.

EDIT: Oh damn, one of the 'fors' (lucaslim) seems to have changed his vote to what appears to be 'against' which leaves the tally at 3 FOR and 24 AGAINST.

15% vs 85% is a far cry from 50/50. The people have spoken, don't you agree?

 

[Pirotess]

Add me to the list of dont like it. I've just come from browsing around the net for a more flashy/professional looking skin and have liked a few that I found more than the default skins I currently use. The ones that I liked more were namely Radiance, Intelliskin and Ace but they still have room for improvement as well so I was hoping to find a few other resources here and instead found this thread.

I must admit, I cringed when I saw evolution after just coming from looking at those 3 skins mentioned above.

 

[deanstev]

Please +1 to the Like List

 

[lucaslim]

EDIT: Oh damn, one of the 'fors' (lucaslim) seems to have changed his vote to what appears to be 'against' which leaves the tally at 3 FOR and 24 AGAINST.

LOL! that's harlarious

 

[brianoz]

Nick,

I think you're making a big mistake worrying about compatibility with old browsers. Css based websites are the way everything is heading at the moment, and any new revision you do now will be with us for years - I think going with a table-based website is basing yourself on old technology that will end up leaving you behind the marketplace over the next few years.

As far as old browsers go - well, not many people use them in business these days. And those that do will be users, not hosting companies.

Just my opinion. Thanks for being willing to hear us out.

Brian

 

[myusername]

Nick,

I think you're making a big mistake worrying about compatibility with old browsers. Css based websites are the way everything is heading at the moment, and any new revision you do now will be with us for years - I think going with a table-based website is basing yourself on old technology that will end up leaving you behind the marketplace over the next few years.

I disagree

Yes CSS is great and that is LIKELY where everything will be going soon....I use it for 99% of my pages and prefer to use it for as many pages as possible.

However, you still need tables from time to time. And thats not for older browsers, thats for today's browsers. Some pages just cant be made to look and work the same unless you use tables (sparingly if possible)

The 2 browsers everyone uses right now render css divs completely different when using valid CSS positioning elements. You cannot remove tables completely until both (or more) of these browsers are standards complient, or people stop using the ones that are not. Which ain't any time soon. I still see issues in IE 7 with CSS rendering.


Okay back on topic: This is just another reason why it would be good to get people who are not only good designers but eat, breath and live it to do the new cPanel layout. You can see there is a lot of debate and a talented design crew would know how to design this for the future, for today, and have it look good.

 

[Edizon]

A pure CSS would be ideal for cPanel given that if would make cPanel load faster. There are many great benefits that CSS has given to webpages over the years and I see it becoming a standard in the future as well. With all the pros CSS has, it also has cons to go with it. If you have ever developed a full cPanel theme you would realize how the painstaking task of trying to synchronize browser compatibility for all the pages. The fact is that CSS is still not rendered the same as a standard in all browsers yet. Minor or major tweaking will be needed to ensure all pages render the same or are even amply functional.

Nested tables can be hell to update and can cause slow loading in browsers which is true. However using tables enables you retain a parallel structure that is functional in not only older, but current browsers as well. Tables are very much needed in todays sites as well as a bit in the future. CSS vs.TABLES is a mere preference today, in the future I would like to see CSS prevail. I still make my sites with tables (if needed) and CSS.

To be honest I dislike the Evolution theme because of its structure and design. Whether or not they use todays standards is not my main concern. Your customers are not going to buy hosting from anyone because your control panel in 100% browser standard compliant. Its the desgn of the theme to which may entice a customer to order. I am not saying to disregard the use of proper coding, I just think it should be concern no.2. What good is having a theme coded by today standards when it looks like it was designed in 1999? I know the good it was a point.

 

[cPanelNick]

cPanel 12 is still quite aways off (cPanel 11 builds just went out last week). Generally we don't make a habit of prereleasing new versions because nobody ever likes the first version (sad, but true). We are only attempting to show off the basic working idea. Showing it off (evolution) in the pre release stage appears to have more of a negitive effect for most. That being said, please realize that evolution is still in the working phase and is not complete (far from it). The main entry screen will probably go though quite a few more redesigns before it ever makes it out into the public tree. The main goal of displaying it was to show how flexable our new ui api can be.

 

[qwerty]

People are not idiots Nick and you shouldn't treat them as such. We are your paying customers. You asked for feedback and didn't get what you expected so now it's "not because there's something wrong with Evolution, but because it's unfinished." Very childish attitude.

The only way Evolution will EVER be liked/accepted by the majority of your customers is if the skin is entirely redone by someone else from the ground up.

 

[MN-Robert]

People are not idiots Nick and you shouldn't treat them as such. We are your paying customers. You asked for feedback and didn't get what you expected so now it's "not because there's something wrong with Evolution, but because it's unfinished." Very childish attitude.

The only way Evolution will EVER be liked/accepted by the majority of your customers is if the skin is entirely redone by someone else from the ground up.

Seems that way doesn't it. I mean how much can change to the final product?

 

[rpmws]

you guys need to understand that nick is human like the rest of us and cpanel has poured a ton of resources and time and put their hearts into this next phase. I can understand how they feel. I have spent weeks or my own time along with other hired developers just making a mock-up for a client that I was proud of ..showed it to my client and he just says "we will get back to you" and walks out of the room. To this day ..I have no clue what that meant because he never told me. My feelings were hurt and my wallet was as well. I thought my design was great ,,..for some reason they didn't. In this case cPanel *did* give us an idea of the direction and the feedback results have been mixed at best. All I know is I wish I would have had asked for earlier feedback on my project that bombed out..maybe I could have saved the deal. Nick was right asking for feedback .. the problem is for some reason .. it falls short (so far) for most people and that would be depressing to find out ..hell,... it's depressing to many of us as well. I can understand his point about waiting to release it. An example for me anyway,....the new cpanel main web site?, ..it's sooooo much better now than it was back when the new design was put up. night and day difference!!! I actually think it looks nice now.

Nick don't give up no matter what. It's about your customers. But remember you can not please everyone. Try to take all this as constructive if you can and don't take it personally. Ultimately it all rides on you for the final design and function release. It's your company. I trust you ...so I trust that eventually the new design will be a positive improvement for my hosting business. So we will see,.. and I for one will hold back comments until we get closer to a finished product. Just don't give up on us!!!

 

[cPanelNick]

Seems that way doesn't it. I mean how much can change to the final product?

Considering its about the 5th complete redesign, I'd say quite a bit. The whole premis behind the new api system is that the UI can be infinately more flexible. The one thing we have learned from this is that everyone likes and hates something different about the theme, if there was something more concrete we would just change it. At this point we have decided to just improve the x theme, and drop work on evolution for now. We will come back to working on a new theme once all the new api code has been backported into x.

 

[cPanelNick]

People are not idiots Nick and you shouldn't treat them as such. We are your paying customers. You asked for feedback and didn't get what you expected so now it's "not because there's something wrong with Evolution, but because it's unfinished." Very childish attitude.

The only way Evolution will EVER be liked/accepted by the majority of your customers is if the skin is entirely redone by someone else from the ground up.

Like I said in the first post in this thread,

Its based on an early version of the evolution theme, so there will be a few more changes before the official release.

 

[DaveUsedToWorkHere]

People are not idiots Nick and you shouldn't treat them as such. We are your paying customers. You asked for feedback and didn't get what you expected so now it's "not because there's something wrong with Evolution, but because it's unfinished." Very childish attitude.

I don't think Nick is saying that there's nothing wrong with Evolution. Inherently, being unfinished is wrong. Our main goal with Evolution was to show the different types of styles we could put in place in a new theme (ajax, content relevant help, favorites, etc) and to get feedback on what people did and did not like. There are a lot of things I hate about Evolution and a lot that I like but I have a pretty good list of my likes and dislikes (much more than just how the front page looks). We have gotten a lot of good criticisms of Evolution which is why we put it out at such an early stage.

If you note, we're on cPanel 10 right now and still have cPanel 11 to go before such a change would be implemented in cPanel 12. Please don't think that we're ignoring your feedback or that this is how cPanel 12 will look. This is far from the case. Our goal is to get feedback from our users and give them a product that functions well and looks good. By that time, you'll probably see something that doesn't resemble Evolution at all.