Paper Lantern Feedback

[nibb]

From the screen shot, the icons are nice, they have a flat Win8 tablet look which is ok, but the rest looks awful.

I also use the Twitter bootstrap and there is amazing things you can do with this, it does not need to be this simple like it was designed by a 5 year old. This is supposed to be a control panel for hosting services, this means it needs to impress designers and coders with the GUI, it has to tell them in their face, "this is technology"

The current GUI which is years olds looks more advanced, the icons in this design are fine, its the rest which is to flat and to simple. How about putting some differentiators bars, everything looks like a simple page, its all about customization as well, customers need to customize the look of the panel, this means move boxes around or hide the wants they don´t use, etc.

If this is not pulled right, it could potentially cause companies to lose customers, because believe it or not, the person that buys cPanel hosting, does it allot based in the looks, the looks are amazingly important both for the hosting customers and for cPanel so customers buy the software, because most are Linux admins and do not need a panel themselves, so you purchase a good looking GUI for your customers.

 

[cPanelAdamF]

Thanks for your feedback, Nibb. I agree that the visual appeal of the interface is incredibly important - first impressions happen in fractions of a second and you don't get second chances on them. We will be iterating on the aesthetic of the final theme to better account for that.

Like I said in the blog post introducing Paper Lantern, nothing is set in stone as far as Paper Lantern goes. It represents the beginning of a journey to the next UI for cPanel, not the final destination. We have many steps to take to get there, and we're taking them one at a time, releasing newer better versions all along the way to gather feedback like yours.

As an aside, what services (hosting or otherwise) do you think we should take visual cues from? Are there aesthetics that you particularly like and would love to see inform our design work? Are there styles that really don't work and should be avoided?

 

[Alex Vojacek]

I completely agree with nibb on the comments.

I web design and I spend like 10 hours a day working with CSS files, i know every bit of code there is and just with a few lines of code, i think paper lantern could look so much better.

As it is now, it's not even a theme. For starters, there's no separation, at least not a clear one, for each section. Icons looks ok but not in any way modern.

I would prefer sections with boxes, play with box-shadow and text-shadow, improve the looks with gradients, there is absolutely no need to use pics in this, just CSS3 code.

If you guys need help on this, just write me a line, i'll be more than happy to help !

What i'm seeing is a trend of not taking too much importance to the GUI, such is the case with Interworx, don't know if the products is good, but the aesthethics are soo much wrong that I won't even know where to start !

Maybe is arrogance, maybe is conviction, but i'm completely convinced that people behind panels are really not interested at all in good cpanel aesthethics.

Just for reference, the old X3 style from cpanel looks more modern than paper lantern and when an old style looks better than a new one, you know something is terrible wrong.

If you want to take a hint on how to properly do an interface you won't know where to see, since nobody in the hosting business seems to care about good UI.

Can you please reply me back, I would love to give you all the hints i can, to make a good UI, I already gave a new panel for ispconfig3 when i was using it, because the default panel was so horrible looking that i had to redesign it.

- - - Updated - - -

Also, the file manager should be redesign, it's incredible since you have, by far the BEST file manager out there (i tried them all). and it still looks like the first day, with modern technologies, that file manager should look 10 times better, bigger icons, soft shadows, nice left section with improved fonts, i can think a million ways to improve it.

 

[cPanelAdamF]

I appreciate the offer to help. We are hiring UI devs...just, you know, FYI - Job Openings - cPanel

It's important that everyone understand exactly what we mean when we say 'nothing is set in stone' and that we really do want your feedback on Paper Lantern. It's very early in the development of Paper Lantern and if you want to influence where we go with it, now's definitely the time to chime in.

That being said, here's a preview of something we have still cooking for our next release:

 

[InterServed]

Looks like a good improvement. Is this going to be on 11.43-dev anytime soon ?

I appreciate the offer to help. We are hiring UI devs...just, you know, FYI - Job Openings - cPanel

It's important that everyone understand exactly what we mean when we say 'nothing is set in stone' and that we really do want your feedback on Paper Lantern. It's very early in the development of Paper Lantern and if you want to influence where we go with it, now's definitely the time to chime in.

That being said, here's a preview of something we have still cooking for our next release:
View attachment 19782

 

[cPanelAdamF]

We're wrapping up our current sprint at the end of this week. We'll probably merge this into upstream (for QA and then release) sometime in the next sprint or two. We're trying not to go too long without pushing progress into upstream.

 

[cPanelAdamF]

If you'd like to play with it, we just updated our demo server. http://go.cpanel.net/paperlantern. Check it out, let us know what you think.

 

[WireNine]

If you'd like to play with it, we just updated our demo server. http://go.cpanel.net/paperlantern. Check it out, let us know what you think.

I see it heading in a good direction, however it's lacking innovation. New Icons & CSS modifications don't exactly scream new UI

You've got to work on a few things:

-- Move on from the icons & text look for the front page, that's just a waste of a front page as it provides account owner with absolutely zero information of their website/account. Visualizations, when users login to the control panel they should see visual information of their account such as graphical statistics of their traffic stats, inode usage, cpu & memory usage (cloudlinux integration) -- this should be customizable by the end user to select what they want to show when they login, administrators should be able to lock or allow customization of the front page according to their needs. Incorporate alerts into the UI which should be shown automatically if there is something wrong with their account, exceeding limits etc)

-- cPanel is a shared hosting control panel and shared hosting has evolved from the days of "disk space & bandwidth calculations" on the left side bar. The side bar should be the full menu of the control panel available from all pages to save time from having to click on "Home" every time the user goes to a different area of the control panel.

Here are a few great examples of where cPanel's UI should be heading, take notes, inspiration & innovate your UI to make it easy for the user.

Avant
Clean Zone
Notebook | Web Application
http://cdn.mosaicpro.biz/business/php/admin/index.html
ProUI - Responsive Admin Dashboard Template | DEMO
ThemeBucket
Laborator Themes - www.laborator.co
Scale | Web Application
http://caplet.zicedemo.com/dashboard.html

Best of luck and keep up the good work

 

[cPanelAdamF]

I see it heading in a good direction, however it's lacking innovation. New Icons & CSS modifications don't exactly scream new UI

You've got to work on a few things:

-- Move on from the icons & text look for the front page, that's just a waste of a front page as it provides account owner with absolutely zero information of their website/account. Visualizations, when users login to the control panel they should see visual information of their account such as graphical statistics of their traffic stats, inode usage, cpu & memory usage (cloudlinux integration) -- this should be customizable by the end user to select what they want to show when they login, administrators should be able to lock or allow customization of the front page according to their needs. Incorporate alerts into the UI which should be shown automatically if there is something wrong with their account, exceeding limits etc)

-- cPanel is a shared hosting control panel and shared hosting has evolved from the days of "disk space & bandwidth calculations" on the left side bar. The side bar should be the full menu of the control panel available from all pages to save time from having to click on "Home" every time the user goes to a different area of the control panel.

All great notes that I'll bring to the team. We definitely do want to make the index of cPanel much more useful than the current "sea of icons" (as we call it internally). We have a few ideas of where we want to go, but I'd like to leave those internal for now so that I don't unduly influence what you guys might come up with.

All that being said, please please please keep dreaming big. The horizon is much closer than you think. ;-)

Here are a few great examples of where cPanel's UI should be heading, take notes, inspiration & innovate your UI to make it easy for the user.

Avant
Clean Zone
Notebook | Web Application
http://cdn.mosaicpro.biz/business/php/admin/index.html
ProUI - Responsive Admin Dashboard Template | DEMO
ThemeBucket
Laborator Themes - www.laborator.co
Scale | Web Application
http://caplet.zicedemo.com/dashboard.html

Best of luck and keep up the good work

Duly collected, screenshotted, and added to our team inspiration board. Thank ya, good sir.

 

[cPanelAdamF]

done and done for monday conversations

 

[WireNine]

View attachment 19981

done and done for monday conversations

Wow makes me feel confident that my constructive criticism was taken well, Adam looks like you guys will be achieving great results. Will be looking forward to regular updates to Paper Lantern, keep us posted

 

[InterServed]

Some that i believe could spark imagination:
Karma - Responsive minimalistic bootstrapped admin theme.
Taurus - Responsive Bootstrap3 Admin Template Preview - ThemeForest

An idea , maybe you guys could make a webinar with the scope of getting live feedback on such team conversations.

 

[WireNine]

-- Mobile & desktop friendly responsiveness is needed for every feature of cPanel.
-- File manager should be integrated into the control panel & should have the option to pop-out into full screen mode. e.g. Esthetics Admin - Clean & Responsive Admin Template

 

[menkom]

Hi, i think have to chime in here as well... i have just had a look at paperlantern for the first time... today.

I am a web designer by trade.... and i tell you what im pretty shocked at this attempt as being the new interface. I do not like it at all.

It is extrmely messy, outdated and needs a lot of work. The only thing it has going for it is the responsiveness.

I can think of so many simple css tweaks to improve it visually.

It actually reminds me of the default client portal of whmcs........ in fact come to think of it... didnt Cpanel buy out Whmcs not too long ago ? hmmmm, im wondering if the Whmcs ui designers have something to do with this layout ?

There is no way i will be using this interface, the old x3 crimson skies theme is still to date the best released, compact, no fuss and easy to navigate...

 

[cPanelAdamF]

There is no way i will be using this interface, the old x3 crimson skies theme is still to date the best released, compact, no fuss and easy to navigate...

Crimson Smoke? This one?



What do you find appealing about it? Anything we should bring over from it to Paper Lantern?

 

[PCZero]

CURRENT FEEDBACK:

1) Overall the entire look and feel is too 'flat' and plain.
2) Some of the icon titles have changed to be dumbed down (directory privacy v password protect directory).
3) The icons are very drab.
4) I HATE THE CPANEL TITLE 'RIBBON' THAT STAYS IN VIEW EVEN AS YOU SCROLL DOWN THE PAGE! Get rid of that and just ahve it part of the page that scrolls along with the body of the page. Your ad for CPanel is not so important that we we need to se it at all times. We KNOW we re using CPanel. It si akin to forcing a new toolbar in my browser. STOP CODING LIKE THAT!
5) Why are the 'add on domains'. 'file manager', and 'email' duplicated as text links at the top of the screen? I hate useless redundancy.
6) Will this theme be brandable or skinable?
7) Can I remove the Server Information link for all accounts? Most of that info a simple web hosting user does not need to see.

Thanks

 

[NovemberRain]

I think lately cpanel is making changes just for the sake of change. This paper lantern is a step back in my opinion. x3 looks much better.

 

[WireNine]

Crimson Smoke? This one?

View attachment 21141

What do you find appealing about it? Anything we should bring over from it to Paper Lantern?

Any updates in the last 2 months to the paper_lantern theme?

 

[electric]

5) Why are the 'add on domains'. 'file manager', and 'email' duplicated as text links at the top of the screen? I hate useless redundancy.

I am hoping the eventual goal of the cpanel developers is to make these text links maybe into a "favorites" type of menu area? So the end-user can click a "add to favorites bar" and the link is automatically added.

Maybe someone from cpanel can confirm? Otherwise, I agree... it is pointless to have duplicate text links at the top of the page that we can't modify ourselves. Remove them.

7) Can I remove the Server Information link for all accounts? Most of that info a simple web hosting user does not need to see.

I agree. It would be nice to be able to hide some of the left-side server information. A lot of it is confusing for our non-technical customers, and we would like to hide those items.

I think the rvskin system does this very well. The admin can choose exactly which items they want the cpanel to display. It would be nice to have this ability added to the feature manager system. (So it would be package-specific.)

 

[cPanelAdamF]

Regarding Favorites at the top, yes, the plan is to make that user manageable. Currently the list is simply informed by some internal metrics we keep of which features are used the most. In the future, resellers will be able to configure the default set of favorites which users can then customize to fit their needs.

Regarding the server information, in X3 that information appears in the sidebar alongside account usage. In 11.42 Paper Lantern, we put it on the Service Status page and reserved the index sidebar only for account information and usage. Definitely an improvement, in my opinion, to the focus and simplicity of the index page. We could maybe talk about better homes for individual list-items in that information but I would hesitate to remove information entirely from the interface.