Paper Lantern Feedback

[cmroanirgo]

I for once agree with this post. The 'new' paper lantern is so terrible I've signed up to this forum just to give voice to the problem, having used x3 and the old paper lantern for years.

In short, the new paper lantern is completely different from the 'older' one. Here's a brief list of changes that are rather terrible to behold:
- left hand column that had information is gone, to be replaced by icons
- default page doesn't allow access to change themes.
- default page doesn't allow you to change from one login to another (eg. if you're a reseller)

Basically, you have to randomly click on the left hand columns, because you're not sure what's where (and it's not really logical). The original Paper Lantern was a breath of fresh air compared to x3. However, I (and everyone around me) prefers x3 to the 'new' Paper Lantern. We all prefer the 'old' paper lantern.

 

[cmroanirgo]

It's funny how you mention 'downgrade', when the newer paper lantern is exactly what we feel we've been given. It's less intuitive and useful in many ways. I would suggest for every 1 post you get here regarding the issue, there are probably several hundred dissatisfied customers. I'm back to using x3 as a result (like everyone else I know). Whomsoever is in charge of UX hasn't been doing their work.

 

[cmroanirgo]

UPDATE: I spent the day tinkering with the template & styling system and I was able to come up with a solution that removes the sidebar and adds a navigation bar at the top that includes account switching for resellers. I've attached an image of my solution here:

View attachment 34511

This is not a hack, but instead follows the instructions in the knowledge base and I believe it will not be overwritten by future updates. If anyone is interested in the code for this, please reply.

Stephanie, nice work. In one simple move you've improved the disastrous update to Paper Lantern. Like others' comments if would be great if you could post your changes (and even better get cPanel to roll them into an emergency update and have them as part of the next update). It's not perfect, but it's definitely better than a step in the wrong direction.

 

[dobartec]

I for once agree with this post. The 'new' paper lantern is so terrible I've signed up to this forum just to give voice to the problem, having used x3 and the old paper lantern for years.
...

Same here, I have also signed up for the same reason. I wish I could downgrade to 11.52, unfortunately that is not possible, so I just want to say... please add the previous paper lantern disposition as an option / theme ASAP.

Thank you.

 

[ethical]

I dont understand why after over a year of this theme, cPanel has not listened to users? its absolutely terrible and you keep making it worse! The side bar needs to be replaced and functionality restored like other commenters have mentioned. left critical account info in the left sidebar is a must to have back. if you want the sidebar gone on mobile just use a media query for crying out loud. the amount of space used in the theme makes for a lot more scrolling, it the interface just looks bad.

lastly, why was email moved down the list of items on cpanel, in my opinion its the most used section of cpanel and should be at the TOP.

and I dont know why it's left to us to create custom styles just to get back the usability and easy of use of X3 (for example what Stephanie did, and Stephanie i would love to see that code too please) or what forrst did with redux (zurb.com/forrst/posts/Cpanel_Paper_Lantern_Design_Redux-Gk8 )

I am setting everyone to the retro style (if i can force that hopefully) until cPanel actually starts doing a bit of real word user testing on this and making it a usable theme because it is not in its current state.

sure I know we can go customize things, but honestly out of the BOX this theme should cater to to the masses and the email box being below the fold is unacceptable.

 

[ebe]

Hi there
How to have cpanel dashboard like in the demo picture from this link ?

cpanel.com/assets/img/demo/dashboard-cpanel.png

I cant find the option to activate General Information and Statistics.

 

[Infopro]

That's available in the latest release:
http://releases.cpanel.com/

What version of cPanel are you running?

 

[ebe]

WHM 56.0 (build 25)
But lol Your demo is with 56.0 (build 25) also, only description picture is from next version.
Ok . I will wait for STABLE release.

 

[Infopro]

The demo is intended to be on STABLE I believe. And STABLE is: "The last tier to receive changes".

HTH!

 

[feldon27]

Last year, I designed a variant of Paper Lantern which made it a lot more visually rich. I also brought up a number of concerns which as far as I know have not been addressed, chiefly that if you want a graphic designer to help you design a theme, you must give them ROOT and SSH access to the server, which has obvious security concerns. I understand that the x3 control panel was completely untenable, however some kind of minimal FTP-like interface for trusted users to upload and download HTML, CSS, JS, PNG, and JPG files within the styled directories would be prudent and appreciated.

The only reason I haven't developed a new "56" Paper Tiger theme is that my server is on CentOS 5 and is now blocked from all further cPanel updates. I wanted to give my ISP a break since they were buried in upgrade requests, but hopefully that backlog has cleared and they are available to do the upgrade now.

Also Just a suggestion -- if you want to share a theme here, please just share it! You can post the CSS code right in the body of your message so everyone can use it, share it, and build on it!

 

[Infopro]

Also Just a suggestion -- if you want to share a theme here, please just share it! You can post the CSS code right in the body of your message so everyone can use it, share it, and build on it!

Actually, we were discussing adding a sub forum specifically for sharing custom styles. I assume you'd be for that idea?

if you want a graphic designer to help you design a theme, you must give them ROOT and SSH access to the server

How come your Web Designer doesn't have cPanel?

 

[cPanelAdamF]

no, you don't have to give them root/ssh access to design a paper lantern style. Having a cPanel end-user account and the ability to edit ~/var/cpanel/styled in that end-user's home directory is enough. They'll want to create a folder there for their style (with at least a styles.css file in it) and then select that new style from the 'Change Style' interface.

As they work in their style's directory, they can hit refresh in their browser and see the changes in near-real-time.

Once you're happy with their work, you'll have to move it to either your reseller account's ~/var/cpanel/reseller/styled dir (for accounts that you own) or to /var/cpanel/customizations/styled in order to deploy it system-wide.

 

[feldon27]

Actually, we were discussing adding a sub forum specifically for sharing custom styles. I assume you'd be for that idea?

Absolutely. Please add tags for different licenses such as CC, GPL, or ND (no distribution).

How come your Web Designer doesn't have cPanel?

AdamF answered my question. I was not aware that individual cPanel accounts could write their own style. I see it in the docs now.

 

[Infopro]

AdamF answered my question.

I was teasing you a bit to be honest. I thought everybody had cPanel by now.

Happy to hear you got this going.

Keep an eye out for that new forum idea, I'm really interested in getting it going and seeing what folks in the cPanel Community come up with and share.

 

[Web4Guru]

UPDATE: I spent the day tinkering with the template & styling system and I was able to come up with a solution that removes the sidebar and adds a navigation bar at the top that includes account switching for resellers. I've attached an image of my solution here:

View attachment 34511

This is not a hack, but instead follows the instructions in the knowledge base and I believe it will not be overwritten by future updates. If anyone is interested in the code for this, please reply.

Hey Stephanie, I'd be interested in seeing that code as well. Having one-click access to switch cPanel accounts is one feature that we use all of the time and it looks like you were able to bring that back, much thanks!

 

[cPanelAdamF]

Quick account switching is back in v58 with the return of the sidebar. You may simply have to update your installation of cPanel to get it.

 

[ethical]

awesome that is great news, but the sidebar is now on the right? anyways to move it to the left?

 

[PCZero]

All of this is just more proof that PL is NOT ready to go live to the extent of eliminating the far superior X3. The weaknesses and short comings of PL have been reported MANY times yet very few of them have been addressed. I understand that a lot of time and effort has been used to get PL where it is now, but that does not in any way mean it is to the point that is should be forced on users. This is a perfect case of a company not listening to repeated feedback form its user base and it looks to be simply to avoid hurting the feelings of a development team who has failed to deliver a completed project on time. There is no doubting that PL lacks a lot of the functionality that X3 has (had), and the ability to customize it is extremely li9mited and highly cumbersome. Bottom line is that PL (in its current status) is a huge step backward from X3 and CPanel is doing is customer base a huge disservice by eliminating it in order to move on to a product that is no where near ready to go live simply to say "Look we have a great new UI", especially seeing it is not all that great in the first place.

 

[Web4Guru]

Quick account switching is back in v58 with the return of the sidebar. You may simply have to update your installation of cPanel to get it.

Unfortunately for some of us on shared/reseller hosting, we don't get control over the cPanel installation. HostGator still has my reseller account on v54, and they have no timeline for when they plan to update.

I'd love to know what Stephanie did earlier, any ideas? Otherwise I guess I'll be spending some time with the knowledge base to figure it out on my own.