RT 3.5.2, the second snapshot leading to the next major release of RT is
now available. This release features the first version of a new look
for RT. Tom Sibley, one of our amazing summer interns, has been hard at
work ripping out all of RT’s 1998-era web design and replacing it with
clean, modern semantic markup.
RT 3.5.2 ships with two “themes” for RT. One of them should be pretty
familiar. It’s RT 3.4’s interface, reimplemented in CSS. The other is a
newer, more modern look with a very different feel. We don’t have
screenshots up yet. If you want to see what the new UI looks like,
you’ll have to download RT 3.5 and try it out. Both themes are still
very much in development. (The “3.4” theme is only about 24 hours old
and not done just yet). To change the default theme, you’ll want to have
a look at $WebDefaultStylesheet in RT_Config.pm
We would greatly appreciate constructive feedback on the new look. At
the moment, I don’t think we need to hear much about rendering errors,
but we’d love to hear what you’d like to see in this or other themes for
RT.
You can download RT 3.5.2 from:
http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/devel/rt-3.5.2.tar.gz
Jesse
Is this available somewhere for others to look at? Tried rt3.fsck.com but it
either has the 3.4 theme or isn’t 3.5.2.
Jesse Vincent wrote:
RT 3.5.2, the second snapshot leading to the next major release of RT is
now available. This release features the first version of a new look
for RT. Tom Sibley, one of our amazing summer interns, has been hard at
work ripping out all of RT’s 1998-era web design and replacing it with
clean, modern semantic markup.
RT 3.5.2 ships with two “themes” for RT. One of them should be pretty
familiar. It’s RT 3.4’s interface, reimplemented in CSS. The other is a
newer, more modern look with a very different feel. We don’t have
screenshots up yet. If you want to see what the new UI looks like,
you’ll have to download RT 3.5 and try it out. Both themes are still
very much in development. (The “3.4” theme is only about 24 hours old
and not done just yet). To change the default theme, you’ll want to have
a look at $WebDefaultStylesheet in RT_Config.pm
We would greatly appreciate constructive feedback on the new look. At
the moment, I don’t think we need to hear much about rendering errors,
but we’d love to hear what you’d like to see in this or other themes for
RT.
You can download RT 3.5.2 from:
http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/devel/rt-3.5.2.tar.gz
Jesse
matthew zeier, Sr. Network Engineer | “Nothing in life is to be feared.
InteleNet Communications, Inc. | It is only to be understood.”
(949) 784-7904 | - Marie Curie
matthew zeier wrote:
Is this available somewhere for others to look at? Tried rt3.fsck.com
but it either has the 3.4 theme or isn’t 3.5.2.
It isn’t available running anywhere at current time; download it and try
it out!
rt3.fsck.com is the 3.4 branch. The 3.4 theme isn’t nearly that pixel
perfect yet. 
Cheers,
Tom
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I like many of the ideas in the 3.5-default interface. Getting rid of
the menu on the left saves a ton of wasted pixels – a vast improvement.
Stacking the menu at the top is better as well.
Negatives: Way too much whitespace. And there is kind of a Star
Trek/LCARS feel.
Bug note: when I created a ticket from the create ticket page, the
ticket is sucessfully created, but the app tries to connect to the a
page (probably the ticket page) on localhost not the server.
jbw
Jesse Vincent wrote:
RT 3.5.2, the second snapshot leading to the next major release of RT is
now available. This release features the first version of a new look
for RT. Tom Sibley, one of our amazing summer interns, has been hard at
work ripping out all of RT’s 1998-era web design and replacing it with
clean, modern semantic markup.
RT 3.5.2 ships with two “themes” for RT. One of them should be pretty
familiar. It’s RT 3.4’s interface, reimplemented in CSS. The other is a
newer, more modern look with a very different feel. We don’t have
screenshots up yet. If you want to see what the new UI looks like,
you’ll have to download RT 3.5 and try it out. Both themes are still
very much in development. (The “3.4” theme is only about 24 hours old
and not done just yet). To change the default theme, you’ll want to have
a look at $WebDefaultStylesheet in RT_Config.pm
We would greatly appreciate constructive feedback on the new look. At
the moment, I don’t think we need to hear much about rendering errors,
but we’d love to hear what you’d like to see in this or other themes for
RT.
You can download RT 3.5.2 from:
http://download.bestpractical.com/pub/rt/devel/rt-3.5.2.tar.gz
Jesse
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Bug note: when I created a ticket from the create ticket page, the
ticket is sucessfully created, but the app tries to connect to the a
page (probably the ticket page) on localhost not the server.
jbw
I found I had to set the host and port in the config to fix this “bug”.
I like the new interface, and of course, the move to more css is a
great thing for people “branding” RT with their own company styles.
Haven’t had much chance to play yet though.
Regards,
Matt.
Joby Walker wrote:
Negatives: Way too much whitespace. And there is kind of a Star
Trek/LCARS feel.
Is there any place in particular you think there is too much whitespace,
or is it just a general sentiment?
Cheers,
Tom
The Homepage is the biggest offender. The data on the pages seems very
disconnected, floating on the page rather than anchored to a boxed
meaning. There is just so little color on the page that it is a bit
disorienting.
The Ticket display page is similar, though the colored vertical bars and
boxes around the history items help a lot. The “Reminders” and “More
about…” boxes should get a colored vertical bar too.
The BP logo in the upper right with a wide window (1200px+) can leave a
huge white void at the top of the page.
One vast improvement is using the up and down arrows instead of the X’s
in the content boxes for rollup/rolldown action because they are
significantly more intuitive. Pretty much everyone on our project
thought that the X’s would remove the box entirely.
Joby Walker
ITI SSG, University of Washington
PGP key: https://staff.washington.edu/joby/joby-u-pub.asc
Thomas Sibley wrote:
Drew Barnes wrote:
I don’t have much of a problem with the whitespace, necessarily. I have
run across what I suspect to be a display bug. It appears on Firefox on
my Windows and Linux machines. 1280x1024 and 1024x768 resolutions
respectively.
I’m attaching a screenshot for you to see. The only change I made to
the included stylesheets was the background color. Our techs complained
about it being too bright.
Yeah, this is a known issue. Thanks though.
Tom
Joby Walker wrote:
The Homepage is the biggest offender. The data on the pages seems very
disconnected, floating on the page rather than anchored to a boxed
meaning. There is just so little color on the page that it is a bit
disorienting.
nods This has been a common point made, and I think I’ll be revamping
how titleboxes are styled a little to try and solve it.
The Ticket display page is similar, though the colored vertical bars and
boxes around the history items help a lot. The “Reminders” and “More
about…” boxes should get a colored vertical bar too.
Good, that was the point of the bars. I’m not sure about the other
boxes getting them, though I think they might be.
The BP logo in the upper right with a wide window (1200px+) can leave a
huge white void at the top of the page.
What do you suggest to fill the void? Having the menu fill it doesn’t
help any.
One vast improvement is using the up and down arrows instead of the X’s
in the content boxes for rollup/rolldown action because they are
significantly more intuitive. Pretty much everyone on our project
thought that the X’s would remove the box entirely.
That’s exactly why I changed it, because that’s what I intuitively
thought as well.
Thanks for the comments!
Cheers,
Tom
Thomas Sibley wrote:
Joby Walker wrote:
The BP logo in the upper right with a wide window (1200px+) can leave a
huge white void at the top of the page.
What do you suggest to fill the void? Having the menu fill it doesn’t
help any.
I’m not sure but there has to be some savings that can be gained by
reworking the top line (search, new ticket, logged in as, pref, logout)
and the main blue menu:
- there are two “Preferences” links that behave in an identical manner
- the “Simple Search” and Search are the same right?
- We are hiding the “Tickets, Tools, Configuration, Approval” stuff in
a menu because they are not going to be used much by the general users
so they shouldn’t take up additional real-estate.
Of course, getting rid of the Best Practical Logo gives you tons of
space for more menus, etc…but I doubt that’s an option…
Joby Walker
ITI SSG, University of Washington
PGP key: https://staff.washington.edu/joby/joby-u-pub.asc
One other small issue with the 3.5 interface, on the Ticket View page
the transaction title (“RT_System - Outgoing email recorded”) is
centered so when there are lots of transaction notes (not
comments/replies) it looks like RT is trying to display some sort of
symbolic nesting. The 3.4 behavior is much nicer.
Joby Walker
ITI SSG, University of Washington
PGP key: https://staff.washington.edu/joby/joby-u-pub.asc
Joby Walker wrote:
I’m not sure but there has to be some savings that can be gained by
reworking the top line (search, new ticket, logged in as, pref, logout)
and the main blue menu:
- there are two “Preferences” links that behave in an identical manner
The prefs link by the current logged in user really doesn’t take up that
much room, and eliminating any of them would just contribute to the
abundance of whitespace. 
- the “Simple Search” and Search are the same right?
Yes. However, if you go to the menu item you’ll get a description of
how it works (which matters in some cases). The form is a shortcut for
experienced users.
Joby Walker wrote (in a second email):
One other small issue with the 3.5 interface, on the Ticket View page
the transaction title (“RT_System - Outgoing email recorded”) is
centered so when there are lots of transaction notes (not
comments/replies) it looks like RT is trying to display some sort of
symbolic nesting. The 3.4 behavior is much nicer.
It’s a very simple CSS change, but you make a good point.
The beauty about the move to CSS is that you’ll be able to much more
easily change what you want.
Cheers,
Tom