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Split inspector: Add pointer to indicate the change.

Open jasmussen opened this issue 3 years ago • 6 comments

Having had a singular inspector for a while, the split into settings and styles is likely going to take a little bit of re-learning. We can mitigate that with a pointer:

Pointer message shown at the bottom of the default Styles tab

Looking for other block settings? They moved to the Settings tab.

This would be a dismissible first-run message shown at the bottom of the default Styles tab.

Note: It's important this pointer is built as a reusable component to potentially be leveraged elsewhere for similar informative purposes. As such it would be a generic interface not tied specifically to the split inspector, even if that would be where we use it first.

jasmussen avatar Jan 25 '23 08:01 jasmussen

Thank you for adding this signpost for users, it's going to be appreciated.

Users may not immediately figure out where the referenced Settings tab is. Could we add an additional line like:

Looking for other block settings? They moved to the Settings tab: click the gear icon at the top right.

Or whatever term is standard to account for touch devices as well.

kathrynwp avatar Jan 25 '23 14:01 kathrynwp

Just noting that the Group block in Twenty Twenty Three will look more like this out of the box.

Maybe the pointer still works inline at the foot? Or perhaps a more tooltip like pointer would work better, pointing to the settings icon?

Frame 1

richtabor avatar Jan 26 '23 16:01 richtabor

Yep, good note. I think it might still make sense, because if you're looking for something specific, you might first be looking through all those controls and scroll, then when you get to the bottom you see the message. Maybe fine?

jasmussen avatar Jan 26 '23 17:01 jasmussen

Note: It's important this pointer is built as a reusable component to potentially be leveraged elsewhere for similar informative purposes. As such it would be a generic interface not tied specifically to the split inspector, even if that would be where we use it first.

@jasmussen This looks quite a lot like a notice and serves a similar purpose: https://wordpress.github.io/gutenberg/?path=/story/components-notice--default&args=isDismissible:true;status:warning

Maybe that component can be used for this? It could have a different 'status'.

talldan avatar Jan 30 '23 04:01 talldan

It does feel like the same notice, yes, but perhaps not entirely. Notices when used above the editor canvas in the editor are visually somewhat out of date and could look similar to this or snackbars, and I think there's an open question on whether we need them at all. Probably? But if we do need them, it does put some limitations on what we can do with the design, unless we have a variant that looks entirely different. Mostly, we should avoid an orange notice in the inspector. Not sure whether that's best done as a notice variant or otherwise.

But to be fair, it really would be nice to update the appearance of notices — for contrast warnings etc. There's no reason they couldn't look like this.

jasmussen avatar Jan 30 '23 08:01 jasmussen

@jasmussen With the switch to having "Settings" as the default tab https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/47575 (for blocks that have settings) do you still think this is necessary — but swapped context-wise to render on the Settings tab, pointing out the appearance tab?

CleanShot 2023-01-30 at 12 06 04

Note: This pointer should only render if the tabs are available, as with https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/47463 done - we don't always have them.

richtabor avatar Jan 30 '23 17:01 richtabor

The text would have to change, because you might then be wondering, "where did my font size go"?

I don't think this is an urgent thing, and if we find it to not be necessary, all the better 👍 👍

jasmussen avatar Jan 31 '23 08:01 jasmussen

But to be fair, it really would be nice to update the appearance of notices — for contrast warnings etc. There's no reason they couldn't look like this.

Probably one consideration for refactoring notices is whether the gray background color has enough contrast for a wide array of use cases. That may be the reason the other notices have a stronger contrast. Especially given that plugins would be using that component in a wp-admin type UI, which has a very similar shade of gray as its background.

I see there are a couple of other 'pointer' issues (https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/47583, https://github.com/WordPress/gutenberg/issues/47656), so it'll be interesting to see how the design for those works, and whether there's consistency.

talldan avatar Feb 02 '23 03:02 talldan