[Beta3] Sidebar erratic, uncontrollable, unusable...

1 - These would be controlled from the page, by switchign it off, as you mention in 3/4

2 - Yes,  that is correct at present

3 - Please provide an example

4 - ok

5 - Are you using custom templates for that page that was upgraded?

Marc,

Thanks for your replies...

I think that some of the problems are caused by this being a test system with an uncertain history of how it got here 😉

5 - (Home Page) might have had a custom template originally - although I'm not convinced that was the main problem. Certainly, I found a second page as well as the Home Page and they were both set as "Default page for this folder". I think that must have confused the heck out of the software. It had been set that way under V4 so presumably there had been an old bug that had allowed that to occur. Anyway, when I set them one at a time to "Default page for this folder" it seemed to clear the problem. (It also lost everything off the home page so I had to re-configure but at least the home page is now behaving properly...)

3&4 Now seem to work consistently - since fixing the home page as above. It is difficult to be certain what actually cleared the problem as I switched the suite sidebar on and off so many times for these pages - but I suspect that it was actually when I had fixed the home page (only one default page for the / folder) that the issue got cleared.

3&4&5 now all appear to behave the same way.

1. Enable/disable suite sidebar works consistently. Suite sidebar always appears ABOVE any additional widgets you might add to the sidebar.
2. It is not possible to add sidebar widgets to a page unless the Suite sidebar is enabled - this seems to be somewhat of a restriction as it may be useful to have the standard suite sidebar on SOME pages but to have a custom sidebar on other pages (e.g. the home page)
3. The suite sidebar always appears ABOVE other widgets that you might add to the sidebar on the page. It would be useful to be able to add widgets above the standard widgets (as well as disable the standard sidebar entirely but still allow widgets to be added as explained above)

1 - Database pages ('Articles', 'Places', 'Regional Contacts' etc...) There are definitely some strange things here... (remember, these pages were converted from V4 to V5 - probably under Beta1. If I get time I'll try to create a database page under V5 and see whether it has the same problems...)

1. In AdminCP if you click the pencil (edit) next to a page then the behaviour is different for pages that contain a database widget. If the page does NOT contain a database widget then clicking the pencil goes to 'Editing Page' but if the page DOES contain a database widget then clicking the pencil goes to 'Editing Database'.
2. With a database and going to 'Editing Database' there is no option to select Site Sidebar or not - in other words, this option is missing from converted database pages although it exists in non-database pages.
3. There is no way to 'detach' a database from a page - for example, if you wanted to put the database on another page. The dropdown next to the page does NOT offer 'Delete' although you can delete any other page (non-database pages).
4. From the 'Editing Database' there is no way to detach the page - the page and database seem permanently stuck together.
5. If you go into the page wizard and delete the database widget the page and database are still tied together - on the AdminCP list of pages the page is still listed as 'Contains Database..." although when you use the wizard there is no database widget on the page any more.

I have found a database that was not associated with any page so I created a new page and added a database widget to that page. This then led to the same problems as described for #1 above -- that is: there was no way to dissociate the page and database, no way to delete the page and no way to change the sidebar display setting.

I have no run into a different problem with databases -- if this seems to be another/different bug then I'll report it separately.

😉

John

These appear to be suggestions rather than bugs. You would choose a layout on the database option, rather than switching on/off the sidebar. Its correct that you cannot disassociate. That is by design on version 5.

On 11/1/2024 at 4:38 PM, Marc said:

These appear to be suggestions rather than bugs. You would choose a layout on the database option, rather than switching on/off the sidebar. Its correct that you cannot disassociate. That is by design on version 5.

Marc,

Thanks -- I sort of agree 😉

When I started this investigation I thought that there were a number of bugs. After further investigation (as outlined above) it seems that what appeared to be bugs were caused by incorrect configurations (e.g. two pages flagged as "default for this folder"). So, I'll agree that there isn't really a clearly defined bug.

What I would say is that it is a bit too easy to get into a mess. For example, another 'bug' that I reported came down to putting the database wizard in the "header" section rather than the "col1" section. The system currently makes it too easy for the administrator to do harm to the system. At a minimum it needs to be documented. Preferably, the system should output some warnings if the administrator tries to do things that could be harmful to the system.

Thanks very much.

John

16 hours ago, BN_IT_Support said:

Marc,

Thanks -- I sort of agree 😉

When I started this investigation I thought that there were a number of bugs. After further investigation (as outlined above) it seems that what appeared to be bugs were caused by incorrect configurations (e.g. two pages flagged as "default for this folder"). So, I'll agree that there isn't really a clearly defined bug.

What I would say is that it is a bit too easy to get into a mess. For example, another 'bug' that I reported came down to putting the database wizard in the "header" section rather than the "col1" section. The system currently makes it too easy for the administrator to do harm to the system. At a minimum it needs to be documented. Preferably, the system should output some warnings if the administrator tries to do things that could be harmful to the system.

Thanks very much.

John

Please do post up as clear suggestions within the beta discussion section if you wish to see things changed on that 🙂