Interface Customization

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albpb2
Posts: 5
Joined: 07 Mar 2011, 12:30

Interface Customization

Post by albpb2 »

Hi!
I'm trying Mantis BT and I really like it, as it has an easy installation and a lot of options to configure it, but the interface is very ugly. I would like to know if there are plugins or something to change the look of the interface.
Thank you
cas
Posts: 1586
Joined: 11 Mar 2006, 16:08
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Re: Interface Customization

Post by cas »

Currently only css can be managed properly.
As fo version 1.3 more options sould become availabe.
atrol
Site Admin
Posts: 8366
Joined: 26 Mar 2008, 21:37
Location: Germany

Re: Interface Customization

Post by atrol »

albpb2 wrote:the interface is very ugly.
Can you give some examples what you mean exactly when saying "ugly"?
What are the most annoying things?
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albpb2
Posts: 5
Joined: 07 Mar 2011, 12:30

Re: Interface Customization

Post by albpb2 »

atrol wrote:
albpb2 wrote:the interface is very ugly.
Can you give some examples what you mean exactly when saying "ugly"?
What are the most annoying things?
Well, may be not ugly, but a bit confusing.
atrol
Site Admin
Posts: 8366
Joined: 26 Mar 2008, 21:37
Location: Germany

Re: Interface Customization

Post by atrol »

albpb2 wrote:but a bit confusing.
And the most confusing thing is?
Can you provide example workflows where the UI of MantisBT is hard to understand, especially for new users?
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albpb2
Posts: 5
Joined: 07 Mar 2011, 12:30

Re: Interface Customization

Post by albpb2 »

I've been tryng other issue trackin systems and now I can see Mantis is quite good-looking!
atrol
Site Admin
Posts: 8366
Joined: 26 Mar 2008, 21:37
Location: Germany

Re: Interface Customization

Post by atrol »

Hmmh, we changed nothing but MantisBT is no longer ugly and confusing but quite good looking ;-)

I am asking for feedback because we want to have next version of MantisBT better than "quite good-looking".

Of course, design is a matter of taste.
For example if you like round corners, gradients, ....
You can get something like that without changing source code by just changing CSS. (not working with IE, but Firefox, Chrome, Safari, ...)
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kbrannen
Posts: 3
Joined: 19 Oct 2011, 16:26

Re: Interface Customization

Post by kbrannen »

OK, I'll bite... :) I'll also state up front that I haven't used Mantis a lot, so it's very possible there are some things I just haven't learned yet. Still, if I've listed something that is doable here, that should indicate a "confusing UI" issue. I'm told that our install is "fairly default" to allow for easier upgrades, so no customizations that I'm aware of. I also can't say what the configurations are, and they might solve the problems, but I can't change those for the site (which may indicate the need for user-level configs/profiles).

1. I've been assigned a ticket and it's not immediately obvious how to enter a response and reassign in the same step. (Yes, I've since had someone point out that clicking on the "Change Status To:" button is the answer, but that's not obvious. The "Edit" button looks like it might be the way, but that's wrong too.) Why isn't there an "Add Entry" or something like that button?

2. I can't get off of a ticket. I created a ticket or it got assigned to me at one time. I've done my part and it's been reassigned to someone else. However, I keep getting notifications about every little change for weeks on end ... ugh! You can add yourself to monitor a ticket, why can't I remove myself from the email list? I really only want to know about the ticket if it gets reassigned to me.

3. Most of the time, there's too much info on the page. I usually only initially need: ID, Assigned To, Priority Severity, Summary. All other data should be "collapsed", i.e. in one of those boxes with a +/- button to expand/hide and hidden.

4. Why aren't the notes generally collapsed, except for possibly the last? (Or better yet, let the system keep track of the last time I saw the ticket and expand only the ones created since the last time I was there?) I can expand whatever I need, but tickets with lots of entries can be tedious with a lot of entries I really don't care about or need.

5. It seems like it should possible, but I can't find a simple example of an integration script. I just want to have a shell script that I can use to add a note to a ticket. I don't care if I have to call some PHP program, open a socket and send an HTML response to a webpage, or whatever. Just a simple little example that shows how an external program can add a note. (Perhaps my googling skills are in question here, but I can't find something like this.) {OK, not a UI thing, but still a confusion issue for me as to why this is so hard.}

Mantis has some nice features, but I find the above to be confusing and frustrating.

Kevin
atrol
Site Admin
Posts: 8366
Joined: 26 Mar 2008, 21:37
Location: Germany

Re: Interface Customization

Post by atrol »

kbrannen, http://www.mantisbt.org/bugs is a better place to enter bugs and feature requests for MantisBT.
Before entering a new issue you should search if there is already an open issue which covers your request or a similiar issue where you can add some comments.

MantisBT provides a lot of customization options to support most of common workflows. (ask your administrators to have a look at the "Workflow Configurations" and "Workflow Thresholds" pages)
There is also a SOAP API and a plugin system to add functionality without touching the original source code of MantisBT.

Regarding your notifications: The page "My Account" -> "Preferences" might help (but it's a global setting and not per issue)
There are also more customization options for administrators to customize who is getting notifications.
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kbrannen
Posts: 3
Joined: 19 Oct 2011, 16:26

Re: Interface Customization

Post by kbrannen »

atrol,

Thanks for the pointer to the bug area. I don't know if those things are bugs or not. I found the thread that was asking about confusing UI stuff and responded.

I don't have the ability to change any of the site configs and I suspect any requests I make would fall on deaf ears because everyone else seems to be happy with Mantis as it is. So site/global configs don't do me any good.

OTOH, I hadn't found the "preferences" stuff yet, so thank you so very much for pointing that out. I think that will remove a lot of the notifications that have been driving me crazy.

As for the SOAP API and plugins, I'll post a separate note in the forum to try to get that resolved.

Kevin
atrol
Site Admin
Posts: 8366
Joined: 26 Mar 2008, 21:37
Location: Germany

Re: Interface Customization

Post by atrol »

kbrannen wrote: Thanks for the pointer to the bug area. I don't know if those things are bugs or not.
Maybe the URL (containing the word bugs) is misleading. We use http://www.mantisbt.org/bugs not only for tracking bugs, but also for feature requests.
For example have a look at http://www.mantisbt.org/bugs/view.php?id=4227 and especially the related issues.
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