That's the new "slogan" if you will for the brand new released AdminPraise administrator template for Joomla! 1.5 developered by JoomlaPraise, and frankly, I think I can agree with that. Though it still needs some tweaking (which I'll explain more in a bit) this is going to revolutionize the way that I use Joomla! with my clients and friends. You can bet that I'll be customizing this for personal use and when putting it on clients websites.

This new template tries to take on a number of faults that are currently found in the Joomla! 1.5 Khepri admin template head-on to create something that is more user friendly, easier on the eyes to look at, and a cleaner interface. I believe they've gotten a pretty good score in all three areas, but I hope that they'll look at some of what I have to say to make some changes.

Panels / Not Drop-Downs

One of the first things that you may notice when you install this new template is the fact that it uses sliding panels rather than drop-down menus. The panels are collapsible and can be hidden at any time, and also restored with just the click of a button, and allow for access to any other part of your administration panel without clicking around on various links to try and get there.

This allows for much easier navigation, but there are a few things that could be changed with this set-up. For one, it would be nice if there were directional arrows to let you know that the panels can be clicked on and will slide open. An arrow point to the right would indicate that it is hidden, pointing down indicates that it has been slid open.

When I first open any page in the Admin panel, some of the panels also only slide-down halfway to uncover the top half of the icons that are beneath it's display. This should be fixed soon as well, as it looks a bit tacky and unprofessional.

Unfortunately, another problem is with the view that occurs when writing a new article or changing the parameters of an extension. While having the right panel open at all times is handy for being able to do a one click switch to any other page, there should be an option in the parameters of this template that allows the user to automatically have that right menu (and possibly the left menu) hidden from view unless the arrow indicating their existence is clicked.

Function Icons

On each page of a component, or when creating a new article, there is a small functions menu at the top of the page that shows tasks like Save, Apply, Edit, Cancel, etc.... They're in a great position, dead center, and this is great for people new to Joomla! who need to figure out what to click to perform a specific task. But, the icons are far too light to really be of much use. Especially when there are many icons to see (when you're on the Article Manager page, for example).

What would help most is if the Save, Apply and Cancel buttons were always farthest to the left of the icons, for continuity's sake. But, if they were brightened up a bit (perhaps to a white or lighter gray) it would make the icons much more viewable to someone at a glance.

I'll Still Use This One

This template is so good, besides those problems, that I'll still be using it and recommending it to others. There are a few smaller problems as well, like some of the icons look strange with different colored backgrounds, but overall this is a great template. The team that developed it also said that this is just the first version of several to come for this template, so I look forward to updates!

If you want to get your hands on this template, you'll first have to pay the fee of $75 to subscribe to the template club.

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