The control panel's primary purpose for my customers is to administer websites, databases, and email settings. Therefore I suggest some specific portal modifications to improve navigation, making it easier for users to find what they need.
- The main page for serveradmin and resellers could include "Domains", "Web Sites", "Mail Domains", much as it does for end-users. I know these features can be accessed through the menu, but it's not very obvious and the links don't account for multiple hosting spaces. For example, if I click Hosting Space Menu -> Domains, it only shows domains from the "first" hosting space.
- The summary page for a Hosting Space could include prominent links for "Domains", "Web Sites", and "Mail Domains". These links could be easily included in the Space Quotas report. For example, some part of "Domains: 6 of 10" could be clickable, or add "(Click here to administer)". Also, on this page I think the "Hosting Space Menu" should be automatically expanded, instead of the "Account Menu".
- The summary page for a Domain could include a prominent link to "Add Web Site", or to edit or delete the website if it exists already. Likewise the page could link to mail features.
- Adding a website, pointer, or mail domain: I suggest an obvious link or instruction to "add new domain" if needed, or user could be able to type in a new domain name which would be added to their account. I envision users being very frustrated if they don't understand the requirement for a domain to "exist" first.
- Deleting a domain (or mail domain): The process could be streamlined! The delete page could list all items that need to be deleted, and it could allow the user to delete it all with one "are you sure" confirmation. If the developers feel strongly that a user should delete website or email accounts one by one, then the error message could include direct links to do so more easily.
Thanks!
Hello,
Thank you for taking the time to provide some feedback, it's really appriciated.
- Actually your not meant to add any resources directly under Serveradmin or Reseller (it is definitely not recommended practice). however since some people have been doing this for a very long time (since dnp / wsp times) we did not fully remove navigation to it, for any new user it shouldn't be used.
- We can consider adding this in in the future (i do not have an eta for it yet, but can be discussed during next contributors meeting.
- I generally prefer to keep buttons to a minimum, as giving to much options generally de-creases usability (so mixing websites in domain pages is probably not the best way. for new domains they can automatically create domain + website and so on).
- I think an additional button would fit here i will discuss this during the next contributors meeting.
- This is a bit tricky development wise (as there's ALOT of services which can depend on domain, to check them all out and dynamically showing what can / should be deleted in relation to the service/domain might cause quite some delay). It might be interesting to also raise this up during the next contributors meeting.
Regards,
Marco
Re #1: Wow, that information is new to me. I still think it's useful for resellers (especially small resellers) to be able to list all of their domains or websites, including those belonging to sub-users. As serveradmin, I would like to list the websites under a particular reseller (or for the whole system).
Re #2: Thanks!
Re #3: Part of the reason for the suggestion is because my users will be coming from an old control panel where most everything is under "Domains". They are not used to thinking of "websites" as a separate concept. The old WebSitePanel seemed non-intuitive to me because I had trouble finding the domain and website settings.
Re #4: Thanks!
Re #5: If it's tricky development-wise, it's even more tricky for a user to find what prevents them from being able to delete a domain. It's also very tedious for a user to delete, say, 35 email accounts before the domain can be deleted. This is another reason we chose not to switch over to WebSitePanel many years ago.
Thank you for considering my suggestions!
