New Upgrade UI in PersonaBar Needs a Rethink

[jeremy-farrance]

I am talking about the new process and UI for upgrading DNN versions. Recently a new tab appeared in PersonaBar, Servers, System Info, the Upgrades sub-tab. Screen clip 1 below.

References #6732 #6732

Problems Defined

1. The new "upgrades process" is not discoverable

Sometimes it takes a real interaction to understand the problem. This happened 3 days ago... I have a client that manages their own hosting, we design/develop stuff for their DNN sites. He said he would be doing upgrades to 10.02.02, I mentioned that he should try the NEW UPGRADES PROCESS. He was enthusiastic, but I neglected to tell him anything else.

• He was back to me via chat within 30 mins telling me he had 10.02.01 in front of him and didn't see anything new in the PB
• I told him PB/Settings, Servers, System Info
• After a few moments, he defended himself saying, "I thought everything under Info is read only, I never thought to look there."

2. The "Steps icon" action button is not a clear enough indication for "Proceed - Run/Apply this Upgrade Package"

• He was back again in 10 mins... he had uploaded DNN 10.02.02 Upgrade zip and could NOT figure out what to do next and specifically wanted to know what "the footprints icon was" - he said it had no tooltip and he was not confident enough to just click it
• there was more to this, but hopefully that highlights the initial problems

Misc Proposed Improvements for Discussion

1. If the Upgrades PB UI panel location stays under Servers/System Info (see clip 1), then using the same logic for the PB Logo getting the "UPDATES" CTA/button, have the UPGRADES subtab also get highlighted (e.g. background: var(--dnn-color-tertiary-light) or whatever is already established in DNN UI style guide). See Clip 2 below. In other words, no matter what path a user takes to get to PB System Info, the "UPGRADES" tab will be highlighted.

Note that this does not completely address the problem. We are still in an Info panel that has been long implied to be (mostly) read only (at least according to 2 people I know of, and yeah, one of them is me).

2. Replace the "Steps Icon" with a language based button. See Clip 4 below. I realize this means we have another translatable element, if avoiding that helps, then we just need a better (and more significant) icon for Apply (or Run or Process or Go or)... within DNN I am not currently aware of an icon that works well for this action, though MoveNext and Rt (Right) and Refresh are close (and a "step up" from the Steps icon) and they would need some "emphasis." If we were using a new icon, I'd probably suggest something like an up-right arrow icon.

Note that in Clip 4 I also removed the column "Can Install" since I needed the room and thought maybe this could be communicated more effectively by simply disabling the Apply button and changing its tooltip to read, "Cannot install this package... [reasons]"

3. Add an info box to the UPGRADES panel with a strong Title and Description and link on to the DNN Platform Suggested Upgrade Path in the DNN Docs.

4. [unfinished] After upload, in the grid, "REQ DNN VERS"... what is this? How is it calculated? In most cases I have noticed "10.2.0" in there, is that the default or fallback and in the future will show... what? If there is a way for the upgraded zip package to know the best or recommend previous or minimum version to be on... ??

5. Back to problem 1 again, another idea... since Upgrades are a significant part of managing/maintaining DNN instances, move UPGRADES from a subtab of System Info to the new, far right top-level PB/Settings/Servers. See Clip 5 below. This also helps discoverability (1) as well as the incongruity of being a set of tools+actions under and Info-grouping of panels.

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Clip 1. The PB UPGRADES UI Panel Location in DNN 10.01.?? thru 10.02.02

Clip 2. Idea: Basic example of solution idea 1 above, if updates are available, on System Info highlight the tab

Clip 3. UPGRADE Panel UI v10.02.02

Clip 4. Idea: Replace Steps Icon with Apply Button and Remove CAN column

Clip 5. Idea: Better? Location for the Upgrades Panel