Many issues with the latest 2 releases for the Dashboard on mobile devices

[dcgavril (Dan-Claudiu Gavril)]

Hello team,

I’ve been using MainWP from the beginnings and purchased the lifetime license right away and loving it. I’m using the dashboard on my phone 90%+ of the time as it’s with me all the time and can easily check out the latest updates and so on, but with the latest 2 releases 4.2.2 and 4.2.3 the dashboard is just unusable on mobile devices. I’ve already sent many replies on your Facebook posts on the group with feedback and screenshots but it seems that instead of actually fixing it we are going further with the same issues. Can you please please please get some feedback from actual users before doing an important change like this? I am now forced to return to the older version of the dashboard 4.2.1 because the newest responsive version is just making me lose time and do mistakes instead of improving the experience.

The general idea is that whenever you have 10+ updates the view with the plugin updates is getting so long that you’ll be spending time scrolling pages and pages of single line informations like labels and version numbers. Then there aren’t any visual elements to show that there are more informations about the updates, you need to figure it out that is you click on the header of an update you’ll see the sites that need to be updated. Plus, on the sites manager page you cannot even see the name of the site… and I just didn’t had the time to look further into the rest of the pages. Frankly speaking the latest 2 releases are just regressions and unusable on mobile devices, in my opinion.

I have extensive experience with UX for mobile apps and responsive websites and I’ve already offered to help of you need, but what I really want from you is to have extensive beta feedback from your clients in case you are doing an important change like this.

Thank you.

[bogdan (Bogdan Rapaić)]

Hi @dcgavril,

thank you for your feedback. As always, we appreciate it.

Regarding the issues, you have mentioned,

In the Manage Sites table, I cannot duplicate the problem. Please see here:

The table uses the Responsive extension for the DataTables JS plugin and, depending on the screen size, it hides columns that go out of the viewport from right to left. So basically, if the Site column is placed at the beginning of the table, it should be visible in the mobile view. Here you can see more details:

Customizing tables on MainWP Dashboard - MainWP Documentation

Regarding the problem with the missing login icon after the update process. This problem has been fixed, and the fix is available for download here:

MainWP 4.2.3 - Go to wp-admin icon not visible anymore

Hi @josklever, can you please try this version and see if it solves the problem with the missing icon:

Regarding the overall Updates section design in the mobile view, I understand that the current design is not the best for your needs. However, stacking table cells as the updated table behaves in mobile view is the default behavior for the Fomantic UI framework that MainWP uses. I understand that you may not need all that data in the mobile view for your workflow so that you would like a cleaner look, but other users might need all that data.

Please note that MainWP is customizable. You can always use the Custom Dashboard extension to make CSS changes to the MainWP Dashboard default style and customize the table layout for your needs. Considering your extensive experience with UX design and willingness to help, I am sure you will be able to handle customizations. You can also share your snippet with other users so all users that have similar needs to yours can use it.

Thanks again for your feedback.

[dcgavril (Dan-Claudiu Gavril)]

Hi @bogdan ,

Thank you for your reply.

I will try to reply to each of your responses below.

Just keep in mind that I’m here to help and not to show who is right in terms of usability or UX, etc. I want to have a functional dashboard so that I can focus on my actual work and not spending time on forums and facebook groups complaining, it’s not my thing I have already too many on my plate to have the time to even write a bug report.

@bogdan

In the Manage Sites table, I cannot duplicate the problem. Please see here:

I think that you are not testing it correctly as your site names are all very very short and in reality it’s not the same. Plus, please use an actual mobile device not changing the size of the Chome view on desktop because it’s not the same. I have not changed the order of the columns so the first one is site status, 2nd the site name and 3rd the login to the site button, but on mobile it’s only showing me the status and lighthouse even if that’s 10th+ in the column order…

More than this is that the time to load that table is so painfully slow, this is actually a behaviour happening in the past X releases, don’t remember when you’ve changed the table view but from that point onwards this page is really slow to load and the server resources are quite high for this dashboard installation and it worked very fast before.

@bogdan

Regarding the overall Updates section design in the mobile view, I understand that the current design is not the best for your needs. However, stacking table cells as the updated table behaves in mobile view is the default behavior for the Fomantic UI framework that MainWP uses. I understand that you may not need all that data in the mobile view for your workflow so that you would like a cleaner look, but other users might need all that data.

I do actually need all that information but the way it is shown on the screen is not actually making use of the screen estate and it’s making us lose time and do mistakes, look at the screenshot below, copied from your documentation, you’ll see that all the labels and the version numbers are using many lines, each label is on one line ! using only 10-20% of the line length, so I don’t think that it’s something to be desired, plus keeping in mind that most of us have many updates to manage, it a complete nightmare on a mobile device to actually chose which ones to do, scrolling like crazy to see the updates, and in the previous version I could have the same list in 1-2 pages long, yes it’s not 100% responsive but it’s 1000x more user friendly and useful.

@bogdan

Please note that MainWP is customizable. You can always use the Custom Dashboard extension to make CSS changes to the MainWP Dashboard default style and customize the table layout for your needs. Considering your extensive experience with UX design and willingness to help, I am sure you will be able to handle customizations. You can also share your snippet with other users so all users that have similar needs to yours can use it.

Unfortunately we are not talking about some simple CSS changes as it’s quite a headache to do the changes and then keep them updated with each release like these 2 where you’ve changed completely the structure, that’s why I was proposing you to do something from the start with actual user feedback in mind not just done and that’s it .

Thank you again for taking the time to look at this and looking forward to making MainWP a top notch solution for agency owners.

PS: Please remove the cookie button once I’ve selected the deny option because it’s blocking the message editor view. or at lease move it on the right side because Discourse has the editor on the left side.

[bogdan (Bogdan Rapaić)]

Hi @dcgavril,

thanks for getting back to me and taking the time to send us more details.

Regarding the Site column, you are right, My example from above is not the best example. However, even with random length site names, I still get the Site column in the table:

Also, our internal tests were made on actual phones and emulators. We did not run test on resized browser windows.

I don’t remember we changed the Sites table view recently. There were some additions and tweaks, but nothing that should affect the loading time. Please feel free to open a helpdesk ticket so we can check what is going on.

I agree that some screen estate can be saved with the tables in the Updates section. We actually plan to make some additional changes soon.

[dcgavril (Dan-Claudiu Gavril)]

@bogdan

Regarding the Site column, you are right, My example from above is not the best example. However, even with random length site names, I still get the Site column in the table:

My column list and order is as standard as it gets, but I found the issue: if one of the site titles is long enough none of the titles are shown, and in my list I have a website hosted on a subdomain and its full title length (long-subdomain.domain.extension) was 42 characters long and it forces the new table system to hide completely the column with the site names (it was working correctly before - yes not 100% responsive but still shown). If I may recommend something, whenever there’s no place to show completely the name, it can be cropped at the end of the word, instead of hiding all information.

As for the loading time of this table, there seems to be an issue with overlay that is shown while loading the table, in fact the information in the table seems to be loaded but the overlay with the loading icon is still shown and it’s blocking the access to the site list, on desktop is a bit better, but on mobile(Pixel 6, Android 12, Chrome) is just unusable. I will send a support ticket the next days once I have a bit of free time.

As for the updates view, please please at least set all the general labels on a single line and another one for the plugin versions and the “Trusted” and “Active” labels so that we’ll reduce the amount of space used on the screen.

PS: found another issue, if you click on the name of a plugin it should open up the view(popup) with the update changelog, but with this new version you cannot close that popup anymore because that view is not adapting to the screen size and you cannot see the close button (X). As a recommendation, try to see how the WordPress core manages to show that popup well even on mobile devices, for example, if you are going to the plugins list and click on the “view details” link for a plugin.

Thank you.

[bogdan (Bogdan Rapaić)]

Hi @dcgavril,

thanks for your feedback.

We started some changes for the next release.

We found the same problem with string length and how it affects column appearance so we did the same what you also suggested:

Regarding the Loading element that shows before the Sites table is rendered, it’s something we implemented as per users suggestions. Before we added it, the table loaded first and then the DataTables library needed a few more secs to load its features which caused problems when users tried to click something, but after DT loads the search and menu, everything moves for a line, so it caused misclicks. I will see to add a way to disable the loader element for users that don’t want it.

Regarding the Updates section, we also started some updates that will ease the usage of the tables.

We are removing redundant table headers in inner tables and increasing the size of action buttons.

We will also look into the Plugin/Update details popup.

[dcgavril (Dan-Claudiu Gavril)]

Thank you for your hard work. I appreciate it.

@bogdan

We are removing redundant table headers in inner tables and increasing the size of action buttons.

You can set those 4 lines with versions and trusted /not trusted on 2 lines, top labels, bottom values, they can all fit nicely, you can even remove the labels Trusted : and Status as it’s quite easy to understand if it’s trusted or not and it’s status from the value itself.

On another topic with this update, the screen showing the details of a single site is now missing the button to login to the wp-admin dashboard, if I’m not mistaken it was on the top lines before and now I can only find it way lower in the connection status box where you have sync data button.

Thank you again for fixing these things. Wish you all the best.

[bogdan (Bogdan Rapaić)]

Hi @dcgavril,

We made some updates and I belive that this should be good:

The problem with item info modal is also fixed and will be included in the next udpate.

[dcgavril (Dan-Claudiu Gavril)]

That looks great! Thanks!
Looking forward to update it.

PS: don’t forget about the login to the site button once the update is done on the child site.

[bogdan (Bogdan Rapaić)]

@dcgavril

PS: don’t forget about the login to the site button once the update is done on the child site.

That is already fixed

[dcgavril (Dan-Claudiu Gavril)]

Hello Bogdan,

Thank you for the new release, it’s been much appreciated.

Now that WordPress has updated to 6.0 I’ve had many core site updates to do and it seems like the button to log in to the child site is still missing after you do a core update.

Thank you. Wish you a great day.

[bojan (Bojan Katusic)]

@dcgavril

I’m glad you are enjoying the new MainWP release.

I’ve notified the development team about the missing button. It will be fixed in the next release.