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The sidebar on the left is the entry point to all my work: the content I have access to, my personal messages and settings, instance monitoring data as well as Magnolia configuration settings and tools.
The sidebar serves three four areas with separate menu structures, each offering menus and sub menus for accessing various data sets and functions. Only one of these menus is visible at any one time. I can switch freely between areas and menu items without loosing context. If I e.g. work on assets, then switch to my personal work area to moderate a number of new forum entries, then switch back to the asset browser again, I'm returned to the exact same point where I left of.
Description of desired behavior
The three four work areas each have their own top-level tab and menu structure. This structures the previous flat list of menus and improves orientation: content is separated from personal elements - the profile, personal messages and settings -, from instance monitoring and from instance-level configuration and tools.
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The menu of a single work area may be further subdivided into menu groups where useful. As an example, access to actual content such as pages, assets, documents and structured data is visual visually separated from access to content-related functionality such as A-B testing and statistics; server and module configuration, templates and security settings are separated from tools and apps such as the Magnolia Store. Menu groups could actually be labelled to improve understanding and clarity, but the current design does not yet foresee that.
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All emphasizing visual elements are removed, if the user reads the new messages or marks them as read. Once the total count of new messages reaches zero, the icon used to represent the personal work area is set to the default icon again and badges on menu items are removed.
System message notifications
The monitoring work area among others hosts the list of system messages. Messages are shown using notification dialogs, but some of them might go unnoticed. If any new system messages need the users' attention, the icon for the monitoring work area is changed to a messaging icon. It represents how many important messages are available and its shape and color reflect the highest log level of the messages available. Likewise, all menu items connected to system messaging show a visually distinctive badge listing the total number of messages of their type. Please also refer to the complementary page on system messages and notifications for more details and mockups.
All emphasizing visual elements are removed, if the user reads or confirms the new messages. Once the total count of new messages reaches zero, the icon used to represent the monitoring work area is set to the default icon again and badges on menu items are removed.
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