Story
Magnolia is easy to set up and configure through a special panel, from which I can access most static settings. I can see a small group of main topics, which in turn contain smaller setting units such as messaging or performance. Each setting unit uses one or several forms to set up one or several components associated with the unit.
I also have a favorites section at my disposal. I can mark setting units as favorites and then access them more easily and quickly through this section. In addition, I can also use a search box to search for a particular setting. Search works so well that I can find names used in a main topic, a setting unit or an individual setting - clicking on a result takes me to the corresponding form.
Description of desired behavior
The Setup panel
The Setup panel replaces the JCR browser to the "config" JCR workspace as the only means to configure Magnolia. It assembles settings, which are configured mainly during initial setup, for a migration or during maintenance. The overall nature of such settings is static and technical. By contrast, security settings and template definitions have panels of their own, which have to be changed more frequently and/or belong to the core competence of a CMS.
Settings are grouped into four setting topics:
- Content Authoring: definitions of processes and workflows, setup of content aggregators
- User Interface: overall configuration of AdminCentral, interface appearance and user experience
- Infrastructure: all technical aspects such as performance settings, messaging definitions and the chaining of instances
- Other: left for additional settings not clearly belonging to one of the above topics
Topics in turn contain setting units, which are comprised of a number of settings belonging together and configuring a single element, which may be a component or (Magnolia) module. Examples are "activation" for the definition of subscribers and their subscriptions, but also for providing a single switch to turn activation on or off, or "performance" for setting up the cache and its policy. A setting unit may then use any of the available forms such as the single-page complex form to further structure their settings.
Modules may add setting units and locate them under any of the available setting topics, but may not add any topics of their own. No mechanism exists for a module to add an individual setting to an existing setting group.
If a setting unit receives the focus, it highlights and a description explaining the purpose of the unit is shown. This is similar to how field descriptions are handled in a form - note however that in contrast to the latter, descriptions of setting units are not optional. In particular, they may not be replaced by a simple help page.