Gin on the Horizon
Around the time North Carolina farmers are sending their cotton harvest off to the gin, the Digital Solutions team will have a different sort of Gin on our minds- no, not that kind. Gin is a new Drupal Admin Theme that you will experience while logged in. Your public-facing web content will not be affected. Gin is essentially an improved user interface, i.e. the toolbar that you use to create content while logged into Digital Commons.
"The Gin Admin Theme is based on Claro and comes bundled with additional UI features that can improve the user experience." - Drupal.org
Gin User Interface
Functionally, Gin is structured the same as our current theme; tasks are completed by visiting the same menu option and completing the same steps. Gin does look different, but in a good way! It is lighter, brighter, and has a more modern vibe. If you are someone who relies heavily on visual cues, we realize that Gin may feel a bit different to navigate, so here are a few of the notable differences:
- Instead of the toolbar that runs horizontally across the top of the screen right now, the Gin Admin Theme places the menu of tools into a sidebar on the left side of your browser window.
- Some icons change while others stay the same. For instance, the icon for Content will still look like a sheet of paper, however the icon for Structure will change from a node hierarchy to one resembling a stack of papers.
- The tool menu starts as a collapsed list of icons; you can expand it to see the names of the menu items beside their icons.
Previews
Content Table New Sidebar Menu Create a Landing Page
Views Edit the Main Menu Manage Users
Timeline
A firm date has not yet been set for deployment.
Learn More about Gin
You can learn about Gin's appearance and navigation from the theme's creators on Drupal.org, but keep in mind that our Digital Solutions team here at NCDIT will customize it to best align with our Digital Commons platform. To learn how we plan to implement Gin:
- We will share more information as details solidify via Sprint Review, the Newsletter, Support Blogs, and the Announcements channel in the Digital Commons Content Ninjas Team.
- Web Managers should attend Sprint Review every three weeks to get updates on our latest platform improvements.
- All content creators should sign up for our Newsletter to stay in-the-know.