Reason Developer Zone

The latest nightly builds of Reason have significant changes in the administrative interface. In this post I will show what has changed and explain the logic behind the changes.

1. Added icons

Reason administrative interface now sports small icons to help distinguish between different kinds of items and actions. Here are a few screenshots to show the difference this makes:

Before:

After:

2. Borrowing links moved

The Borrow menu in the left sidebar has been taken away; you now borrow items by choosing the appropriate type (e.g. images, events, blurbs, etc.) and then clicking on the new Borrow tab. If you look at the before- and after- screenshots, you can see the difference this new approach makes:

Before:

After:

Most significantly, it keeps the interface from becoming overwhelmed with links -- as you can see in the "before" image above, the borrowing links push the site tools links below the scroll, and each type name is repeated. In the "after" image, by contrast, there is no repetition and the site tools are now visible.

In addition, the change (we hope) helps make it clearer that you can choose to borrow items rather than recreating them in your site.

3. Linking back to the site dashboard page

When you click in to view items in a site, it used to be difficult to return to the site's "dashboard," which shows all the recently edited items in the site. Now, instead of the "Add/Edit" text, you will see a link back to the site's dashboard.

Happy Reason Editing!

I hope this explains the Reason interface changes. Please leave a comment on this post if you have any comments or questions.