Hi!
My name is Thomas de Lima. I'm a computer engineering student from Brazil. I want to discuss more the idea of redesigning PMA, because I want to be sure I understood it correctly.
Design is not only about changing color or shapes in the user interface, but also about changing how the user interacts with the application, towards improving usability. So, the "User interface cleanup" project needs to be codeveloped with the AJAX team. Is that right?
I read an email from our indian colleague Anirvana Mishra, excited about ajaxifying PMA. But then Michal answered that he should pick one specific area to improve, cause there's too much functionality in PMA. Well, as a database manager, the PMA should be lightweight and "usable". For example, it takes a great deal of HTML download and clicks to find and edit someone's data in a huge personnel table. AJAX could solve both problems by opening a quickedit option on a browse table's row, which could be quickly found by an AJAX filter on top. So I think one of the "User interface cleanup" project goals should be study of which features need to be ajaxified or changed, or whatever, not about picking, before a deeper study, an area to improve.
For this purpose I wish to apply as an GSoCer to improve the PMA user interface, cause I frequently use it to manage my databases remotely. Of course PMA's usability now is excellent, as everything is intuitively put in place, but it feels soooo Web1.0, so static.
Thanks,
thomas.