FreeBSD 8.4 + pfSense 2.1 ?
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Nginx can be quite a bit faster than lighttpd. It's not that we can't or don't want to use it, but lighttpd works and we haven't had much motivation to change.
Lots of things to risk/break in the process. But if the code showed up and it worked, we're open to it for a future version.
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How do you mean 'more responsive'?
That page you linked to is significantly slower than the pfSense webGUI for me.
I'm all for shiny buttons and animated widgets but not at the expense of actually being able to get stuff done. Â ;)
Didn't we have a whole thread talking about this somewhere?Steve
As for the speed which this demo is running is really irreverent, as the designer did not optimize it for speed.
The demo is running on a shared server setup … Resources allocated to individual accounts on shared servers are greatly restrained on all fronts and running Apache. If it where running on a local gigabit network it would be a totally different story.Here you can find what responsive would mean for a GUI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsive_web_design
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Ah, I thought you must mean something like that.
The problem, in my experience at least, with stuff like this is that when it works it's great but when it doesn't it can have you cursing at the computer in no time. Getting stuck in some 'mobile version' of a web page that disabled zooming and has no obvious way to turn it off is not fun. >:( Perhaps I've just been unlucky.
I agree that the current mobile theme leaves something to be desired but it does work, I can still do everything from my phone/tablet.I think I said this before but my new benchmark for bad interfaces is Watchguard's more recent low end devices where the entire interface is written in flash. Yes, really. There's no fall back either so from my Nexus 7 I can do precisely nothing. It looks nice in a compatible browser but it's dog slow. Do not do that! :P
Steve
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A bad flash interface is still marginally better than a Windows-only executable management program and no GUI. Though Watchguard still holds my low scores in UI design also.
I've seen some horrendous designs from others, but none infuriate me like theirs does.
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Since there most likely will have to be a major overhaul of the code base in Pfsense for the transition to FreeBSD 10.x why not prepare for the future with a easier to read and navigation GUI?
Have you tried the Fluid Layout option jimp?  …. link to layout options at bottom left corner of page http://mosaicpro.biz/adminplus/php/
At some point in the future you will be forced to ... or you can be the one that refuses to go forward in the GUI department.
Just a wild guess, 3000 to 4000 hours of GUI coding and debugging.
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Not really.
Changes for FreeBSD 10.x are mostly backend stuff. Only a few things will probably need fixed in the GUI.
Unless you wait it to be 2-3 years between releases again, redesigning the GUI isn't going to be an option at the same time as a major version bump such as that.
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I can think of over a dozen features of the core pfsense functionality (after all it's a router/firewall) that developers' time could be spent on.
And when the time comes for a significant webGUI overhaul, I'd prefer that effort be primarily directed upon improving the webGUI's security model (not having most of its components run as root).
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Adding additional Pfsense routing and firewall backend development would not be disrupted, other than some additional help in the forum for web developers/freelancers with questions. Current Pfsense backend developers should do just that …. that is there interest and skill set. People with interest in GUI web development would be best suited for the GUI development.
How do you get web developers/freelancers .... look for interest within your own forum community, I assure you there here.
Start a new group!
Want everyone on the same page .... Create or modify existing layered Photoshop templates which are available from many sources to relay what your looking for in a new GUI. List all plug-ins to be utilized for GUI and turn them loose ....
It can be done, its just a matter of initiating a protocol.
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Just to satisfy my own curiosity is it the specific issue of making the gui more usable across various devices that interests you? Or is it more that you'd like to see an interface that was more "2.0" for want of a better phrase?
I think it's easy to start changing things for the sake of change here. I can think of a number or examples where an interface was changed to make it 'better' in the eyes of the developers and it did not seem that way to users. The previously mentioned Watchguard GUI is one, their previous web interface (on the soho models) was basic but worked fine. Gnome is another. I realise it may be a personal thing or just a psychological adversity to change but I find the Unity interface almost unusable. Takes me twice as long to do anything slightly unusual.
Anyway I'm sure those pitfalls can be avoided. :)
Steve
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I doubt we'll be changing things just to change them.
A GUI refresh isn't entirely out of the question, but if that happens it would probably be a part of some other major GUI-impacting change (we may suddenly decide to move from PHP to Python for some reason, or move to some sort of MVC framework), and not just because we felt like redesigning the GUI.
We like to focus on making things work properly, and we try not to break things unless they're actually broken/unusable. Opinions on that vary, but it's mostly a bikeshed discussion.
Getting volunteers to code the GUI changes isn't quite that simple. In an ideal world, sure, but in the real world, you may have plenty of volunteers and very little follow-through, or people will disappear leaving code abandoned. If something of that scale is to be done, it would have to be closely handled/managed by the core team with assistance from the community in places.
Any of those kinds of changes would likely be a couple versions out though. We have some other significant work to do in the meantime, but in a version or two we'll be looking for more things to change/implement as the major tasks like updating the base OS, wireless updates, and IPv6 and such are completed.
