[Vtigercrm-developers] UI help

[Matthew Brichacek]

In case no one noticed in the past I suck @ UI design so I figured we
would see who wants to step up to the plate on this one.  Right now I
need the following things, if you want to take one just say so that way
no one else duplicates your work.

1) De-Duplication system for settings module.  I want this to be able to
delete/merge/etc records that can be matched based on certain criteria.
I'll write the search engine and logic system to merge/de-dup if someone
wants to take on the UI :).  I was thinking about having this work in
steps.  Step 1: select search criteria.  Step 2: display duplicate
results that are candidates for merge/delete, un-select records from the
list via checkbox. Step 3: Select fields to merge or other action to
take (delete).  Step 4: Execute actions.
There was a bounty on this in the forums.  If that pans out you'll get a
chunk, let me know what you think is fair for your time/effort.

2) Geolocation/Action tracking for email campaigns.  This will be a
simple popup window that should show a list of the commands from that
email (ie: open, followed link, unsubscribed, etc) in one html tab and
then the google map to show the actual locations those commands were
executed at in another tab.  Most likely I will just push one XML
descriptor up to google maps to display the country/state/town the email
was opened in, but I want to be able to push multiple XML descriptors to
google in cases where more than one location is tracked.  These extra
descriptors can be used to mark possible forwards for that email.
Along with this feature we'll need a simple settings area to input your
google maps key.

3) Default email unsubscription page.  This is a simple page that is
visited when a user clicks on the 'unsubscribe' link in emails.  The
page should have a nice header, a hello message or something, give the
user a choice to unsubscribe from that campaign or from all lists in the
CRM and then display a success or failure message depending on the
result from the CRM's attempt to remove them.  If the unsubscribe fails
the page should display the company info from the DB so that the user
can write in or call to have their information removed.

4) Workflow module?  I thought I saw a post that the vtiger crew was
going to take this on.  If thats the case then this one is void and we
don't need to worry about it.  Otherwise, go check out the bounty, let
me know what you think is a fair cut for your work, then submit me your
ideas.  If the bounty pans out you'll get a cut of course.

5) Communications system.  This is built and ready enough for beta.  I
need a p2p chat window, group chat window, right hand 'slider' (to show
who is online, etc) and we should probably do something with the alert
slider as well, it's very plain.  The fun part about the chat windows is
that none of them are built with HTML so you'll have to do most of the
design in CSS.  You can also look into the scriptaculous Builder()
function for more info on how I create the chat windows, there is
flexibility in how you can design them so you're not necessarily
restricted to css only.  Also could use a chat window for the customer
portal if you're up to it :).

6) Direct Mail Designer.  This is still on the drawing board but it
would be super cool.  The idea is to have a list of templates in the
"Direct Mail" campaigns that could be merged with the campaign records.
Sounds familiar right?  Well it would build off of the current merge
system by allowing .rtf and .odt files to be merge templates but would
also make use of a 'packaging' standard.  Basically this packaging (a
tarball or zip file) would have a templatename.xml file that would have
things like params and thumbnail images and other useful information for
merging, etc.  This has the ability to have services packaged around it
(like we could define an API for designers to make their designs
available for pre-set prices and also printing companies to actually do
the printing.)  Lots of possibilities, if you decide this one is
interesting, email me on or off list and we can start a discussion about
how this could work.  This is candidate for a forge project so if there
is enough interest I might just open one.

All of this stuff is being created in my branch.  I'll give you access
to my sandbox area on vtiger-demo.fosslabs.com so you can track stuff
and help out.

I have every intention of doing these myself if no one takes them, but I
can say that I have no skill in UI design whatsoever :).

Matt