There’s no doubt about it, people like simple things. Simple applications to perform simple tasks with a simple interface which is clean and intuitive.
When people come to me asking for design advice the most common thing I find myself saying is that you need to keep it simple but attractive. People are most probably visiting your site to find out some sort of information (Whether it be MSN Messenger related, or your own personal blog). If you think a layout looks good because it has all of this fancy stuff happening then it most probably doesn’t look good to other people who could care less about that. Minimal design can be attractive too.
And you’re about to ask what does this have to do with the subject line?
Today I found myself designing (after Dane requested it) a simple sort of control panel which would allow him to manage his POP/IMAP accounts and mail forwarders on my server. I don’t believe in traditional control panels which waste resources.
What I needed to do was build my own and keep it very simple. I didn’t have the time to add feature X and feature Y to it so I concentrated on what was important for myself as well as the people I host. Most importantly would be their disk and bandwidth usage on the server.
I’d already designed a framework set of scripts which run via cron jobs every few hours to calculate the disk and bandwidth usage on each account on the server so I just needed to build an interface to access that information.
So there we have it - a simple and attractive looking interface which directly presents you with the information you need and no extra “bloat”. It makes use of the Windows Vista icons which really add up making it an attractive layout.
I’ll throw up screenshots of the mail management screen when I get around to working on it.
Comments
Bobby (April 19th, 2006, 7:25 pm)
You always know how to layout the most simplest designs and make them the best looking things on the planet!
You wouldnt be giving out beta invitations, to test it, would you?
Dane (April 19th, 2006, 10:19 pm)
Hehe, Thanks again Chris, its a great control panel. As bobby said, you can design anything like, instantly, haha.
Michele (April 20th, 2006, 1:45 am)
It looks awesome! Even though I haven’t tested it out, I’m sure it’s great to use.
Belloman (April 20th, 2006, 9:59 am)
That’s pretty. And nice.
tikitiki (April 20th, 2006, 10:17 am)
YOU HOST? I never knew that! HOW COME I NEVER KNEW THAT?
Chris Boulton (April 20th, 2006, 11:32 am)
Because I only host a few small sites ( Dennis because his site is fairly large :P)
Thanks for the comments!
Bobby (April 20th, 2006, 5:23 pm)
Do you charge?
I’m interested, keep talking…
Chris Boulton (April 21st, 2006, 1:50 am)
I don’t mainly because they’re some closer friends on the internet. MyBB Developers get space too if they wish.
But everybody abides by strict rules. Any dodgy crap, you’re out.
Coming soon is the overview of the “Email Services” functionality which I completed tonight.
SurfiOnline » AvidCP: Keeping it real, but simple (April 21st, 2006, 3:31 am)
[…] AvidCP: A Simple Web App […]
Bobby (April 21st, 2006, 12:00 pm)
I would like to see this.
(I’m asking too many questions! - Sorry)
Will you be releasing any of these ‘Scripts’ to the public?
Chris Boulton (April 21st, 2006, 12:16 pm)
The email services page is complete - see my new post.
I probably won’t release them to the public because it does with with a very specific server configuration (and a messy one too!)
Dennis (May 2nd, 2006, 9:46 am)
I’m going to rebuild my site after my exams so hopefully it won’t take up THAT much space.
So sorry
Chris Boulton (May 2nd, 2006, 3:40 pm)
Like I care - not much else to put on the server.
Dennis (May 4th, 2006, 12:33 pm)
Well I’m rebuilding anyway whether you like it or not
or whether you care or not