Thanks for the insights on this Adam, much appreciated. Will take note of this and share this with our team.

Thanks Mark

No problem Adam.

+1 consistency

Thanks for the input

I would have put this in Feature Requests but there isn't a relevant category.

I'd like too add it is not just the template style, but the core style of the component.
I am not using any SI template but I have the same issue too.
With ED5 I had to create new custom css in ED but also add css for all the other components to have consistency in the design.

The first improvement I'd like to see is an all in one adaptative toolbar so we do not have 4 "different" designs for 4 components.
One single toolbar that adapts itself to the component in use on the page + megatoolbar (same option we have with other components integrations)?
Would it be possible?

I hope the following design updates of EB,ES and PP will follow the new ED5 design...

I searched the forums and found exact same requets since 2015...

An adaptive toolbar makes a lot of sense.

To be honest, the best way to solve the toolbar issue is to turn it off altogether

We really do not recommend using the toolbar mainly because of this. Why don't you guys just use the menus that your template provide instead?

To be honest, the best way to solve the toolbar issue is to turn it off altogether

We really do not recommend using the toolbar mainly because of this. Why don't you guys just use the menus that your template provide instead?

That's what I did. Plus added EasySocial Notifications on all pages.

The primary reason that we have added toolbars is to simplify the initial setup but we realized that these toolbars are huge bottlenecks when it comes to uniformity.

There is no way to share the same toolbar across all extensions because different extensions has different menus. Take PayPlans for instance, just because of the toolbar uniformity, we added a toolbar for PayPlans and all that toolbar does, is it have 2 items, https://take.ms/IRi1l

Moving forward, I strongly recommend everyone to rely on the menus which your template provides and use it alongside any of the notifications module.

Moving forward, I strongly recommend everyone to rely on the menus which your template provides and use it alongside any of the notifications module.

That is totally not user-friendly, the toolbar is much a better UX especially on desktops and tablets
Device usage is not the same across the world, not the whole world is browsing solely on mobiles...

EDIT:
I NEVER use a smartphone on stackideas website because navigation is awfull.
As an example how do you directly reach a forum category?
Browse to Help Desk then scroll down the whole page and select the category, than is one of the worst UX

To be honest, the best way to solve the toolbar issue is to turn it off altogether

To be honest this not listening to your community.
I have read you want to get rid of all toolbars as soon as possible, that is brute force everyone of us
All opinions matters, users first.

Kirill wrote:
Integration:
1. Developer's ideas vs webmaster's fantasies about what easysocial should be. For example, I have a fantasy that the description of the photo in the stream must be synchronized with the description of the photo in the album. That it can't be otherwise. Who does that anyway:D
2. The webmaster's fantasies about what his site should be like vs the real user experience.
3. Real user experience. This is the most important thing.

That is totally not user-friendly, the toolbar is much a better UX especially on desktops and tablets
Device usage is not the same across the world, not the whole world is browsing solely on mobiles...

Wouldn't it be better if the template maker could design a better "menu" for mobile rather than relying on our toolbar? If I understand you correctly, what you are saying is you prefer our toolbar over the menus from the template because of the mobile experience?

Hm, it is very unfair that you say we don't listen. We are listening to our customers and many of our customer base like Adam are searching for a unifying look across his site and this is what this thread is all about.

Oh not at all, you're totally wrong about this, template designers have nothing to do about this.

To have nice sef friendly urls and to navigate smoothly between languages we need level 3 submenus with SI components.

We have 1 international website with 16 languages, 20 EB categories, 480 ED categoies (30/language) + all ES stuffs.
Because you wrote in an other post that you want to get rid of all toolbars ASAP, I anticipated and created all needed menus and submenus and sub-submenus. We have now around 1200 menus items in total!

- The toolbar makes easy - direct - access to menus that are main template submenus or sub-sub (less mouse mouvents to click menu- submenu, sub-sub-menu)
- The toolbar looks like some kind of a header and we quite like this
- The toolbar on mobile has also its purpose as it renders the sub- or -sub-sub menus "directly " (more direct access than a long list of menu items in the mobile menu)

What I care about DESKTOP VIEW:
- Keep the toolbars
- If for desktop display I have to add some CSS, I do not care, I do it since years now...

What I definitly want to see MOBILE VIEW:
- Please unify, keep consistency in the toobar mobile views and rendering - some are dark, some are white, some have icons
- Please use the same color mode, use texts and not icons
- Not more or less menu items as select by the site administrator, let the site admin decide what to display in these mobile menus.
- Mobile toolbar rendering should respect desktop toolbar rendering

That is my input, I hope it is constructive and you understand my point of view,

We have 1 international website with 16 languages, 20 EB categories, 480 ED categoies (30/language) + all ES stuffs.
Because you wrote in an other post that you want to get rid of all toolbars ASAP, I anticipated and created all needed menus and submenus and sub-submenus. We have now around 1200 menus items in total!

Yeah, this is also one of the other problem that we were trying to solve with a toolbar. But sadly the toolbar now generates another uniformity problem.

Just a question here and would like to hear inputs from you guys. What do you guys think if we completely disable all the toolbars across all of our extension and create a "global toolbar" module instead which renders all of our extensions?

What do you guys think if we completely disable all the toolbars across all of our extension and create a "global toolbar" module instead which renders all of our extensions?

That would be an option as long as we can select to display or not component menus:
Options for toolbar module:

Menus: ALL / ONLY SELECTED / ADAPT TO COMPONENT

Display ES Menus: YES / NO
Display EB Menus: YES / NO
Display ED Menus: YES / NO
Display PP Menus: YES / NO

If you could make it an adaptative toolbar - can the toolbar detect the component in use on the page?
If so we would not have to create multiple modules for multiple languages and multiple components.

What do you guys think if we completely disable all the toolbars across all of our extension and create a "global toolbar" module instead which renders all of our extensions?

That would be an option as long as we can select to display or not component menus:
Options for toolbar module:

Menus: ALL / ONLY SELECTED / ADAPT TO COMPONENT

Display ES Menus: YES / NO
Display EB Menus: YES / NO
Display ED Menus: YES / NO
Display PP Menus: YES / NO

If you could make it an adaptative toolbar - can the toolbar detect the component in use on the page?
If so we would not have to create multiple modules for multiple languages and multiple components.

Yeah, adaptive is a good idea. The idea is to merge all our toolbars so that whenever we redesign one or change any structure, we only need to do it on one single module.

This way, when our team need to make code or design adjustments, it can all be done on a single module. Right now, if we update EasyDiscuss, customers would complain about the lack of uniformity in EasySocial (until they upgrade to v4), and the list goes on and on.

Having said that, having a single module could be tricky as well when it comes to dealing with multiple different versions of an extension.

Having said that, having a single module could be tricky as well when it comes to dealing with multiple different versions of an extension.

Not really sure what you are thinking about ... but.
Maybe you can have a solid structure of menu trees that would serve as a basement for the toolbar module or vice versa the modules calls for menu tree in the component.
That is not my part, not sure I can be of any help on the coding side ... but was "thinking out loud" about a logic

Just throwing some random ideas

Just like anything that evolves, I think you should have a sunset period for earlier version once a global toolbar module is available.
After the global toolbar module is created, you still have a "legacy" component toolbar for the next 2-3 upgrades, then remove it completely.

Sunsetting an older version isn't a big issue but it's more about updating all products to be on the same design / ui without breaking any existing products that is running on the site.

@ supporter & @ Mark

What I definitly want to see MOBILE VIEW:
- Please unify, keep consistency in the toobar mobile views and rendering - some are dark, some are white, some have icons
- Please use the same color mode, use texts and not icons
- Not more or less menu items as select by the site administrator, let the site admin decide what to display in these mobile menus.
- Mobile toolbar rendering should respect desktop toolbar rendering

That is my input, I hope it is constructive and you understand my point of view,

I am into so much of your analysis and thoughts Supporter! You come into same problem as me with langauges, menus/toolbars, categories/apps items/translations etc

+100% for your experience, ideas and good suggestions. Mobile UI/UX logic is key and to be consistent with desktop view.

Thank you for your insights on this ssnobben. We are going to have a discussion regarding the global toolbar soon and we are also looking forward in unifying the toolbar.

Yes I would like to buy a PWA type of desktop/mobile friendly theme that also allow end user switch between dark and white design settings and letting the user doing that on front page similar like this solution https://stackideas.com/apps/item/3456-easytheme but have a template for the whole site that is consistant everywhere.

Now I have millions of css settings using one template Helix Ultimate and it would be nice to avoid that. So template built on top of Helix Ultimate v 2 that is Joomla 4 compatible with a front end template changer for end users that prefer dark or white design to their needs as a starting point.

Hm, to be frank with you, I am not sure why are we discussing about PWA right now :\

This topic was initially about unifying our templates, then we talked about modules and now we are talking about PWA

I think if I were to get our designers to get involved in this thread, they'll just close their laptops and go for coffee instead.