The current icon was chosen IIRC because of instances where the UI is in a RTL language and the sidebar is on the right side.

Could it not be flipped based on the rtl flag? Just curious. It just seems odd to have an X there. I notice the OPEN icon is a right arrow, so obviously that one is being flipped when the side bar is on the other side (or I assume it is).

All I could find on it was #5141 and I guess it was just a preference.

I think the icons need to be more prominent than what they are.

@mbabker You're right, it was just a preference, after a long debate (over 3 PR, where #5141 is the latest one.

In my opinion, this could be improved. @brianpeat you could find other suggestion screenshots on #5141 ;-)

Could it not be flipped based on the rtl flag?

Yes! in template.js file of Isis admin template

This change would likely require an update to the IcoMoon font, which I suspect is why the X is being used (the IcoMoon font does not contain a circle icon)

Yes, this was one of the reason!
But as i remember, due to many updates during the process, the first reason is maybe not still available (read linked PR).
We could maybe replace the icon-cancel by this one : icon-arrow-left-2
The icomoon could be updated too with white arrow on blue circle (better looking), as for example in this PR #6247, i've made a suggestion to remove the * from label required layout (and strings of translation) to use icon-asterisk (but no icon-asterisk really exists as it it is the same icon as for icon-unfeatured and icon-star-empty : a star).

The question is who and how it is possible to update joomla icomoon font ? Or is the json file is available somewhere ?

The change is very simple:

diff --git a/administrator/templates/isis/js/template.js b/administrator/templates/isis/js/template.js
index 9419423..2c17c48 100644
--- a/administrator/templates/isis/js/template.js
+++ b/administrator/templates/isis/js/template.js
@@ -67,10 +67,10 @@
            var $sidebar = $('#j-sidebar-container');

-           var open_icon = 'icon-cancel';
+           var open_icon = 'icon-arrow-left-2';
            var closed_icon = 'icon-arrow-right-2';

            if (jQuery(document.querySelector("html")).attr('dir') == 'rtl')
            {
-               open_icon = 'icon-cancel';
+               open_icon = 'icon-arrow-right-2';
                closed_icon = 'icon-arrow-left-2';
            }
diff --git a/layouts/joomla/sidebars/toggle.php b/layouts/joomla/sidebars/toggle.php
index 28d6164..8cc274a 100644
--- a/layouts/joomla/sidebars/toggle.php
+++ b/layouts/joomla/sidebars/toggle.php
@@ -21,4 +21,4 @@
    onclick="toggleSidebar(false); return false;"
    >
-   <span id="j-toggle-sidebar-icon" class="icon-cancel"></span>
+   <span id="j-toggle-sidebar-icon" class="icon-arrow-left-2"></span>
 </div>

which gives:

and in RTL

@infograf768 Yes, it's simple, as the script already allow this ;-)

I don't remember where exactly the decision for "close" cross...
I think it was maybe in @roland-d initial PR, where the close cross was decided (i know just that it was my suggestion, as the cross in the sidebar container, and mean "close".)

But due to the many changes done between @roland-d PR and final 3.4.0 sidebar, i think we can actually change the close icon to the arrow icon.
Left/Right icons seems good for me.
@infograf768 and @brianpeat : Do you want to create the PR, or do i create this PR ? (with maybe a little ajustement for arrow margin)

I think there is also a common opinion that a collapsing sidebar is of no real value and should be removed :)

@brianpeat The discussion on which icon to use is one that will never reach a mutual agreement. It almost needs to be yet another option :) My personal favorite is still the hamburger icon as this seems to be used more for menus. At this moment, I personally don't care too much about which icon we have as long as there is a space to click.

The one thing to keep in mind is indeed RTL languages when going with an icon that is direction sensitive.

Re: Hamburgers - the web is finally waking up the fact that that icon is pathetic...
https://lmjabreu.com/post/why-and-how-to-avoid-hamburger-menus/
http://exisweb.net/menu-eats-hamburger

Here is my beef with the disappearing menu now working with it for some time. It serves 0 purpose as most of the options are necessary. Hiding menus isn't a problem - but hiding options to change your view you shouldn't hid. It is fine for the top filters because those aren't used as regular.

With some user testing on my end our clients found no use for it and it was often confusing as these items are used quite a bit. Also the UI does not match the rest of the UI in Joomla! therefore a detachment from the backend look and feel. In some cases it feels that it was forced by a 3rd party plugin.

It just doesn't feel natural.

The filters that it is hiding should always have been on the top where they
belong and as proposed last year by the ux team. The same is true for the
useless menu items which are just duplicates of the top menu. Again
something fproposed and rejected by the ux team. When you accept both of
those proposals you have nothing left to go in the sidebar and you achieve
the desired effect of having a full width list view
On 5 Mar 2015 17:43, "spignataro" notifications@github.com wrote:

Here is my beef with the disappearing menu now working with it for some
time. It serves 0 purpose as most of the options are necessary. Hiding
menus isn't a problem - but hiding options to change your view you
shouldn't hid. It is fine for the top filters because those aren't used as
regular.

With some user testing on my end our clients found no use for it and it
was often confusing as these items are used quite a bit. Also the UI does
not match the rest of the UI in Joomla! therefore a detachment from the
backend look and feel. In some cases it feels that it was forced by a 3rd
party plugin.

It just doesn't feel natural.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub
#6310 (comment).

So opinions about the sidebar aside, can we come to a consensus on the icons and stop trying to adjust the sidebar in some form every other release?

refactor to make it a horizontal sub menu like @brianteeman states - and remove the sidebar completely… :) Job done :-) Then never have to come back to this issue..

On 5 Mar 2015, at 19:33, Michael Babker notifications@github.com wrote:

So opinions about the sidebar aside, can we come to a consensus on the icons and stop trying to adjust the sidebar in some form every other release?

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

Why not just change the icon for 3.4.1 and leave it. I'd also suggest making the font size 18px to make the button a bit bigger.

Then we can revisit a completely overhaul for 3.5. The UX group is working on that kind of thing anway, so arguing over removing it in the 3.4 stream seems like a waste of time to me.

I'll let someone else do the PR as I don't know how to do that. Anyway, one more argument to make it an arrow for now is that when it's CLOSED it's an arrow pointing out. Seems to me it should be an arrow pointing in when it's open to keep it more uniform. Changing to a hamburger to me denotes a menu, not a collapsable panel thats open by default.

Just my 2 cents.

:facepalm:

Being blunt, I think it'd be nice to get some stability in the layouts (in some form, nearly every release has changed something about the admin... control panel organization, search tools, sliding sidebar, Joomla logo position). And as it is, there are discussions starting on a totally new admin template. So if I had BDFL voting rights, I'd suggest just getting the icon consistent (arrow does seem to make more sense) and leaving the sidebar be as a relic of Isis' design and letting the new template get things "right" (term loosely defined since I doubt we'll all agree on what that is).

I also think that we simply need a new backend template, one that replaces the current two that we have. How it should look like, I leave that to the bright minds of UX :)

Right, that's exactly what I'm suggesting. Just fix the arrow for consistency and leave it. Moving or removing it is not for this discussion at all. That's for the UX team to decide for a later release.

So the submission should be to replace the X with the left arrow (already part of the IcoMoon font), and then make sure in RTL languages, the icon codes are reversed so the arrow points right when open and left when closed. And yes, the padding needs to be a bit more when closed. The arrow is barely noticeable over there on the edge.

To me that's the least amount of changing until something new gets designed for another release. It's more of a fix than a redesign.

Sounds good to me

+1 for me and PR done : #6327

It's not yet possible to remove the sidebar, and as @roland-d said : "I also think that we simply need a new backend template, one that replaces the current two that we have."
I will be at jab15, and it could be a good place to share ideas about a new admin template. I will have some to share, and with no need of a sidebar ;-)

I have started the conversation here: https://docs.google.com/a/corephp.com/document/d/1DGYxjK8WXxU1UQooNTBlpk7j_TVQ0pnZTa-ti8K2WzQ/edit#heading=h.tgukxergexec

We don't just need a new backend - but we really need a usable, functional, accessible, standards driven backend.

Closing as we have a PR by @JoomliC #6222

Set to "closed" on behalf of @zero-24 by The JTracker Application at issues.joomla.org/joomla-cms/6310

Wrong link. correct PR is: #6327