There have been many requests and complaints about the Nextcloud app “AppOrder” not working since 2023 - outside and inside of this forum. Apparently, the Nextcloud developers haven’t really acknowledged this yet…
I would like to briefly clarify that this third-party app has a significant point for the entire cloud design! Without this app’s functionality, all installed apps are displayed to every user. For example, if you want to display only the “Files” and “Activities” menu items for a customer account, this is simply not possible at the moment. Every user must be currently confused by all installed apps instead of being able to choose which apps are relevant to them. The Nextcloud-admins can’t configure a practical account for it’s users.
This important sorting and hiding function really shouldn’t be placed in the hands of a third-party developer who simply decides at some point to stop developing the app. Rather, the function should be an integral part of the Nextcloud core.
Dear developers, I hope this issue is taken seriously. This feature is very important!
Hi, moved your request to Support because I don’t see a development question.
if you want to display only the “Files” and “Activities” menu items for a customer account
While I’m not 100% familiar with the functionality for the app order app, it still seems like a rather strange use case for the app order app. I assume that most use the limit to group feature to restrict the set of available apps for a given user.
This important sorting
Sorting has been integrated into Nextcloud since version 28. Your users find it in the Appearance and accessibility section.
As @kesselb stated, the sorting has been integrated into Personal Settings, which makes sense to me as it allows each user to arrange the apps according to their preference. However, I don’t see much benefit in an admin hiding apps on a per-user basis without also actually restricting access.
That said, it would make sense if users could choose to hide app icons they don’t use themselves.
I used the app myself. It allowed both users and admins (as a user default) to define which apps should reside in which order on the top bar and which should be in a dropdown-like menu (for the less commonly used ones). Hiding was possible as well.
As the user was able to override the admins defaults, this was nice to make the instance beginner-friendly without restricting advanced users. Managing this by user groups is possible but imposes an additional administrative burden (each app has its dedicated group, admin assigns these groups on demand).
I think the main problem is of technical nature if I remember correctly: in the past, more of the Frontend was built using PHP code and delivered to the user. With NC25 significant changes under the hood were made so that the frontend was build in a more dynamic fashion. This, however, makes modifications here rather hard to achieve. But I am not 100% sure this is true and still valid for recent versions of NC.
I hope these beginners never bought a Samsung phone and dared to turn it on without you being there to guide them through the setup process.
Sorry, I couldn’t resist.
But yeah it would certainly be nice to be able to hide certain apps, but unless you have installed dozens of apps, I don’t know, it’s still less confusing than a Samsung phone, or any Smartphone.
Btw. I am always amazed at how users seem to be overwhelmed by finding the right icon among 10 in a ‘business’ software, but at the same time can post about that on their Instagram while watching a YouTube video at double speed and arguing with their girlfriend on WhatsApp at the same time. xD
I have a theory as to why the issues mentioned by the OP might actually be perceived as such. Not sure I should voice it, but I’m going to anyway.
To be clear, I’m not referring to you or specifically to this case, as I do agree that the ability to hide icons would be a nice feature. However, it was strongly suggested by OP that Nextcloud becomes difficult to use without it, and that’s a conclusion I don’t fully share.
So what if the issue isn’t so much with the users, but more with… their boss?
In quite a few threads, I’ve noticed that people raising similar concerns are often team leaders or company owners. They seem keen to control every aspect of the user interface, arguing that their users would not be able to operate it otherwise.
This makes me wonder whether these same managers might also tend toward micromanaging, or perhaps even overreaching, in other areas. And in such an environment, it’s not hard to imagine that employees may choose to ask (again and again) which icon to click, rather than taking initiative and risking getting it “wrong”.
You describe my daily work with a proprietary software from SAP that we are using in my day job. There you have to be very careful to click certain buttons only in the right order etc. Not convenient. Just reminds me of your description.
Yeah, you could be right. I am not arguing here about the motivation of users.
Yes, tools like SAP and other business-centric software can certainly be a UX nightmare. But Nextcloud isn’t one of them — quite the opposite, in fact. In some ways, it’s almost too simple.
And again, I think anyone who can use a smartphone should have no trouble using Nextcloud. And, although it would certainly be nice if icons could be hidden, even the least tech-savvy users should be able to find the right app icon in the top bar, even if there are 50 of them.
Well this is the big question. If I think of my parents (both 70+), this is no longer true. She has to write everything on paper to remember how to achieve stuff. If a new icon appears or an icon was replaced – God bless – this involves a complete new introduction into the software.
Similarly, I am running NC instances for clubs. Quite some people there (bothformally elected represents as well as elderly members) might be overwhelmed by some functions. You see them log in once, then never again. Asking why, they claim to be overwhelmed and too much functionality is there.
So, yeah, as a tech savvy person, I cannot really feel the same. But I see it from the practical admin work that there is at least some issue present (let’s formulate it as neutral as possible).
First of all, thanks for your information and philosophical approaches.
I wasn’t aware of the sorting function under “Appearance and Accessibility” until now. If individual apps could be hidden here, the complete functionality of “AppOrder” would be in the Nextcloud core. That would be quite practical (user-friendly) for users who only use certain apps.
The “Guests” app is exactly what I was missing for my customer accounts! Each customer receives cloud access with read-only access to the content. This allows the customer to view customer-specific project files and notes at any time. Since the customer will likely access this cloud account extremely rarely, it’s important to me that they only find the relevant apps—namely, “Activities,” “Files,” and “Notes.” Since I use considerably more apps myself (11 additional menu items that are completely irrelevant to the customer) and all of these are currently displayed to the customer, the customer has to guess it’s purpose of their cloud access. The only drawback of the Guests app is that you can only configure one accesslist, namely for the “Guests” group. It would be better if an accesslist could be configured for each existing group. For example, this way, I could, create cloud accounts for specific partners and specify the required apps for these accounts.
