How to have multiple apps visible in Nextcloud 34?

[awelzel]

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Nextcloud 34 introduced a new top toolbar which now only shows the current active app and a drop down menu for the remaining apps:

This is quite confusing for users who now don’t know, where all the apps have gone. Also you now need always two mouse clicks to switch the app. Also I don’t need the search box. The search icon on the top right corner is totally sufficient since the main use for the toolbar is not to start a search but to easily access apps.

Is there a way to get the old toolbar back or at least have more than just one app visible so the apps can be opened directly by clicking them?

Also the interface does not match the description in the official documentation where you still have a regular toolbar: The Nextcloud web interface — Nextcloud 34 User Manual

[bb77]

As far as I know, there’s currently no way to do so. However, there are several open issues on GitHub with discussions and suggestions on how the new menu could be improved.

My favorite idea would be the ability to pin your most frequently used apps to the top bar, similar to how pinned apps work on the Windows taskbar or Start menu.

I also don’t think the old menu is likely to come back, as I doubt the Nextcloud team wants to maintain two different menu implementations. The old menu had its own drawbacks as well, especially for instances with many installed apps, where the navigation could become quite cluttered.

So, I think it would probably have to be a community effort to get the previous menu bar back , i.e someone bothered enough by the new menu would need to create and maintain an app for it.

[awelzel]

Well - the old menu was totally fine for me. The current solution is complicating things a lot by forcing you to click the “menu” icon on the top left and not using the empty space besides the “search” box.

My users don’t use “search” anyway, but they miss their app icons now and I had to explain about 20 people how it works now. Some even complained, that it’s bit like with Microsoft and Windows - constantly changing the UI and look & feel just to have something “new”

[awelzel]

Oh - and by the way: in this forum the “search” feature is also used by clicking the magnifying icon on the top right next to the user avatar. So people should be totally fine with this, since Discourse is also widely used and many other websites implement that in the same way.

[bb77]

@awelzel

Well - the old menu was totally fine for me

Yeah, for me too, but you and I aren’t necessarily the measure of all things. If you have a lot of apps installed, it eventually gets cluttered.

@awelzel

The current solution is complicating things a lot by forcing you to click the “menu” icon

Well, I wouldn’t necessarily call it “complicated”, and certainly not by “a lot”. It takes one more click, and it’s the same concept as Google (which is almost certainly the main reason they made it) and every other Start Menu-like app launcher thingy.

@awelzel

not using the empty space besides the “search” box.

“Not using space” is one of the worst arguments, especially when you use the word “complicated” in the same sentence. I’d call it “distraction-free”, seeing only what you need right now, and for me, that’s the opposite of complicated. Cluttering up every bit of free space with icons, menu items, and a thousand options is what makes things complicated.

But yes, it’s less convenient, which is why my suggestion would be to combine the old and the new, keep the new menu, but offer the option, just like with the Windows Start menu, to pin apps to the empty space next to the “start menu”. The best of both worlds, so to speak.

[awelzel]

Well - I defined “complicated” not as “there are many things to see” but as “things are harder to find”.

Many operating systems provide a kind of “task bar” to access frequently used apps like Windows 11, macOS with the “Dock” or KDE and Gnome in Linux. So the concept of having shortcuts to access apps is not the worst idea.

And just because Google provides a drop down menu to switch between GMail, Google Drive etc. does not mean, this is the best way to do this.

[bb77]

@awelzel

Many operating systems provide a kind of “task bar” to access frequently used apps like Windows 11, macOS with the “Dock” or KDE and Gnome in Linux. So the concept of having shortcuts to access apps is not the worst idea.

Yep, exactly. The problem, imho, is that they switched from one suboptimal solution to another, at least in its current state. I really hope the new Waffle menu, which I don’t think is a bad idea per se, will be further improved.

@awelzel

And just because Google provides a drop down menu to switch between GMail, Google Drive etc. does not mean, this is the best way to do this.

Yes, but that’s probably one of the reasons why it was done this way, because it’s familiar for users who switch from Google to Nextcloud. Also, the disadvantages of the old solution can’t be completely ignored, so instead of going back to the old menu, I have the following suggestions:

1. The ability to arrange the icons directly via drag and drop

2. The ability to pin apps, preferably in a taskbar-like arrangement next to the Waffle menu in the top bar.

3. Option to configure whether apps should open in a new tab or in the same tab.

[awelzel]

@bb77

Yes, but that’s probably one of the reasons why it was done this way, because it’s familiar for users who switch from Google to Nextcloud. Also, the disadvantages of the old solution can’t be completely ignored, so instead of going back to the old menu, I have the following suggestions:

1. The ability to arrange the icons directly via drag and drop

2. The ability to pin apps, preferably in a taskbar-like arrangement next to the Waffle menu in the top bar.

3. Option to configure whether apps should open in a new tab or in the same tab.

Yes, indeed you must think about what people are used to, when you want to motivate them to use an alternative. But why is it then on the left and not on the right where Google has it? Ok, this would confuse long time Nextcloud users even more.

I agree that a configurable toolbar would be the best compromise. Those who are fine with a drop down menu can keep it this way, but others may decide to have some apps directly accessible in the toolbar.

[honduken]

I am also annoyed by it. It almost seems very “mobile app” like which makes sense I suppose for the modern world. As a person who primarily uses the desktop though it’s an annoyance. I like the suggestions made by bb77. Simply an option to “show all apps” would be fine with me too as that’s what it used to do.

[bb77]

In the meantime, perhaps you could take a look at the third-party app Custom Menu, which is now compatible with Nextcloud 34: Custom menu - Apps - App Store - Nextcloud.

I briefly tested it on a test instance, and it lets you pin apps to the top bar, so you can more or less recreate the previous layout.

[awelzel]

Thanks for the suggestion. I know custom menu, but it has some CSS issues as well and the icons will not show right away but only with a short delay.

For the CSS problems I just opened an issue: https://gitnet.fr/deblan/side_menu/issues/510 However the display delay when switching to another app seems to be caused by the way, how the app works and may not be fixable at all.

For example - the label below the icons is a bit to close to the icons:

Nextcloud 33, standard toolbar:

Nextcloud 34 with custom menu:

The overflow icon, when needed, is not displaying correct:

Nextcloud 33, standard toolbar:

Nextcloud 34 with custom menu:

[bb77]

Well, without a direct comparison, most people probably wouldn’t even notice (I didn’t), and you tend to get used to it, don’t you?

That said, you won’t find a solution that’s exactly identical to the old one, and to be fair, not everyone liked the old menu bar either. Every time there was even a slight change, people complained: the animations were distracting, the spacing was too wide or too narrow, the icons were too big or too small, and so on.

For now, though, Custom Menu is a good alternative for people who simply want one-click access to their most frequently used apps again.

In fact, that’s roughly how I would imagine an official implementation: similar to Custom Menu, but with drag-and-drop customization instead of having to go into the settings menu, and without the side menu. I’m not a fan of sidebar menus.

[awelzel]

@bb77

Well, without a direct comparison, most people probably wouldn’t even notice (I didn’t), and you tend to get used to it, don’t you?

Sorry - but the overflow icon is clearly not correct and I won’t get used to such things.

But yes, such customizability in Nextcloud itself would be ideal. The context menu in the “Files” app was once also an app and became part of Nextcloud itself. Maybe the same can be done with Custom Menu?

[bb77]

@awelzel

Sorry - but the overflow icon is clearly not correct and I won’t get used to such things.

Yeah, okay, that might be a bug, and It should be reported so it can be fixed.

As for the different spacing, I’m not sure there’s really a right or wrong. I’m not a designer, so I couldn’t say whether one is objectively better than the other.

Also, are you’re running this on Nextcloud 33? Im asking, because on my testinstance with Nextcloud 34, it includes an “All Apps” button that opens a sidebar with the apps that aren’t pinned to the top bar.

Functionally, that’s actually quite similar to how I think Nextcloud should have implemented it. However, if this were to become an official feature, I’d suggest the following changes/enhancements:

• Place the “All Apps” button to the right of the Nextcloud logo, or combine them into one.

• Replace the sidebar with the waffle menu.

• Add drag-and-drop support for pinning and rearranging apps.

[awelzel]

The “All apps” button can be disabled.

[bb77]

Okay. So in this case, you actually can fully recreate the old UX, apart from a few minor differences in the design and spacing, as well as the overflow button, which is black in your screenshot, and isn’t properly aligned. The black color is almost certainly a bug. The alignment could be intentional, but I don’t think it is.

[awelzel]

I already reported the issues and found some other visual glitches as well. But I also understand, it is hard to keep up with the development of Nextcloud which seems to change the UI every 3-6 months in a way, that apps need to adapt as well to avoid visual errors.

[bb77]

Yeah, but for me it wasn’t about visual glitches or UI bugs, which can happen (I understand those can be annoying too). It was about giving users who weren’t familiar with the app, and who find the waffle menu frustrating, a way to launch their apps with a single click again, which Custom Menu can do perfectly fine.

That said, as I’ve already mentioned several times, including in the suggestions below my screenshots in this thread, I’d really like to see this kind of functionality built into Nextcloud out of the box. So instead of replacing one suboptimal and incomplete solution with another suboptimal and incomplete one, it would have been better to combine the strengths of both approaches first and only release the new UI once that was done. That way, users wouldn’t have to rely on third-party apps.

That said, I don’t want to complain too much about it. The ideas I posted above are meant as suggestions, not demands.

As I’ve already written, I think something like Custom Menu, but using the existing waffle menu instead of a sidebar, together with drag-and-drop support for pinning and rearranging apps, would really be the best of both worlds.

Of course, that would also require some additional UI work. For example, like Custom Menu does, the search bar would probably need to move back from the center to the right. The waffle menu itself would likely need a redesign so that it integrates naturally with the favorites bar (or taskbar, or whatever it ends up being called), rather than feeling like a separate, standalone component.

As I said, I’m not a designer, and there are probably a lot of details that would need to be considered. So for now, I think we’ll just have to live with the waffle menu as it is. And if that’s not good enough for someone, Custom Menu is probably the next best option, unless they want to implement their own solution.

[awelzel]

That’s the reason, why I marked your suggestion as solution to my question .

[JDV97]

I don’t know why gather all apps icon into App button like that

Very very inconvenience