Any change brings some adjustment, so these were all things we expected, but what we didn't know, was what items would cause the most pain, and would everything we designed be truly as usable as we hoped.
From your feedback, we've decided to make a few notable changes, which we hope to finish in time for the next beta build. The most dramatic issues were that because items are more spread out in the menus, it's harder to get things done. We hoped to have a few more bits in place, like more in-line object creation and editing, and several more pages consolidated. But the reality of any development project, is that everything takes time, and some features take longer than you have, to finish. The end result, was that you do need to visit more pages, that are further apart from each other, to get some basic tasks done.
So to address this, we will re-organize the system menu, into a more feature oriented layout. Just to give a taste, the first level items will look something like this:
- network
- routing
- vpn
- administration
- Authentication
- Wireless Protection
- Web Protection
- Application Protection
- Web Server Protection
- Email Protection
- system services
- current activity
- diagnostics
We won't change the object catalog at all, but we will link to some catalog items directly from the system menu as well. So under Wireless Protection, for instance, you'll find items like this:
- wireless networks
- mesh networks
- Access Points
- Access Point Groups
Hopefully, this will make the menus a bit more discoverable to new users.
The second major change we're planning, is some re-arrangement of the policy rules tables, and rule types. There were some well thought out reasons to organize things the way they are now, but choosing a user versus a network rule is sometimes confusing. The differences between them can seem subtle at times. The primary difference is that user rules require and expect user identity to be present, and won't match against IPs that we haven't been able to identify a user for. So instead, we'll combine them, and you'll have two rule choices: "User / Network Rule" and "Business Application Rule" When you choose a user or network rule, and require identity, it will display as a user rule. otherwise, it will display as a network rule. making that choice implicit with the key piece of the rule that differentiates it. Second, we won't separate them into separate tables. You'll be able to create user rules, then create a network rule above them, to override some specific behavior, or vice versa. This should make working with rules, just a bit easier, and even more powerful.
Third, there are a number of general usability improvements, from better default definitions, to enabling some features by default, and other changes. these will be much smaller changes, but hopefully will make some positive impacts. All of these changes are in progress, but still a little while out. The next beta build is planned for earlier in September, so we've got a little time yet, before we can get these to you, but there's still lots to test in the mean-time.
Keep the feedback coming. You've been providing great info so far!
From the Sophos PM and dev teams, I just wanted to share a big thank you to all of you! Keep it up!
Cheers,
-AlanT
