Ingo - "move" in "site tree" is a modifier rather than a action (toggle on/off), so it conveys the wrong metaphor together with "create" and "delete"

I understand where your coming from ingo but how do you think we should do that area?

I had some time in the last days so I worked a little bit on the new UI.
Here is my result. I hope it is helpful

You can also view a version with annotations so that you can find the changes more easily.

Some comments:

> editor-buttons get a bit too much highlight with bevel, high contrast *and* gradient

I didn't change them but they have to be changed... maybe we can just use the ones of Microsoft Office?

> the orange highlight is pretty strong

I think that's good so I leave that as it was before

> To fit in with the 'Office feel' I have used Calibri the default vista font.

Calibri is not the default Vista font but the new default typeface for the Microsoft Office 2007 suite. The default Vista AND Office UI font is Segoe UI (I changed the design to that font).

I think we are going in the right direction and this will give Silverstripe an enormous boost... the UI is an important criterion for quite a lot of people to choose software

wow, this keeps getting better!

i like the positioning of the sitetree modifiers on the bottom - in case we implement sig's feature-idea for futher "batch actions" (http://www.silverstripe.com/google-summer-of-code-forum/flat/1636?showPost=1859#post1859), this would also be an expandable solution.

the "logged in as admin" looks like a button, is that intended? if yes, what action does it invoke?

status bar at the bottom could work if we use some highlight-effects (see http://ajaxpatterns.org/One-Second_Spotlight) - otherwise its a bit too detached from the triggered action (mostly on the upper part of the screen) and might be overlooked.
we also have to check if we need multiline-statuses somewhere, and change the way ajax-errors are displayed (currently a big red status message).

"collapse"-button needs a vertical border spanning the whole height - at the moment it looks like you'd just be collapsing the currently viewed "sub-area".

the rearranged commands might work well for people with office experience, but its confusing having the two main actions affecting different parts of the UI ("create"=>sitetree, "publish"=>current page). just my two cents, might be a non-issue

some good ressources that could be helpful with the UI-changes:
http://ajaxpatterns.org/Status_Area
http://ajaxpatterns.org/Live_Search
http://ajaxpatterns.org/Drag-And-Drop
http://ajaxpatterns.org/Heartbeat
http://ajaxpatterns.org/Periodic_Refresh

> i like the positioning of the sitetree modifiers on the bottom - in case we implement
> sig's feature-idea for futher "batch actions", this would also be an expandable solution.

Today replaced the 'Delete...' button with a 'Batch Actions' button and added a 'Publish the selected pages' button (cms gsoc r40208):

I have also changed the "Reorder..." button into a "Allow dragging pages around" checkbox (cms gsoc r40009):

Tomorrow I plan to work on adding "a simple textbox and [search] button (all on one line), that makes it easier to edit pages from a keyword you know of." that will be shown when the new 'Search' button is clicked.

I don't think I'll be able to get to adding advanced search and filter for left site tree: type, date, etc since GSoC is almost over!

Excited about SilverStripe's future,

Elijah Lofgren