Hi all,

I just started using OSTicket, even though I know that the design is quite outdated.
However, it has a lot of features and is pretty fast, which is why I would like to start using it.

I have seen some people on this forum fixing its not-responsive design with a quick CSS fix on the original theme.

I would like to know if someone over here can share this CSS fix with me, because I don't really want to buy a new theme and depend on a third-party developer... especially because I see that the dev team of OSTicket is quite active, and some third-party developers just randomly disappear.

The original design is fine for me, but it would be great if someone could share this quick responsive css fix!

Thanks!

Carlo

      Starbucks

      You’ll have to rely on a 3rd party for this as you have to modify the code. There is no “simple fix” for this.

      Cheers.

          Hi Carlos,

          What follows will be a shameless plug, but you may find it interesting.

          I started using osTicket to support my small IT firm many years ago. It completely transformed my productivity. It became the tab in my browser that I spent the most time interfacing with. But I am a very visual person and I found the UI a bit wanting.

          I'm also a web developer, so I started tweaking the interface for my own purposes. I would make a few small changes here and there, and some days I would spend hours at a time working on it.

          At some point I was pleased with the result and it occurred to me that it was a shame I would be the only person who will ever benefit from this effort.

          What came to mind was how Apple had taken open source Unix and BSD code, made them prettier and released them as a commercial product: OS X.

          So (without knowing whether or not there would be any interest in my offering) I went out on a limb and started theming osTicket from scratch.

          By the time I released osTicket Awesome in 2016 there were one or two inexpensive themes available for the Client Portal. But my theme was the first and the only one that attempted the infinitely more daunting task of improving the Staff Panel.

          Far from a simple CSS fix, I had literally put hundreds of development hours into that first release.

          Not unexpectedly a few osTicket and open-source enthusists in this forum scoffed at the idea of paying $100 USD for a theme that improved a free product. But thankfully the number of customers quickly outpaced the critics.

          As the years went on I added many improvements as requested by my customers including

          • a fully-responsive design

          • user-customizable logo, background and color options

          • and, most recently, Night Mode for agents.

          I can't quantify how many thousands of hours of development have gone into these enhancements at this point.

          And over the past 7 years I have released a corresponding update to osTicket Awesome for each osTicket release — usually within one week or less.

          Indeed, I have subsequently seen many other themes come and go. But I love osTicket and I still enjoy working on this side hussle. I am committed to developing and supporting osTicket Awesome for many years to come.

          If you have any questions, let me know.

          [Edited by admin - don’t post direct links to mods]

            stevland Great reply! I will check it out, they look pretty good! Thanks for the detailed reply and story!

                KevinTheJedi Is there a particular reason that the Dev's didn't focus on optimizing the platform to a more responsive look?

                I assume they've lots, lots of users, and optimizing the design just to make it responsive would be a major priority for most people I think!
                Or is this something they're currently working on?

                    Starbucks

                    I am a core dev and I've answered this already in another thread (I don't have a link to that on-hand so you'll have to search for it). TLDR version is this in the works with v2.0. v2.0 is a full codebase rewrite (rewriting frontend and backend entirely) and we are using ReactJS and Semantic-UI to make the frontend fully responsive and even theme-able. You can follow the Roadmap below:

                    Cheers.

                        Starbucks

                        No reason to apologize! You're asking some perfectly legit questions.

                        Some coders are back-end types, and others are front-end. Imo, in terms of skill, the back-end stuff is more admirable. I think it is fair to say that the osTicket devs have historically been almost exclusively focused on the back-end. And look at what this small team has accomplished: osTicket is a nearly perfect support ticket solution which is scalable from a one-person consulting firm to a major, multi-location institution.

                        I am thrilled that the devs are starting to focus more on the UI and I am looking forward to v2.0 as much as anyone. But — while I can only speculate — my impression is that v2.0 will still be in development for at least another year or two.

                        In any event, as soon as the first release candidate is available I will begin rebuilding osTicket Awesome from scratch. It may take a few weeks before all of the features are reintegrated, but that will be the goal. And, I assume, everything will be greatly improved at that point.

                        I believe that no other third-party developer will be in a better position to create an osTicket v2.0 theme than myself. And all current osTicket Awesome customers will have access to it at no extra cost.

                        KevinTheJedi

                        Sorry, I didn't know that is a rule now. I won't post any more links to my mod.

                        (As osTicket doesn't currently have theming support, any so-called "theme" is actually a modification of the source code. I try to alter the source code as little as possible, but the reality is that osTicket Awesome is actually an extensive mod.)

                              stevland

                              Basically yea, in a nutshell, osTicket historically has been mainly backend focused whilst still having some sort of basic styling guidelines. There are a few other reasons as I outlined in another forum post somewhere but that’s the basic reasoning.

                              v2.0 will actually be themeable by default so really any themes at that point will just be basic templates or CSS code to share - no more extensive modding. We have so many new features and things I can’t talk about yet but we cannot wait to share with everyone. I will say that we do now have a fully dedicated team of frontend developers with many years experience in the field which is helping tremendously with the UI/UX changes. So all that to say the entire codebase rewrite is focused on all aspects of the software including UI/UX. Once v2.0 is complete and stable with all core functionality of the legacy software (including some new features) we will then be able to crank out the features that have highly requested over the years at a much better rate. It will also be better for community members to contribute back as we will have a mix of things including coding standards, feature outlines, test cases, etc. available to the public.

                              There are just a ton of things we can’t get into right now but just know v2.0 is very, very exciting and such a huge refresh and we cannot wait to get it out to the community.

                              Cheers.

                                a month later
                                2 months later

                                KevinTheJedi The only sad part about this is having to wait, with no clear release date. It's painful to keep checking the blog and hope I see some good news one day. Don't take that as having a go at you, I'm not, I value the time that you and others are putting in to this amazing project, and frankly except in the themes department, there is nothing that comes close for me, but yeah... it's a shame a responsive theme wasn't considered in the first place for this v1 version

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