You might already know this image. It is a small cutout of the actual group manager in phpWebSite. First, you choose to edit ONE of your groups. Then, you get two lists in return. The left one contains all the users that are in. And the right one those who aren't.

Life is easy (but not exactly intuitive either) if you just want to move one single user into another group. You click on the 'edit' link next to the user. And get two lists which are similar to the user lists. But they contain the groups right now and you can add and remove groups the current user is in the same way you added and removed people from a single group previously.

But what if you want to move more than one person from one group into another one? Well, right now you first drop them out of the group. Then go back to the overview. Then go into the new group. And put them right in. Repeat until all people are moved.

Drag and Drop isn't only cool but also available on modern Browsers. The other reason why dragging and dropping isn't implemented yet in the group admin of phpWebSite would probably be that it is too hard to. That's the big moment of Rico which is even easier to use than Walter Zorn's DHTML Library. You just include the two JavaScript files, add IDs to all the dragable items, register them (one call per ID) and that's it.

Rico also supports Ajax. So all phpWebSite might need would be a XML based WebInterface to talk to the JavaScript Drag N Drop library.

From a user's point of view, that's wonderful. Instead of clicking around like mad you just drag a bit here, drag a bit there and are all set. Putting people into multiple groups? Well, with holding the Shift-Key maybe? Banning people? Why not drag them on a skull? Deleting them: How about a trash bin?

The possibilities are endless. And here's a tiny prototype. It took about 2 minutes to write it. Adding Ajax probably is a bit more effort, especially as it should be secure, too.