Browse Recent Page ready for review
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Submitted by
kclarks.
on 2006-05-25 14:54.
I've finished up a first draft of a page to browse recently published content. I would appreciate any feedback.
EDIT: I have a new version on yoda:9080/content/browse_latest that uses a table to achieve the different views. Let me know what you think.My first draft of the browse recent page can be seen on my functional testing server at yoda:8880/content/browse_latest. If anyone has feedback on how to make it better, I would appreciate it! Are there any more features that I need to add in? wording that needs to be changed? etc...
The whole branch/devset has very small impact on the site as a whole. The only things that should have changed are:
- Recent content portlet: The portlet that displays the 5 most recently published items will now have a "more..." link that links to the new browse page (also the items now link to mXXXX/latest instead of the specific version)
- The content tab: The content tab now has another option for browsing all the content: browse by last revision date
- Browse Recent page: A whole new page that displays all the objects in the system ordered by their last revision date. there is also an option to filter the list so that only new items are displayed.
Re: Browse Recent Page ready for review
Posted by
maxwell
at
2006-05-25 16:10
I agree that the names for the links are not the best, and somebody might wonder what content is being kept from them if they are not on the "All Content" link. I would think something like Jenn's, or perhaps shorter, such as "Recently revised" and "Newly created". Of course, the problem with all of these is that they could imply that the listing only goes back so long. How about "By creation date" and "By revision date"?
Re: Re: Browse Recent Page ready for review
Posted by
kclarks
at
2006-05-25 16:15
I don't think we can really do: "By creation date" and "By revision date" because the "creation date" listing isn't a listing of every module and its creation date, its a listing sorted by revision date, but filtered to only show modules that have one revision. At least to me, "By creation date" would imply a list of every module sorted by the date it was originally created.
Re: Re: Re: Browse Recent Page ready for review
Posted by
maxwell
at
2006-05-25 16:44
Oh, I was under the impression that it was supposed to list exactly that (every object sorted by the date it was originally created). That would show how often new stuff is being added to Connexions (which I thought was a goal of these listings). So if all the content is revised at least once, the list is empty?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Browse Recent Page ready for review
Posted by
kclarks
at
2006-05-25 16:50
Yeah, in the current implementation, only objects that have never been revised are displayed.
I wanted a view of every object and its original publication date, but Ross said that a "history" type display wasn't the purpose of a "browse by" page, that it was a function of an advanced search interface. At least that's the way I understood the results of our discussion.
I wanted a view of every object and its original publication date, but Ross said that a "history" type display wasn't the purpose of a "browse by" page, that it was a function of an advanced search interface. At least that's the way I understood the results of our discussion.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Browse Recent Page ready for review
Posted by
maxwell
at
2006-05-25 17:20
Well, considering we have no advanced search interface .....
Anyway, if the point was to create some kind of filter of objects that have only been published once and never again (why would somebody care to see such a listing (which I assume would end up being a combination of ephermal active content plus stale neglected content)?) they can do that with their eyes by checking to see whether there's a "new!" marker on the first listing. Yes, it's a little slower for them, but I think it's confusing to the rest of us who were expecting a listing of "this is the order in which objects have been added to the repository (whether linking to their first revision or latest (preferably the latest, IMHO))".
So if there's not going to be such a "by creation date" listing (er, that is, if it's going to be part of our future advanced search interface), my suggestion would be to get rid of the "new content only" listing and just have the one which includes all objects by their latest revision, thereby eliminating confusion of what these sub-listings/filters mean.
Anyway, if the point was to create some kind of filter of objects that have only been published once and never again (why would somebody care to see such a listing (which I assume would end up being a combination of ephermal active content plus stale neglected content)?) they can do that with their eyes by checking to see whether there's a "new!" marker on the first listing. Yes, it's a little slower for them, but I think it's confusing to the rest of us who were expecting a listing of "this is the order in which objects have been added to the repository (whether linking to their first revision or latest (preferably the latest, IMHO))".
So if there's not going to be such a "by creation date" listing (er, that is, if it's going to be part of our future advanced search interface), my suggestion would be to get rid of the "new content only" listing and just have the one which includes all objects by their latest revision, thereby eliminating confusion of what these sub-listings/filters mean.
Re: Browse Recent Page ready for review
Posted by
maxwell
at
2006-05-30 15:31
I like the newer version (9080) a lot and am jealous that I didn't think of it first, though there is at least one problem with it.
I was looking at it in an 800x600 view (which I was actually doing to see whether Jenn's idea of moving the tooltip info to the bottom corner would work well in a smaller screen) and found that it looked quite bad. The right column and the subnavigation menu cover one another. While I like the "Version" column, I think it's probably the least necessary and most space-wasting. There are a few other things we could possibly do to help alleviate the problem:
1) "Sort Courses By:" seems to be the longest title in the subnavigation menu. I could change it to read "Sort Courses:" and have the list items below it read "By Title", "By Author", etc. And "Visit a Random:" could be changed to "View a Random:", but of course these options only buy us about 10 pixels.
2) We could eliminate the subnavigation menu by incorporating such navigation into new and different right-hand portlets. Instead of the two space-wasting portlets we currently have, it might be possible to create a miniaturized version of the different menus we have on the main content page (of course, that's one of those things I can see in my head, but might not work so well if I actually mock it up).
On most web sites, such subnavigation would simply be contained in the main left-hand navigation menu, but that would be too simple for our special Ploneish site, right?
I was looking at it in an 800x600 view (which I was actually doing to see whether Jenn's idea of moving the tooltip info to the bottom corner would work well in a smaller screen) and found that it looked quite bad. The right column and the subnavigation menu cover one another. While I like the "Version" column, I think it's probably the least necessary and most space-wasting. There are a few other things we could possibly do to help alleviate the problem:
1) "Sort Courses By:" seems to be the longest title in the subnavigation menu. I could change it to read "Sort Courses:" and have the list items below it read "By Title", "By Author", etc. And "Visit a Random:" could be changed to "View a Random:", but of course these options only buy us about 10 pixels.
2) We could eliminate the subnavigation menu by incorporating such navigation into new and different right-hand portlets. Instead of the two space-wasting portlets we currently have, it might be possible to create a miniaturized version of the different menus we have on the main content page (of course, that's one of those things I can see in my head, but might not work so well if I actually mock it up).
On most web sites, such subnavigation would simply be contained in the main left-hand navigation menu, but that would be too simple for our special Ploneish site, right?
* I know these wordings have gone through the wringer many times already,
but "Latest Content", "All content", and "New content only" still aren't
at all clear to me when I put on my naive user hat. I would rather see
"All recent revisions" and "Newly-added content only", or something.
Everything else I have to say is about the mouseovers....
* Popups that obscure surrounding text drive me crazy. If you're running your mouse down the list, trying to decide which item to click on, it's agonizingly frustrating to suddenly lose sight of the links right where your mouse is! Could the dynamic extra content be confined to a fixed spot on the page? There isn't much room underneath the blue nav box at 800x600, but if we put the extra info there at least you'd be able to see that something was happening and scroll down a bit to see it all.
* The mouseover box (or any successor) could be smaller, if it didn't include the redundant date information.
* Also frustrating is the fact that the submitter's name is in a different color, like a link, except that you can't get to it because when you move your mouse you get a different box. I managed once by *very* careful mousing to get my mouse inside one of the boxes, but I can't seem to do it again. Another reason to put it in a fixed location, perhaps.
In my mock-ups I didn't include the date in the pop-up again, but rather the time, since the date was already in the table. I think the redundancy was just an oversight.
The submitter's name is a different color because it is in fact a link, and you can get to it without too much work, but you have to be quick and not hit any other links on the way. The pop-ups essentially work like this: when you mouseover the link, the pop-up comes up and stay up as long as your mouse stays over the link. If you move your mouse off the link, the pop-up will go away in 500 milliseconds (a time we can change, of course), unless during that time you put your mouse on the pop-up (but since it follows the mouse while you're over the link, you have to run to the end of the link and quickly mouseover). There it stays till you either mouse off the pop-up or click (though clicking on the contributor's name will take you to their profile).
Though if it takes me explaining that much for you to be able to click on the link, then that's a problem. It doesn't help, of course, that the listing of links are so close together (if you try to quickly mouse off one link to land on the pop-up, you run the risk of triggering another link's pop-up instead).
p.s. Some of my old mock-ups had pop-ups that don't follow the mouse while you're on the link, but they weren't much better in terms of annoyance.
Also, I was unable to get the time seperate from the date. I seem to be able to print out the entire date + time or just the date, but I can't seem to pull out just the time. So, which would you prefer on the pop-up? and which in the column on the table?
> you to be able to click on the link, then that's a
> problem.
It was actually quite well explained; I'd gotten most of it already from reading the JS code, though, and it really does strike me as unnecessarily complicated!
Keep in mind that I had also tried out tooltips to see whether they would be viable for the "Sort Courses by Title" page, since I think including the abstract right there on that page is a little clunky and interferes with quick browsing. I was hoping to be able to put the course abstracts (and perhaps the institution and code info, too) into tooltips.
http://mountainbunker.org/~maxwell/browse-latest/fixed-box.html