On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 12:13 PM, Jean-Vincent Drean <jv(a)xwiki.com> wrote:
On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 11:19 AM, Vincent Massol
<vincent(a)massol.net>
wrote:
Couldn't we show the images in the tree (as thumbnails)?
It's worth a try but I fear that we're not far from crossing the line
between a tree explorer and a power-plant :)
Maybe a checkbox to switch from treeview to image browser?
This could be an evolution but I think we must agree on our generic
way of browsing the wiki first :).
s/user/power user/
Why do you say that? With your argument every user is dumb and would
not be able to use a computer at all. Have you every seen a computer
OS screen when there's only 1 button and wizards to go to the next
step? Come on, look at your screen, and see all the buttons and places
you can click (right now when typing this I can see at least 100
locations I can click and I'm on a Mac, reputed for being easy to
use). Life is not just a wizard! :)
XWiki is not an OS, being able to use an OS/Office suite is the result
of hundreds of hours of self-training (believe it or not).
Some computer users already had a hard time assimilating OSes UI
paradigms. They did it because being able to use a computer is a
matter of survival.
On the other side they won't make any effort to learn how to use our
product, they either will be able to use XWiki without thinking or
they'll give up.
I don't fear complex UIs myself but I won't assume it is the same for
everyone.
ps: you really should see beginners using XWiki during trainings.
I agree with this. A typical user has a choice between 3 OSes and has to
have one, therefore he had to learn how his favorite one worked. When it
comes to wikis, there are 50+ options out there and since it's server-based
it's really easy for an admin to change the wiki software used by a large
population based on user feedback.
If an user cannot use the tool the very first time he uses it, there will be
not second time, thus the productivity argument really is conditional on the
user being able to complete the action he wants to in the first place. The
level 1 objective is action completion, productivity is a level 2 objective
compared to it. Therefore, the easier it is to use the better it is.
Re the productivity argument, it can be addressed using the additional
"insert" / "more options" buttons Vincent suggested.
Plus power users will keep using the wiki syntax => another option we might
want to explore in the future being syntax autocompletion in the wiki
editor, close to what IDEs (and XEclipse's latest release if I understand
right) already do ;-)
I agree we should not make complex screen but
there's a fine line
between complex and useful. I even don't disagree with option 4 even
though I don't think it's required (unless we wanted to make it work
on mobile devices for ex but then it's a completely different skin
that we would need and it would be pretty stupid to use a mobile
device design on large screens since you'd loose lots of screen estate).
Ok back to constructive comments:
What about 2 buttons on the first screen:
* Insert
* More Options...
If you click insert you're done and the image is inserted right away.
If you click options... then we have 2 possibilities: 1) it opens a
drawer or 2) you go to the second screen. In the drawer/second screen
you would specify additional stuff like image size, advanced style
parameters, etc.
It's not as good as option 3 but it's close since you can skip one
step by clicking "Insert" right away. Also "our super dumb users"
would not see the options immediately so they would not run away :)
Yep, this sounds like a valid option, I'll make a mockup.
IMHO an
extra click is only a problem if the user has to think where
to click and why to click.
I agree that 2 or more extra clicks are a problem but only one, with
the action button always at the very same place, no.
I agree it's not a big deal. Still I'm unsure why we need 2 screens.
The one argument that seems valid to me is screen estate but then I'm
not sure it wouldn't fit (we need to have it work on 1024x768 and not
lower since all our site is made to work on 1024x768).
The 480x480px size is not arbitrary, it's nearly the maximum height we
can have for a dialog on a 1024 screen.
About width we can sure have 960x480px but this would mean that our
dialog is taking the entire viewport (and it means that we'd have a
dialog bigger than the wysiwyg itself).
JV.
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Guillaume Lerouge
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