29 Mar
2011
29 Mar
'11
10:38 p.m.
Hey,
I was a little confused as to how we would go about developing the backend
of the mobile skin as it seemed that everyone was interested in the
development being done from scratch with only the required functions and
code that would be loaded. Are there any pre existing modules to link the
server and database with the newly developed skin or are we just going to
develop a restricted UI/skin for mobile web-browsers with no changes on the
backend?
On Tue, Mar 29, 2011 at 2:06 AM, Supreet Pal Singh <supreetpal(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:
On Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 7:57 PM, Jerome Velociter <jerome(a)xwiki.com>wrote;wrote:
--
Thanx,
Supreet
--
Thanx,
Supreet
Hi Supreet
Great to see you took the time to work on this.
My remarks below
On Fri, Mar 25, 2011 at 8:51 PM, Supreet Pal Singh <supreetpal(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
help
more
through all the screens that would be available on the skin, hence I also
considered it to be a navigation bar. A different edit UI as described
above according to me is very good as it would allow maximum space to be
utilized by the main screen rather than navigation or action buttons.
Also, what still needs to be decided or is unclear to me is what all
functions/actions need to be included in the mobile skin and hence if there
is any need of the ' + ' (I will now on call the 'more' option ) . I ,
personally am not in favor of including a 'more' option and even if need to
include more actions , we could reduce the size of each a bit because as you
said "The action bar buttons don't have to be big. They need to be big
enough so that you can touch them easily even with big fingers." though
earlier my point was that if we can accommodate more space for each action
button with a little modification of appearance and without losing on any
functionality I would consider it to be an improvement.
On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 8:35 AM, Sergiu Dumitriu
<sergiu(a)xwiki.com>
wrote:
> On 03/23/2011 02:27 PM, Jerome Velociter wrote:
> > Hi Supreet,
> >
> > Great to see your interest in this project.
> >
> > On Wed, Mar 23, 2011 at 2:04 PM, Supreet Pal Singh<
supreetpal(a)gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >> Hey Caty,
> >> Thanx :)
> >> Also,I went through those links and the sketches heres what I think:
> >>
> >> 1. Jerome's version does look better and simple but I feel it would
lack
> the
> >> ease of use as most of the functions would be present in a separate
menu
> >> which could be reached through the
'+' . More clicks leads to a less
> >> intuitive UI and downgrades user experience. On the other hand,
Jerome's
> >> version gives a lighter and better
look with only the main functions
on
> the
> >> homescreen. What needs to be looked into is whether the main options
are
> >> sufficient to cater an average user
such that we can ignore the
'more
> >> clicks' aspect.
> >> What I have also noticed is that Jerome's version does include all
the
> >> functions present on yours yet has
an option '+' and even your
version
> has
> >> an empty function box so I am guessing there are/would be more
functions
> >> that need to be present or added.
> >> Personally, I am in favor of your version of the skin because its
> functions
> >> serve as tabs for dynamic lower portion of the screen, the static
layer
> of
> >> links to the various functions/screens makes it easy to navigate for
the
> >> user.
> >
> > Couple of remarks :
> >
> > * It's maybe not obvious, but in my sketch the lower bar is static,
so
> > you don't have to scroll for it, it
always remains at the bottom of
> > the user screen
> > * As I tried to explain in my comment, I tend to think base use case
> > of a mobile version is about searching + reading content and comment
+
> > annotations. I think edit is a marginal
use case. Does not mean it
> > should not be doable, but IMHO it should not be considered a primary
> > action. OTOH a good and accessible search is a must have. That's why
> > in my version the search bar is first class citizen, at the top of
the
> > page.
> > * The search would be a dynamic one, a bit in the spirit of the
search
> > suggest available since XE 3.0 (best is
to check the feature in the
> > version in 3.0 RC1, due today)
> >
> >>
> >> 2. Even I feel that the two scrolls on the comments page should be
done
> away
> >> with instead it should take the whole page.
> >>
> >>
> >> And I am new to XWiki and its development tools so I would be
needing
> your
> >> help to get on track so please bare with my newbie questions.
> >> 1. I have downloaded 'xwiki-enterprise-installer-generic-3.0' and
would
> be
> >> following the instructions as given on
> >> http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/DevGuide/Skins , is this
the
> >> correct approach?
> >
> > Yes it's an approach that would work.
> > Also I think the mobile skin is about dropping tons of stuff, so
> > another approach would be to create a new skin from scratch and build
> > it keeping only on what is essential (to have good performances).
>
> An interesting article I read recently summarizes how the iphone, ipad
> and desktop versions of the top websites differ in transfer size, DOM
> size, and number of HTTP requests.
>
http://www.stevesouders.com/blog/2011/03/14/mobile-comparison-of-top-11/
>
> The results are a bit mindblowing. These sites go to great lengths to
> offer the best performance on mobile devices (for example storing
static
> portions of the HTML page in Local Storage to
save on transfer), so
> making a mobile version of a site could involve a lot more changes than
> just shuffling things around with a bit of more CSS. For best results,
a
> whole new skin should be written (meaning
lots of .vm templates).
>
> The problem with this approach is that it will duplicate code, making
it
harder to
change things in the templates.
Hey, that was a very nice article :) Hopefully we ll also be able to
optimise XWiki very effectively for mobile devices. Also, I need some as to how I can about start writing the project
code to develop the skin
from scratch.
>
> >> 2. What else can I do to get a better know how and integrate myself
more
> in
> >> the project?
> >
> > An idea could be you spend some time investigating how other wikis
> > have designed there mobile version (wikimedia one is interesting, but
> > I'm sure there are others) and refine on the design proposals Caty
and
> I
made with your own ones, what do you think ?
>
After giving it quite some thought here's my take on the Mobile Skin
proposals:
# I believe that keeping a static bar of functions/tabs on top would be convenient than the one at bottom due to the fact
that it would lead to
a
lot of clutter and presence of a lot of active
buttons in a small amount
of
space.
Here ( http://www.x.supreetpalsingh.com ) ,If we have a look at the
image
on the right where I have tried to demonstrate as
to how the edit page
would
look on the skin suggested by Jerome with
functions at the bottom of the
page, we can clearly see that the bottom of the page is filled with a
lot of
active links/buttons making it less user friendly
and inconvenient to
use. (
Inconvenience may not be obvious but the clutter
can easily be observed
)
You are mixing stuff here. My proposal is about a "view page" mode. So
the bottom bar is all you get, there is no such "save", "info" add
pictures etc. in the proposal I make.
I think it's important at this point to well differentiate the "view"
and "edit" UIs. In my view, the edit UI should be modal, just as it is
on the "desktop skin". This translate by no other button than
"preview", "save" and "cancel". Yes, the rest disappear, no
search
bar, no lower toolbar with "delete" or "infos" buttons (those are
actions related to the page and accessible when in "view" mode).
Add picture could stay, but that's different, that's a component of
the edit UI (same as we have "insert image" when editing a page with
the WYSIWYG).
So there is no such clutter at the bottom of the UI, since there is
just the "toolbar" (even though I'm not a fan of this name, "action
bar" is probably better) in view mode ; and the "buttons bar"
("save",
"view", "cancel") in edit mode.
Oh yes, I was mixing up because I thought the "action bar" was static # Also two static bars (Search<top> and
Functions<bottom>) will not be
very
I totally agree on that but I assumed the search bar to be static because
there was no reference by you earlier if it would be static or not so I
thought
it would be best to assume a worst case scenario.
useful as it would consume a lot of space and
leave relatively less
space
for the main content of the page which can be
displayed without
scrolling.
For me the search bar should not be static. It's at the top so that
it's easily accessible when you first display a page, since it's
something you often want to reach for immediately (scenario : I open
my wiki, I search for a page, I read it, I comment it, etc.). But when
you start reading the page, it's not so important to have it available
on the screen.
# The design proposal by Caty is according to me
better but there can
be a
few changes to improve user experience.
For Example , on the same link above if we observe the image on the left
I
have done away with big XWiki logo which was
present earlier with the
tabs
instead inserted a thin horizontal title bar
above them. This leads to
two
things:
1. Increased space per tab which is very useful since we are targeting a
'touchscreen' audience and the larger the tab the more user friendly it
is
.
2. If we decide to maintain the previous the size
of the tabs we get
room to
accommodate one more tab/ function.
The action bar buttons don't have to be big. They need to be big
enough so that you can touch them easily even with big fingers, but
that's about it. In my opinion you can 8 without problem.
Jerome
What do you think?
'-
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Sergiu Dumitriu
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--
Thanx,
Supreet
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