23 Nov
2015
23 Nov
'15
3:30 p.m.
Hi Devs,
first of all I'd like to congratulate everyone who worked on the latest 7.x
releases. I tried a 7.4 snapshot locally and it's looking great! The
interface feels much simpler and fresher overall, well done!
Nested spaces bring about a significant change in the way information is
stored and organized in XWiki. They make it less necessary to create
sub-wikis to compartmentalise information.
Besides, at the moment a sub-wiki is almost exactly the same as the main
wiki upon creation. I've been doing plenty of demos of XWiki 7.4 at a
conference last week and it was difficult to explain the difference between
the main wiki and a sub-wiki.
Therefore, I would like to suggest the following changes:
1. *View the main wiki as a collaborative content repository* (what a
wiki is most often associated with). Therefore the main wiki would have the
most wiki-like features (treeview and tagcloud in a pane on the left) and
global activity stream on the home page. Users looking for a "simple" wiki
wouldn't even need to create sub-wikis.
2. *View subwikis as collaborative workspaces* (created for a project or
another type of shorter-lived initiative). A subwiki would retain the
appbar on the left, as well as panels on the right that are specific to
each app (ex: forum app, blog app...). The homepage would be made of
widgets surfacing information from the various apps installed. Additional
subwiki templates could be added later on, once flavors are built into the
product.
3. *Add the horizontal menu to the standard install.* In addition to
this, an entry should be added to the menu to automatically list existing
sub-wikis the user has access to. This would make navigation between wikis
more discoverable and easier to use.
My feeling is that these changes would make the distinction between nested
spaces and sub-wikis much easier to explain and understand for users:
- *Want to share generic information? Put it in the right location in
the main wiki.*
- *Want to work with others on a restricted project? Create a sub-wiki
for this purpose.*
With the addition of the horizontal menu, the main wiki would act as both a
portal to information and a knowledge repository.
Looking forward to your feedback,
Guillaume