Hello friends,
Caty, thanks for bringing up those points.
My only concert is that the functionality is spread in multiple places.
I was thinking of that as well just as i hit send. The export section
should definitely be part of the page interest area to consolidate (should
have moved that).
Originally, I put the page functions under the section navigation (main,
comments, attachments etc.) because I wanted to put it under the main
section (and thus spliced in between the quicklinks and logo/search (global
stuff)) since I thought that its presence is not needed 100% of the time.
But now that I think about it, maybe it should be there 100% of the time
because of the table of contents. What do you (guys) think?
Also you now separated the menus in three parts: upper part, edit menu,
view menu.
That's true. The original thought was that the edit (for page) should be on
the page since it is a prominent action attached to the content. But maybe,
since the meta data/view of the page is being consolidated on the right, I
will move it there also. I am thinking that I will put the view/page edit
into a subsection of the lighter page area (date modified/created etc.) in
the sidebar since they are both current user actions.
As for the upper part, I understand what you mean that it'd be nice to know
what actions can be done, but I think it's ok that it's on top separated
since they are not necessarily page specific action right? they act more on
a global level? To resolve this, how about adding a pencil icon to these
three things that allow for user action (or maybe even just a color change
to differentiate actionable section). What do you think?
Another thing is the breadcrumb: what is the difference between 'Page:
Platform Features' and 'Page Editing' ?
Where am I now? What is the page's
title? 'Platform Features' of 'Page Editing'?
i apologize, that breadcrumb is a bit erronous as a result of mishmashed
samples. It should read: wiki: XWIKI Platform >> space: Features >> page:
Page Editing.
The page title, instead of "Wiki Home," should have been "Page
Editing".
Also for the mobile version you didn't clearly represented the difference
between the collapse/expanded states of gadgets like
'Welcome' and 'Spaces'
(they can be mistaken with headings).
good call, i will add a + - to signify them.
As for progress report. It unfortunate for me to have to say that this is
harder/taking more time than expected. I am struggling at the moment to
create the most efficient way to realize the design. A lot of the
fluidity/interaction that I had hoped for seems to require a lot more codes
than anticipated--that is: the use of javascript instead of native
css/html. Even then there are a lot of conflicting codes that needs to be
brought together. The complexity is sort of evident in research. Briefly
you can check out fb/g+'s implementation. Facebook's approach utilizes a
lot of js, and seems to falter when it is disabled (something i'm really
worried about). It rewrites the page often (classes etc.) and writes css
inline and so forth. G+ uses an even more interesting approach of using
iFrames. It is true that this sidebar should not be as complicated as the
ones that I am researching from, but as a result of the complexity of
existing sidebars that I wish for our sidebar to be similar to (and thus
super hard to reverse engineer and understand), and the relative shortage
on this topic, I am having to research/experiment more than I expected.
In any regards it is all very exciting, and I am getting to learn more than
I expected on this project. This is the prototype that I am currently
working on (def some bugs):
http://jssolichin.com/xwiki/
There are bugs, but I really wanted to share what I had so far. Some of the
things to test that I have been working on is the resizing of the side bar,
the scrolling, resizing the browser and so forth. I know it is quite
simple, but trying to figure out the correct method was/is
a challenge. It's still a long ways to go, but I hope that things will get
a lot faster since one of the core features/points of this skin is this
sidebar.
I know that it is not in the code styles of xwiki/implemented into xwiki
yet, I think I might need to change the timeline with this development, to
make room for this. Right now I'm trying to focus on quick dev, to see
what's possible, and what will need a lot more work.
On another side note, I am also still having trouble building xwiki from
sources (the other half of my time). Just quickly, what environment are you
guys using (in terms of OS/java)? I tried ubuntu, and now mint linux, but
am still having some trouble with maven from terminal (following the guide
on sona system) (i am able to build with eclipse, but I am not sure how to
run it with jetty/hsqldb so I can access it on my browser?) Also, are you
guys using oracle or openjdk?
Thanks for all the support and help thus far,
Jonathan Solichin