[xwiki-devs] [Proposal] Update main wiki template and subwiki template to reflect their differences
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
Hi Guillaume, See below. On 23 Nov 2015 at 15:30:09, Guillaume Lerouge ([email protected](mailto:[email protected])) wrote:
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!
Thanks, glad you like it.
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.
Related to this, we’re already planning this: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-12538#
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,
I think you’re entering into flavors here. There are plenty of various needs and you’re listing one. There are others, such as using XWiki for a farm (just to list one). That’s exactly why we’ve started developing the notion of flavors btw. So far, what we’ve agreed not long ago was to say that the XWiki project should focus on offering a generic platform with a generic default flavor. And to leave it to the community to offer flavors on extensions.xwiki.org and those flavors would appear then first time you install XWiki or create a subwiki. In conclusion I don’t see how points 1, 2 or 3 could be integrated in a default platform flavor because they really look specific. I personally wouldn't 3 by default since our goal was to unclutter XWiki and the menu would add back clutter and I don’t think that all flavors require such an horizontal menu. Regarding the differences between spaces and wikis, we have this thread listing the differences: http://markmail.org/message/qcjnev4qkhvjivj2 This led to http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/WikivsNestedSpaces which we should move to the doc proper. I’ll try to do this in the coming days. Thanks -Vincent
Guillaume
Hi Vincent, thanks for your feedback. Please see my answers below. On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 4:43 PM, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Guillaume,
See below.
On 23 Nov 2015 at 15:30:09, Guillaume Lerouge ([email protected](mailto: [email protected])) wrote:
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!
Thanks, glad you like it.
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.
Related to this, we’re already planning this: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-12538
Indeed, is would answer the use case quite nicely.
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,
I think you’re entering into flavors here. There are plenty of various needs and you’re listing one. There are others, such as using XWiki for a farm (just to list one).
That’s exactly why we’ve started developing the notion of flavors btw.
So far, what we’ve agreed not long ago was to say that the XWiki project should focus on offering a generic platform with a generic default flavor. And to leave it to the community to offer flavors on extensions.xwiki.org and those flavors would appear then first time you install XWiki or create a subwiki.
This does not change the fact that the generic platform should be a sensible "default" state. While I agree that item 2 would be fixed by flavors and item 3 isn't needed with the drawer solution described above, it does not change my feedback about item 1 (though I'm not sure what you mean by "generic" nor how you define it). In any case, at the moment I don't see how the current main wiki is more "generic" than the solution I'm proposing. Actually, I think it's actually less "generic" since it's further away from what people expect of a "wiki" than my proposal, since most wikis don't have an app bar but a navigation tree :-) In conclusion I don’t see how points 1, 2 or 3 could be integrated in a
default platform flavor because they really look specific. I personally wouldn't 3 by default since our goal was to unclutter XWiki and the menu would add back clutter and I don’t think that all flavors require such an horizontal menu.
Regarding the differences between spaces and wikis, we have this thread listing the differences: http://markmail.org/message/qcjnev4qkhvjivj2
This led to http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/WikivsNestedSpaces which we should move to the doc proper. I’ll try to do this in the coming days.
I happen to be well aware of that page since I was part of the discussion thread that led to its creation :-) Unfortunately, it's a poor solution to the issue at hand. You can't expect a brand new user to go through that page and understand all the implications when pondering whether to create a nested page or a sub-wiki. IIRC, you've quoted the KISS principle at us a number of times in the past. I'm sure you'll agree that this page is anything but Simple ;-) Having a simple heuristic for users asking the question would be much better IMHO. Thanks, Guillaume Thanks
-Vincent
Guillaume
Hi Guillaume, On 23 Nov 2015 at 17:00:47, Guillaume Lerouge ([email protected](mailto:[email protected])) wrote:
Hi Vincent,
thanks for your feedback. Please see my answers below.
On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 4:43 PM, [email protected] wrote:
Hi Guillaume,
See below.
On 23 Nov 2015 at 15:30:09, Guillaume Lerouge ([email protected](mailto: [email protected])) wrote:
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!
Thanks, glad you like it.
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.
Related to this, we’re already planning this: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-12538
Indeed, is would answer the use case quite nicely.
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,
I think you’re entering into flavors here. There are plenty of various needs and you’re listing one. There are others, such as using XWiki for a farm (just to list one).
That’s exactly why we’ve started developing the notion of flavors btw.
So far, what we’ve agreed not long ago was to say that the XWiki project should focus on offering a generic platform with a generic default flavor. And to leave it to the community to offer flavors on extensions.xwiki.org and those flavors would appear then first time you install XWiki or create a subwiki.
This does not change the fact that the generic platform should be a sensible "default" state. While I agree that item 2 would be fixed by flavors and item 3 isn't needed with the drawer solution described above, it does not change my feedback about item 1 (though I'm not sure what you mean by "generic" nor how you define it).
In any case, at the moment I don't see how the current main wiki is more "generic" than the solution I'm proposing. Actually, I think it's actually less "generic" since it's further away from what people expect of a "wiki" than my proposal, since most wikis don't have an app bar but a navigation tree :-)
In conclusion I don’t see how points 1, 2 or 3 could be integrated in a
default platform flavor because they really look specific. I personally wouldn't 3 by default since our goal was to unclutter XWiki and the menu would add back clutter and I don’t think that all flavors require such an horizontal menu.
Regarding the differences between spaces and wikis, we have this thread listing the differences: http://markmail.org/message/qcjnev4qkhvjivj2
This led to http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/WikivsNestedSpaces which we should move to the doc proper. I’ll try to do this in the coming days.
I happen to be well aware of that page since I was part of the discussion thread that led to its creation :-) Unfortunately, it's a poor solution to the issue at hand. You can't expect a brand new user to go through that page and understand all the implications when pondering whether to create a nested page or a sub-wiki.
IIRC, you've quoted the KISS principle at us a number of times in the past. I'm sure you'll agree that this page is anything but Simple ;-) Having a simple heuristic for users asking the question would be much better IMHO.
I’ve now updated the page at http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Features/ContentOrganization Let me know if you like it and if you have ideas to improve it further. Note: The page had lots of tech details indeed but you forgot to check the section called Summary… Thanks -Vincent
Thanks,
Guillaume
Thanks
-Vincent
Guillaume
On Mon, Nov 23, 2015 at 5:43 PM, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Guillaume,
See below.
On 23 Nov 2015 at 15:30:09, Guillaume Lerouge ([email protected](mailto: [email protected])) wrote:
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!
Thanks, glad you like it.
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.
Related to this, we’re already planning this: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-12538#
Also, with http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-12795 you can see (some of) the wikis when you open the Home navigation tree in the breadcrumb.
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,
I think you’re entering into flavors here. There are plenty of various needs and you’re listing one. There are others, such as using XWiki for a farm (just to list one).
That’s exactly why we’ve started developing the notion of flavors btw.
So far, what we’ve agreed not long ago was to say that the XWiki project should focus on offering a generic platform with a generic default flavor. And to leave it to the community to offer flavors on extensions.xwiki.org and those flavors would appear then first time you install XWiki or create a subwiki.
In conclusion I don’t see how points 1, 2 or 3 could be integrated in a default platform flavor because they really look specific. I personally wouldn't 3 by default since our goal was to unclutter XWiki and the menu would add back clutter and I don’t think that all flavors require such an horizontal menu.
Regarding the differences between spaces and wikis, we have this thread listing the differences: http://markmail.org/message/qcjnev4qkhvjivj2
This led to http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/WikivsNestedSpaces which we should move to the doc proper. I’ll try to do this in the coming days.
Thanks -Vincent
Guillaume
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participants (3)
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Guillaume Lerouge -
Marius Dumitru Florea -
vincent＠massol.net