On 16 Sep 2014 at 15:47:59, Marius Dumitru Florea ([email protected](mailto:[email protected])) wrote:

We won't have the activity stream on the home page by default. This is an important change. I can't decide yet..

Yes I know… Now we could decide to still have it on the home page. We haven’t decided the content for that new home page yet. However adding it may intimidate users from editing the page since they might be worried about loosing that feature. But it could also be made clear that the Wiki’s Activity is available from the Dashboard.  The instructions explaining that the page can be edited could even give an example about how to include the Dashboard page for those who want to make the home page a dashboard. Thanks -Vincent

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 4:23 PM, [email protected] wrote:

...

Hi devs,

As you know I started working on a Home Page Application, see: - JIRA with screenshots: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-10586 - Discussion thread: http://markmail.org/message/ghelufamwucog46x

I have it all done locally but I refrained from committing it because on the email thread some expressed their doubts.

I started thinking about it and I expressed some idea in the thread started by Caty about "Wiki - Space - Page concepts pitch": http://markmail.org/message/jefze7nvprz36pkw

I’m pasting it here again for discussion (with some edits):

" BTW concerning the home page, I’m more and more leaning towards removing the dashboard from it (it’s accessible from the App panel anyway) and instead have it contain: - explanation about how the wiki is organized (wikis, spaces, pages) - explanation about base concepts (editing, saving, etc) - encourage the user to edit this home page to make it his own and put the content he wishes instead

I think this would solve the following issues: - users always want to customize the home page and this makes it easy (it’s a standard page, no dashboard). This is also a way for them to take ownership of the wiki as theirs. - explains the main concepts of wiki, space, page

Of course, we also need to provide a navigation panel for easy navigation in the wiki/spaces/pages. “

If we agree about the idea of removing the dashboard and instead have a simple page then we’ll need to discuss the exact content and for that I’m proposing to discuss with Caty/GuillaumeD and make a proposal for further discussion. Of course any idea in reply to this email would also be much appreciated.

But first things first! We first need to decide if this is a good idea or not.

WDYT?

Thanks -Vincent _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

---

devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

  On 17 Sep 2014 at 08:57:35, Denis Gervalle ([email protected](mailto:[email protected])) wrote:

Well, there is also another way to tackle that problem, which is to make the HomePage easily configurable. I have never understand why the home should be Main.WebHome, which does not seems meaningful, in particular in french. Even the Main space is weird, imagine a Hand space in english ;) (WebHome could also seen weird, while being more usual words that I feel hurt less, and could be ommitted).

So, back on track, why not having an easy way to say, "set current page as the HomePage", and to in fact use the Dashboard itself as the default WebHome ? Why the hell should we have to destroy some interface to have a different home page ?

WDYT ?

Denis, this is essentially what my Home Page Application does. But it doesn’t solve the main problem: editing the home page when it’s the dashboard! And it doesn’t solve the issue of the explanation of the concepts. And it doesn’t invite the user to modify the home page when it’s a dashboard. Thanks -Vincent

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 3:52 PM, [email protected] wrote:

...

On 16 Sep 2014 at 15:47:59, Marius Dumitru Florea ( [email protected](mailto:[email protected])) wrote:

...

We won't have the activity stream on the home page by default. This is an important change. I can't decide yet..

Yes I know…

Now we could decide to still have it on the home page. We haven’t decided the content for that new home page yet.

However adding it may intimidate users from editing the page since they might be worried about loosing that feature. But it could also be made clear that the Wiki’s Activity is available from the Dashboard.

The instructions explaining that the page can be edited could even give an example about how to include the Dashboard page for those who want to make the home page a dashboard.

Thanks -Vincent

...

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 4:23 PM, [email protected] wrote:

...

Hi devs,

As you know I started working on a Home Page Application, see: - JIRA with screenshots: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-10586 - Discussion thread: http://markmail.org/message/ghelufamwucog46x

I have it all done locally but I refrained from committing it because on the email thread some expressed their doubts.

I started thinking about it and I expressed some idea in the thread started by Caty about "Wiki - Space - Page concepts pitch": http://markmail.org/message/jefze7nvprz36pkw

I’m pasting it here again for discussion (with some edits):

" BTW concerning the home page, I’m more and more leaning towards removing the dashboard from it (it’s accessible from the App panel anyway) and instead have it contain: - explanation about how the wiki is organized (wikis, spaces, pages) - explanation about base concepts (editing, saving, etc) - encourage the user to edit this home page to make it his own and put the content he wishes instead

I think this would solve the following issues: - users always want to customize the home page and this makes it easy (it’s a standard page, no dashboard). This is also a way for them to take ownership of the wiki as theirs. - explains the main concepts of wiki, space, page

Of course, we also need to provide a navigation panel for easy navigation in the wiki/spaces/pages. “

If we agree about the idea of removing the dashboard and instead have a simple page then we’ll need to discuss the exact content and for that I’m proposing to discuss with Caty/GuillaumeD and make a proposal for further discussion. Of course any idea in reply to this email would also be much appreciated.

But first things first! We first need to decide if this is a good idea or not.

WDYT?

Thanks -Vincent _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

---

devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

---

devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

-- Denis Gervalle SOFTEC sa - CEO _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 10:13 AM, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:

On 17 Sep 2014 at 08:57:35, Denis Gervalle ([email protected](mailto: [email protected])) wrote:

...

Well, there is also another way to tackle that problem, which is to make the HomePage easily configurable. I have never understand why the home should be Main.WebHome, which does not seems meaningful, in particular in french. Even the Main space is weird, imagine a Hand space in english ;) (WebHome could also seen weird, while being more usual words that I feel hurt less, and could be ommitted).

So, back on track, why not having an easy way to say, "set current page as the HomePage", and to in fact use the Dashboard itself as the default WebHome ? Why the hell should we have to destroy some interface to have a different home page ?

WDYT ?

Denis, this is essentially what my Home Page Application does.

Sorry, I wasn't aware. From what I understand of the description I just read in the issue, the customization will work just once ? What happen when you have customized the homepage (a) by choosing another one, or (b) by entering your own content ? Does the edit button still work differently ? If so, I support the Main.WebHome is still the only home, and this not what I am talking about, or you have make some magic. Can you explain a bit more how your implementation works ? What I was proposing were more in the line of the "Use this image as my desktop background" and "Use this image as the login background".

From anywhere, any user would be able to say, "Use this page as my homepage", and an admin would additionally say "Use this page as the default homepage". And that page truly became the home, it is not an include mechanism, and Main.WebHome could be thrashed.

But it doesn’t solve the main problem: editing the home page when it’s the dashboard!

If the home page is no more the actual home page, the discussion about editing the homepage became pointless. If you point directly to the Dashboard, and you make the dashboard not editable by default, we are just fine IMO. Why wanting the home page to be editable when you can edit any page and make it the home or your home ?

And it doesn’t solve the issue of the explanation of the concepts.

And it doesn’t invite the user to modify the home page when it’s a dashboard.

Regarding these explanations, you simply need a "Get Started" widget on the Dashboard. This one should not be very detailed, but link to more helpful information. These information are more a matter of an Help Application than a HomePage Application. And this Help Application should also be accessible from the menu, and work with contextual information to be even more helpful. Moreover, the home page should be useful for the flavor that install it, and should not be some fake page that you need to edit to make it useful. The wiki should work right away, without customization, for the very basic users. I hope this clarify my vision of the homepage that I have probably too briefly define initially. WDYT ?

Thanks -Vincent

...

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 3:52 PM, [email protected] wrote:

...

On 16 Sep 2014 at 15:47:59, Marius Dumitru Florea ( [email protected](mailto:[email protected])) wrote:

...

We won't have the activity stream on the home page by default. This

is

...

...

an important change. I can't decide yet..

Yes I know…

Now we could decide to still have it on the home page. We haven’t decided the content for that new home page yet.

However adding it may intimidate users from editing the page since they might be worried about loosing that feature. But it could also be made clear that the Wiki’s Activity is available from the Dashboard.

The instructions explaining that the page can be edited could even give an example about how to include the Dashboard page for those who want to make the home page a dashboard.

Thanks -Vincent

...

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 4:23 PM, [email protected] wrote:

...

Hi devs,

As you know I started working on a Home Page Application, see: - JIRA with screenshots: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-10586 - Discussion thread: http://markmail.org/message/ghelufamwucog46x

I have it all done locally but I refrained from committing it because on the email thread some expressed their doubts.

I started thinking about it and I expressed some idea in the thread started by Caty about "Wiki - Space - Page concepts pitch": http://markmail.org/message/jefze7nvprz36pkw

I’m pasting it here again for discussion (with some edits):

" BTW concerning the home page, I’m more and more leaning towards removing the dashboard from it (it’s accessible from the App panel anyway) and instead have it contain: - explanation about how the wiki is organized (wikis, spaces, pages) - explanation about base concepts (editing, saving, etc) - encourage the user to edit this home page to make it his own and put the content he wishes instead

I think this would solve the following issues: - users always want to customize the home page and this makes it easy (it’s a standard page, no dashboard). This is also a way for them to take ownership of the wiki as theirs. - explains the main concepts of wiki, space, page

Of course, we also need to provide a navigation panel for easy navigation in the wiki/spaces/pages. “

If we agree about the idea of removing the dashboard and instead have a simple page then we’ll need to discuss the exact content and for that I’m proposing to discuss with Caty/GuillaumeD and make a proposal for further discussion. Of course any idea in reply to this email would also be much appreciated.

But first things first! We first need to decide if this is a good idea or not.

WDYT?

Thanks -Vincent _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

---

devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

---

devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

-- Denis Gervalle SOFTEC sa - CEO _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

---

devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

-- Denis Gervalle SOFTEC sa - CEO

Some clarifications regarding the implementation of this proposal that I wanted to add here for reference: 1. Stop including the dashboard in the homepage, it is available as an app in the app bar on the left 2. Come up with some introductory text for the homepage on (x)wiki concepts and quickstart pointers 3. Remove the welcome gadget from the dashboard and the Main.Welcome pages since they are no longer needed 4. Solve the navigation issue Thanks, Eduard On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 6:53 PM, Marius Dumitru Florea < [email protected]> wrote:

On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 10:30 AM, Denis Gervalle <[email protected]> wrote:

...

On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 10:13 AM, [email protected] <[email protected]

wrote:

...

On 17 Sep 2014 at 08:57:35, Denis Gervalle ([email protected](mailto: [email protected])) wrote:

...

Well, there is also another way to tackle that problem, which is to

make

...

...

the HomePage easily configurable. I have never understand why the home should be Main.WebHome, which does not seems meaningful, in particular in french. Even the Main space is weird, imagine a Hand space in english ;) (WebHome could also seen weird, while being more usual words that I feel hurt less, and could be ommitted).

So, back on track, why not having an easy way to say, "set current page as the HomePage", and to in fact use the Dashboard itself as the default WebHome ? Why the hell should we have to destroy some interface to have a different home page ?

WDYT ?

Denis, this is essentially what my Home Page Application does.

Sorry, I wasn't aware. From what I understand of the description I just read in the issue, the customization will work just once ? What happen when you have customized the homepage (a) by choosing another one, or (b) by entering your own content ? Does the edit button still work differently ? If so, I support the Main.WebHome is still the only home, and this not what I am talking about, or you have make some magic. Can you explain a bit more how your implementation works ?

What I was proposing were more in the line of the "Use this image as my desktop background" and "Use this image as the login background". From anywhere, any user would be able to say, "Use this page as my homepage", and an admin would additionally say "Use this page as the default homepage".

...

And that page truly became the home, it is not an include mechanism, and Main.WebHome could be thrashed.

One advantage is that you won't have to merge Main.WebHome when you upgrade. Even if DW does a 3-way merge, generally it's better/safer not to edit the documents from the default distribution.

...

...

But it doesn’t solve the main problem: editing the home page when it’s

the

...

...

dashboard!

If the home page is no more the actual home page, the discussion about editing the homepage became pointless. If you point directly to the Dashboard, and you make the dashboard not editable by default, we are just fine IMO. Why wanting the home page to be editable when you can edit any page and make it the home or your home ?

...

And it doesn’t solve the issue of the explanation of the concepts.

...

And it doesn’t invite the user to modify the home page when it’s a dashboard.

Regarding these explanations, you simply need a "Get Started" widget on the Dashboard. This one should not be very detailed, but link to more helpful information. These information are more a matter of an Help Application than a HomePage Application. And this Help Application should also be accessible from the menu, and work with contextual information to be even more helpful.

Moreover, the home page should be useful for the flavor that install it, and should not be some fake page that you need to edit to make it useful. The wiki should work right away, without customization, for the very basic users. I hope this clarify my vision of the homepage that I have probably too briefly define initially.

WDYT ?

...

Thanks -Vincent

...

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 3:52 PM, [email protected] wrote:

...

On 16 Sep 2014 at 15:47:59, Marius Dumitru Florea ( [email protected](mailto:

[email protected]))

...

wrote:

...

We won't have the activity stream on the home page by default. This is an important change. I can't decide yet..

Yes I know…

Now we could decide to still have it on the home page. We haven’t decided the content for that new home page yet.

However adding it may intimidate users from editing the page since they might be worried about loosing that feature. But it could also be made clear that the Wiki’s Activity is available from the Dashboard.

The instructions explaining that the page can be edited could even give an example about how to include the Dashboard page for those who want to make the home page a dashboard.

Thanks -Vincent

...

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 4:23 PM, [email protected] wrote: > Hi devs, > > As you know I started working on a Home Page Application, see: > - JIRA with screenshots: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-10586 > - Discussion thread: http://markmail.org/message/ghelufamwucog46x > > I have it all done locally but I refrained from committing it because on the email thread some expressed their doubts. > > I started thinking about it and I expressed some idea in the thread started by Caty about "Wiki - Space - Page concepts pitch": http://markmail.org/message/jefze7nvprz36pkw > > I’m pasting it here again for discussion (with some edits): > > " > BTW concerning the home page, I’m more and more leaning towards removing the dashboard from it (it’s accessible from the App panel anyway) and instead have it contain: > - explanation about how the wiki is organized (wikis, spaces, pages) > - explanation about base concepts (editing, saving, etc) > - encourage the user to edit this home page to make it his own and put the content he wishes instead > > I think this would solve the following issues: > - users always want to customize the home page and this makes it easy (it’s a standard page, no dashboard). This is also a way for them to take ownership of the wiki as theirs. > - explains the main concepts of wiki, space, page > > Of course, we also need to provide a navigation panel for easy navigation in the wiki/spaces/pages. > “ > > If we agree about the idea of removing the dashboard and instead have a simple page then we’ll need to discuss the exact content and for that I’m proposing to discuss with Caty/GuillaumeD and make a proposal for further discussion. Of course any idea in reply to this email would also be much appreciated. > > But first things first! We first need to decide if this is a good idea or not. > > WDYT? > > Thanks > -Vincent > _______________________________________________ > devs mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

---

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-- Denis Gervalle SOFTEC sa - CEO _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

---

devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

-- Denis Gervalle SOFTEC sa - CEO _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

---

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Hi Guillaume, Are you sure you are on the right thread? :) Thanks, Eduard On Tue, Oct 14, 2014 at 6:01 PM, Guillaume Lerouge <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi,

once taking into account all of Edy's remarks, it feels a bit like what we actually need is a better UI for the {{include /}} macro :-)

And then use that macro on the home page of the wiki.

Guillaume ᐧ

On Wed, Oct 8, 2014 at 4:00 PM, Eduard Moraru <[email protected]> wrote:

...

Some clarifications regarding the implementation of this proposal that I wanted to add here for reference:

1. Stop including the dashboard in the homepage, it is available as an app in the app bar on the left 2. Come up with some introductory text for the homepage on (x)wiki concepts and quickstart pointers 3. Remove the welcome gadget from the dashboard and the Main.Welcome pages since they are no longer needed 4. Solve the navigation issue

Thanks, Eduard

On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 6:53 PM, Marius Dumitru Florea < [email protected]> wrote:

...

On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 10:30 AM, Denis Gervalle <[email protected]> wrote:

...

On Wed, Sep 17, 2014 at 10:13 AM, [email protected] < [email protected]

wrote:

...

On 17 Sep 2014 at 08:57:35, Denis Gervalle ([email protected](mailto: [email protected])) wrote:

...

Well, there is also another way to tackle that problem, which is

to make

...

...

the HomePage easily configurable. I have never understand why the home should be Main.WebHome, which does not seems meaningful, in particular in french. Even the Main space is weird, imagine a Hand space in english ;) (WebHome could also seen weird, while being more usual words that I feel hurt less, and could be ommitted).

So, back on track, why not having an easy way to say, "set current page as the HomePage", and to in fact use the Dashboard itself as the default WebHome ? Why the hell should we have to destroy some interface to have a different home page ?

WDYT ?

Denis, this is essentially what my Home Page Application does.

Sorry, I wasn't aware. From what I understand of the description I just read in the issue, the customization will work just once ? What happen when you have customized the homepage (a) by choosing another one, or (b) by entering your own content ? Does the edit button still work differently ? If so, I support the Main.WebHome is still the only home, and this not what I am talking about, or you have make some magic. Can you explain a bit more how your implementation works ?

What I was proposing were more in the line of the "Use this image as my desktop background" and "Use this image as the login background". From anywhere, any user would be able to say, "Use this page as my homepage", and an admin would additionally say "Use this page as the default homepage".

...

And that page truly became the home, it is not an include mechanism, and Main.WebHome could be thrashed.

One advantage is that you won't have to merge Main.WebHome when you upgrade. Even if DW does a 3-way merge, generally it's better/safer not to edit the documents from the default distribution.

...

...

But it doesn’t solve the main problem: editing the home page when

it’s the

...

...

dashboard!

If the home page is no more the actual home page, the discussion about editing the homepage became pointless. If you point directly to the Dashboard, and you make the dashboard not editable by default, we are just fine IMO. Why wanting the home page to be editable when you can edit any page and make it the home or your home ?

...

And it doesn’t solve the issue of the explanation of the concepts.

...

And it doesn’t invite the user to modify the home page when it’s a dashboard.

Regarding these explanations, you simply need a "Get Started" widget on the Dashboard. This one should not be very detailed, but link to more helpful information. These information are more a matter of an Help Application than a HomePage Application. And this Help Application should also be accessible from the menu, and work with contextual information to be even more helpful.

Moreover, the home page should be useful for the flavor that install it, and should not be some fake page that you need to edit to make it useful. The wiki should work right away, without customization, for the very basic users. I hope this clarify my vision of the homepage that I have probably too briefly define initially.

WDYT ?

...

Thanks -Vincent

...

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 3:52 PM, [email protected] wrote:

> > On 16 Sep 2014 at 15:47:59, Marius Dumitru Florea ( > [email protected](mailto: [email protected])) > wrote: > > > We won't have the activity stream on the home page by default. This is > > an important change. I can't decide yet.. > > Yes I know… > > Now we could decide to still have it on the home page. We haven’t decided > the content for that new home page yet. > > However adding it may intimidate users from editing the page since they > might be worried about loosing that feature. But it could also be made > clear that the Wiki’s Activity is available from the Dashboard. > > The instructions explaining that the page can be edited could even give an > example about how to include the Dashboard page for those who want to make > the home page a dashboard. > > Thanks > -Vincent > > > On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 4:23 PM, [email protected] wrote: > > > Hi devs, > > > > > > As you know I started working on a Home Page Application, see: > > > - JIRA with screenshots: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-10586 > > > - Discussion thread: http://markmail.org/message/ghelufamwucog46x > > > > > > I have it all done locally but I refrained from committing it because > on the email thread some expressed their doubts. > > > > > > I started thinking about it and I expressed some idea in the thread > started by Caty about "Wiki - Space - Page concepts pitch": > http://markmail.org/message/jefze7nvprz36pkw > > > > > > I’m pasting it here again for discussion (with some edits): > > > > > > " > > > BTW concerning the home page, I’m more and more leaning towards > removing the dashboard from it (it’s accessible from the App panel anyway) > and instead have it contain: > > > - explanation about how the wiki is organized (wikis, spaces, pages) > > > - explanation about base concepts (editing, saving, etc) > > > - encourage the user to edit this home page to make it his own and put > the content he wishes instead > > > > > > I think this would solve the following issues: > > > - users always want to customize the home page and this makes it easy > (it’s a standard page, no dashboard). This is also a way for them to take > ownership of the wiki as theirs. > > > - explains the main concepts of wiki, space, page > > > > > > Of course, we also need to provide a navigation panel for easy > navigation in the wiki/spaces/pages. > > > “ > > > > > > If we agree about the idea of removing the dashboard and instead have > a simple page then we’ll need to discuss the exact content and for that I’m > proposing to discuss with Caty/GuillaumeD and make a proposal for further > discussion. Of course any idea in reply to this email would also be much > appreciated. > > > > > > But first things first! We first need to decide if this is a good idea > or not. > > > > > > WDYT? > > > > > > Thanks > > > -Vincent

_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

On Thu, Sep 18, 2014 at 10:34 AM, Jeremie BOUSQUET <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi,

2014-09-16 15:23 GMT+02:00 [email protected] <[email protected]>:

...

Hi devs,

As you know I started working on a Home Page Application, see: - JIRA with screenshots: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-10586 - Discussion thread: http://markmail.org/message/ghelufamwucog46x

I have it all done locally but I refrained from committing it because on the email thread some expressed their doubts.

I started thinking about it and I expressed some idea in the thread started by Caty about "Wiki - Space - Page concepts pitch": http://markmail.org/message/jefze7nvprz36pkw

I’m pasting it here again for discussion (with some edits):

" BTW concerning the home page, I’m more and more leaning towards removing the dashboard from it (it’s accessible from the App panel anyway) and instead have it contain: - explanation about how the wiki is organized (wikis, spaces, pages) - explanation about base concepts (editing, saving, etc) - encourage the user to edit this home page to make it his own and put the content he wishes instead

Some idea: what can be seen more and more (on HTC Sense, in many Android apps, etc), is that the first time you (or anyone) access a page / resource, you get indications and explanations displayed in a layer above the content. Once you have read them, you close them in order to access the content, or if there are, more explanations are displayed. You could also have an option to display them again later, like a wizard. I think it would maybe fit with xwiki, I can imagine some arrows and text drawn on top of a page, showing to the user how and where are the menus, explaining what's a page, space, wiki, etc. I've never really seen this in a browser though, so technically it's maybe difficult or impossible.

See http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Improvements/XWiki5Minutes . I know some people that have used http://usablica.github.io/intro.js/ , but there are others, http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Improvements/GuideJS .

It could fit also because those explanations, for a user, are transient. Once you know the concepts, you don't need them displayed each time you access the wiki, on the home page. But as not all users have the same background, you may want to leave them for new comers. If you can detect that a user is "new", you can display this information only to those who need it, and leave "real" content on the home page (like, a dashboard, a description of what your site is about, or both, or something else).

I also like the idea of choosing your home page (the app you did), but maybe it would be more "xwiki" to allow choosing this page in preferences. - In WebPreferences of a space, you can override the default home page of the space ("Space.WebHome"), only with pages from that Space - in a wiki preferences, you can override the default home page of the wiki, only with pages from the "Main" space

...

I think this would solve the following issues: - users always want to customize the home page and this makes it easy (it’s a standard page, no dashboard). This is also a way for them to take ownership of the wiki as theirs. - explains the main concepts of wiki, space, page

Of course, we also need to provide a navigation panel for easy navigation in the wiki/spaces/pages. “

If we agree about the idea of removing the dashboard and instead have a simple page then we’ll need to discuss the exact content and for that I’m proposing to discuss with Caty/GuillaumeD and make a proposal for further discussion. Of course any idea in reply to this email would also be much appreciated.

But first things first! We first need to decide if this is a good idea or not.

WDYT?

Thanks -Vincent _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 7:26 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

Hello all,

so on the topic of "removing the dashboard from the homepage" and if people need it they can access it independently.

In my opinion, this dashboard does not really exist or have any value beyond the homepage. I mean, what does it mean, what is it used for besides the homepage? What would the dashboard be used other than having an overview of the wiki? And if people remove it from the homepage of the wiki, what would they put instead? An overview of the wiki? Isn't that what dashboard means?

The idea of this proposal was that the homepage should be customized by the admin. It should be a homepage. Instead of a Dashboard, it should contain information about the purpose of the wiki, information for newcomers, information about the organization, some video, etc. All of this we plan to encourage the admins to customize so that they "take ownership" of their wiki instead of seeing it as just a tool with default settings. Some may see disadvantages to this, and prefer default tools, but others may see the value of getting the user/admin involved. The Dashboard should be seen as a place to go to in order to see what is going on. Dashboards in the wild also tend to be customizable per users (we technically support that as well, but it could be improved, i.e. have a default user dashboard in the 'My dashboard' section in the user profile instead of the empty space that is right now in view mode, promote it more, etc.). They also tend to be used by more technical people Once the admin is involved and now aware of how to do things, he can easily include the dashboard on the homepage if that is his view on the purpose of his wiki. We can even propose it in the default content of the homepage. What you choose depends a lot on the usecase you have for your wiki, i.e. what flavor you`re using. For example, a dashboard is good for intranet/groupware but not that good for public websites. We are considering here what we want the default experience to offer/encourage and maybe we should not really focus on/be influenced by any of the flavors/use cases we are having in mind.

By this logic, I would find it strange to have a homepage and a dashboard, as 2 separate entities, because for me they would mean the same thing. So multiple possibilities: 1/ our _default_ dashboard displayed on the homepage (included or not, I don't care) is not good enough because it does not offer a good _default_ overview of the wiki. We need to change the dashboard.

This is not part of the use cases [1] extracted from previous discussions. Are you proposing that we add "offer a good overview of the wiki" as a new use case/goal or is this just a rewording of UC5 (navigation) ? Thanks, Eduard [1] http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageUseCases

In this case, we improve the way we modify this dashboard, to allow people to change the "default" overview which guides the user through the wiki with an overview that is more adapted to the user's usecase. 2/ we change the homepage and we remove the dashboard from it and implement an overview of the wiki differently (which would still be a dashboard at the conceptual level but implemented differently). In this case, the Dashboard.WebHome should be removed completely from the menu, because the dashboard _is_ the home page (see my remark above) :) . We can make the homepage a regular page so that users can edit it very easily by default, but we also allow them to easily make it a dashboard with gadgets and drag & drop, so that they can organize their content. I am thinking for example of a button on the homepage, in view mode injected with javascript or UI extension or I don't know, which runs a script that creates a new version of the homepage which contains a dashboard macro call and a default gadget and the user is taken to the edit mode of the homepage, with the dashboard editor in it.

The only reason why the dashboard is separate now, in Dashboard.WebHome, is for legacy reasons, because it used to be included as the homepage of all sort of default spaces, so we needed something that can be re-used for spaces homes as well. Otherwise, from my point of view, it does not need to be a separate entity. I mean, one should be able to create as many dashboards as they'd want (on any page they want), but by default the dashboard of the wiki is only one, the homepage of the wiki.

Anca

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 3:23 PM, [email protected] <[email protected]> wrote:

...

Hi devs,

As you know I started working on a Home Page Application, see: - JIRA with screenshots: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-10586 - Discussion thread: http://markmail.org/message/ghelufamwucog46x

I have it all done locally but I refrained from committing it because on the email thread some expressed their doubts.

I started thinking about it and I expressed some idea in the thread started by Caty about "Wiki - Space - Page concepts pitch": http://markmail.org/message/jefze7nvprz36pkw

I’m pasting it here again for discussion (with some edits):

" BTW concerning the home page, I’m more and more leaning towards removing the dashboard from it (it’s accessible from the App panel anyway) and instead have it contain: - explanation about how the wiki is organized (wikis, spaces, pages) - explanation about base concepts (editing, saving, etc) - encourage the user to edit this home page to make it his own and put the content he wishes instead

I think this would solve the following issues: - users always want to customize the home page and this makes it easy (it’s a standard page, no dashboard). This is also a way for them to take ownership of the wiki as theirs. - explains the main concepts of wiki, space, page

Of course, we also need to provide a navigation panel for easy navigation in the wiki/spaces/pages. “

If we agree about the idea of removing the dashboard and instead have a simple page then we’ll need to discuss the exact content and for that I’m proposing to discuss with Caty/GuillaumeD and make a proposal for further discussion. Of course any idea in reply to this email would also be much appreciated.

But first things first! We first need to decide if this is a good idea or not.

WDYT?

Thanks -Vincent _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

Hi Anca, On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 12:38 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

Hello Edi,

On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Eduard Moraru <[email protected]> wrote:

...

On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 7:26 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

...

Hello all,

so on the topic of "removing the dashboard from the homepage" and if people need it they can access it independently.

In my opinion, this dashboard does not really exist or have any value beyond the homepage. I mean, what does it mean, what is it used for besides the homepage? What would the dashboard be used other than having an overview of the wiki? And if people remove it from the homepage of the wiki, what would they put instead? An overview of the wiki? Isn't that what dashboard means?

The idea of this proposal was that the homepage should be customized by the admin. It should be a homepage. Instead of a Dashboard, it should contain information about the purpose of the wiki, information for newcomers, information about the organization, some video, etc. All of this we plan to encourage the admins to customize so that they "take ownership" of their wiki instead of seeing it as just a tool with default settings. Some may see disadvantages to this, and prefer default tools, but others may see the value of getting the user/admin involved.

The Dashboard should be seen as a place to go to in order to see what is going on. Dashboards in the wild also tend to be customizable per users (we technically support that as well, but it could be improved, i.e. have a default user dashboard in the 'My dashboard' section in the user profile instead of the empty space that is right now in view mode, promote it more, etc.). They also tend to be used by more technical people

Once the admin is involved and now aware of how to do things, he can easily include the dashboard on the homepage if that is his view on the purpose of his wiki. We can even propose it in the default content of the homepage.

What you choose depends a lot on the usecase you have for your wiki, i.e. what flavor you`re using. For example, a dashboard is good for intranet/groupware but not that good for public websites. We are considering here what we want the default experience to offer/encourage and maybe we should not really focus on/be influenced by any of the flavors/use cases we are having in mind.

...

By this logic, I would find it strange to have a homepage and a

dashboard,

...

as 2 separate entities, because for me they would mean the same thing. So multiple possibilities: 1/ our _default_ dashboard displayed on the homepage (included or not, I don't care) is not good enough because it does not offer a good _default_ overview of the wiki. We need to change the dashboard.

This is not part of the use cases [1] extracted from previous discussions. Are you proposing that we add "offer a good overview of the wiki" as a new use case/goal or is this just a rewording of UC5 (navigation) ?

I need to think a little more about this in order to make a complete answer, but I read the list of usecases and I remarked one thing:

In all UC1 to UC5, I think your "user" is more of an "admin" than a user. I see the following flow in working with a wiki: Alice downloads the wiki and plays around with it locally, tests it and checks its features. Then, she is convinced by the tool and decides to move this to the next level and install the wiki on a server (or get it installed) so that she can collaborate with her colleagues, Bob, Billy and Bogdan. To me Alice is not a user, she's more like a wiki admin. Then when the wiki is installed on the server, the three B boys are the users and Alice might become a user as well, or might always stay a little more admin. When she moves from her private tests to a public tool, Alice prepares the homepage of the wiki so that it matches the purpose of the wiki and the B boys. Alice will need to "UC3: The user needs to be able to easily replace the home page with his content" but the B boys won't.

I think you`ve perfectly described what we want to do with the homepage (*in this proposal*), and yes, the user we are interested in in this case is the admin (Alice) that we want to encourage to take ownership of the wiki she is going to present to the wiki's users (B-boys) instead of offering them a vanilla "Untitled Document" experience :) I think that the admin (Alice) homepage needs cannot be analysed

independently from the user (Bob, Billy and Bogdan) homepage needs, because we risk to provide the admin with customization tools that they will never need because the user will never need such a customization.

In a way, that is exactly what the Dashboard is doing: it is *a tool* that the user is presented with by default and which he might not need (and has no idea how to get rid of). This proposal was about promoting more the wiki itself (not customization tools) and empowering the user that will deploy it so that he can provide an optimum experience to his users. We can`t really do much for the variety of use cases and users out there that might be using XWiki, but the admin can (*if he is able to*, and this is what this proposal is pushing for). The Dashboard is nice, no argument there, but it is just *a tool*, among others, that the admin could choose to use or not. Still, this is currently just one proposal amongst others [1]. Thanks, Eduard ---------- [1] http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageProposals

Thanks, Anca

...

Thanks, Eduard

[1] http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageUseCases

...

In this case, we improve the way we modify this dashboard, to allow people to change the "default" overview which guides the user through the wiki with an overview that is more adapted to the user's usecase. 2/ we change the homepage and we remove the dashboard from it and implement an overview of the wiki differently (which would still be a dashboard

at

...

...

the conceptual level but implemented differently). In this case, the Dashboard.WebHome should be removed completely from the menu, because the dashboard _is_ the home page (see my remark above) :) . We can make the homepage a regular page so that users can edit it very easily by default, but we also allow them to easily make it a dashboard with gadgets and drag & drop, so that they can organize their content. I am thinking for example of a button on the homepage, in view mode injected with javascript or UI extension or I don't know, which runs a script that creates a new version of the homepage which contains a dashboard macro call and a default gadget and the user is taken to the edit mode of the homepage, with the dashboard editor in it.

The only reason why the dashboard is separate now, in Dashboard.WebHome, is for legacy reasons, because it used to be included as the homepage of all sort of default spaces, so we needed something that can be re-used for spaces homes as well. Otherwise, from my point of view, it does not need to be a separate entity. I mean, one should be able to create as many dashboards as they'd want (on any page they want), but by default the dashboard of the wiki is only one, the homepage of the wiki.

Anca

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 3:23 PM, [email protected] < [email protected]> wrote:

...

Hi devs,

As you know I started working on a Home Page Application, see: - JIRA with screenshots: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-10586 - Discussion thread: http://markmail.org/message/ghelufamwucog46x

I have it all done locally but I refrained from committing it because on the email thread some expressed their doubts.

I started thinking about it and I expressed some idea in the thread started by Caty about "Wiki - Space - Page concepts pitch": http://markmail.org/message/jefze7nvprz36pkw

I’m pasting it here again for discussion (with some edits):

" BTW concerning the home page, I’m more and more leaning towards removing the dashboard from it (it’s accessible from the App panel anyway) and instead have it contain: - explanation about how the wiki is organized (wikis, spaces, pages) - explanation about base concepts (editing, saving, etc) - encourage the user to edit this home page to make it his own and put the content he wishes instead

I think this would solve the following issues: - users always want to customize the home page and this makes it easy (it’s a standard page, no dashboard). This is also a way for them to take ownership of the wiki as theirs. - explains the main concepts of wiki, space, page

Of course, we also need to provide a navigation panel for easy navigation in the wiki/spaces/pages. “

If we agree about the idea of removing the dashboard and instead have a simple page then we’ll need to discuss the exact content and for that I’m proposing to discuss with Caty/GuillaumeD and make a proposal for further discussion. Of course any idea in reply to this email would also be much appreciated.

But first things first! We first need to decide if this is a good idea or not.

WDYT?

Thanks -Vincent _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 7:47 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi Edi,

I sort of understand from this mail that you think I am "defending" the dashboard on the homepage. I cannot figure out how you got that idea.

The only thing I was saying in the previous mail is that 2 dashboards by default don't make sense for me, because dashboard means to me overview and I think we should rather make it easy for users to turn their homepage in a proper overview rather than have 2 overviews. Because if we have the dashboard separately (as today), then the Alices will create on the homepage their own overview of the wiki, and then Bob, Billy and Bogdan will have 2 of them. This is not necessarily bad, to be able to have multiple dashboards, because you can imagine multiple facets of the same wiki, but I think for a default wiki user is confusing (seeing the homepage which is an overview and having a link on the right that takes to an overview).

When I said that the 2 personas need to be analyzed together it was more about what kind of customization we promote to the admin (Alice). E.g. explaining as a generic thing that they could include another page and they could customize could be too generic for the need of Alice, which is to create a proper welcome page for the B-boys. If we knew / decided on what is a proper welcome page for the B-boys, then we could make a choice about how to allow Alice to take ownership, encourage editing, etc AND, in addition, go towards the "users oriented homepage".

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 3:32 PM, Eduard Moraru <[email protected]> wrote:

...

Hi Anca,

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 12:38 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

...

Hello Edi,

On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Eduard Moraru <[email protected]> wrote:

...

On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 7:26 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

...

Hello all,

so on the topic of "removing the dashboard from the homepage" and if people need it they can access it independently.

In my opinion, this dashboard does not really exist or have any value beyond the homepage. I mean, what does it mean, what is it used for besides the homepage? What would the dashboard be used other than having an overview of the wiki? And if people remove it from the homepage of the wiki, what would they put instead? An overview of the wiki? Isn't that what dashboard means?

The idea of this proposal was that the homepage should be customized by the admin. It should be a homepage. Instead of a Dashboard, it should contain information about the purpose of the wiki, information for newcomers, information about the organization, some video, etc. All of this we plan to encourage the admins to customize so that they "take ownership" of their wiki instead of seeing it as just a tool with default settings. Some may see disadvantages to this, and prefer default tools, but others may see the value of getting the user/admin involved.

The Dashboard should be seen as a place to go to in order to see what is going on. Dashboards in the wild also tend to be customizable per users (we technically support that as well, but it could be improved, i.e. have a default user dashboard in the 'My dashboard' section in the user profile instead of the empty space that is right now in view mode, promote it more, etc.). They also tend to be used by more technical people

Once the admin is involved and now aware of how to do things, he can easily include the dashboard on the homepage if that is his view on the purpose of his wiki. We can even propose it in the default content of the homepage.

What you choose depends a lot on the usecase you have for your wiki, i.e. what flavor you`re using. For example, a dashboard is good for intranet/groupware but not that good for public websites. We are considering here what we want the default experience to offer/encourage and maybe we should not really focus on/be influenced by any of the flavors/use cases we are having in mind.

...

By this logic, I would find it strange to have a homepage and a

dashboard,

...

as 2 separate entities, because for me they would mean the same thing. So multiple possibilities: 1/ our _default_ dashboard displayed on the homepage (included or not, I don't care) is not good enough because it does not offer a good _default_ overview of the wiki. We need to change the dashboard.

This is not part of the use cases [1] extracted from previous discussions. Are you proposing that we add "offer a good overview of the wiki" as a new use case/goal or is this just a rewording of UC5 (navigation) ?

That would be proposal 1 here: http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageProposal1Keepcurrent... rather than a UC.

Since I don't know anymore what this mail is about and I am sure we're gonna get lost in details, here is my proposal (corresponsad to by option 2) expressed in the initial mail):

(corresponds to my option 2 expressed in my initial mail on this thread) -- just to make all crystal clear

* By default the home page is a regular wiki page, with some text in it, that demonstrates all the features of the wiki, something like a Sandbox webhome. This should cover a couple of the usecases for Alice admin that needs to understand how wiki works. Also, she will be able to edit the homepage like a regular page. * Next to the edit button of this page, we add a button with an UIExtension which will say: "Turn this homepage in a dashboard with gadgets". Upon click, we open a wizard where we explain a bit what's gonna happen **and also that history rollback can always be used to fix whatever we might have done**. The wizard will put a dashboard macro on the homepage, force the default edit mode to be inline, add a couple of gadgets already (some of the most used, etc) and will take the admin back to edit mode of this page, which she will customize as she pleases. * There is no link to a dashboard in the menu, the dashboard on Dashboard.WebHome does not exist anymore. The homepage will be a dashboard itself (and not include a dashboard).

Ideally, the way I see this used is that when the admin is done experimenting and has full ownership, they will click this dashboard button and create a dashboard for the wiki to give to B users. Why dashboard and not any other thing, like a page include or free text? Mainly because I think the dashboard is an interesting usecase for the users (B), with the proper gadgets available, of course, and directing the Admin A towards that usecase could help noob admins that don't want to understand all the concepts of the wiki to have a nice homepage.

I just thought of another quite frequent usecase for the homepage for the users B, which is the homepage of an application (when the wiki is fully dedicated to an application). I think this should be a preference setting for admin A, not an include. As in, the Main.WebHome will not include the other application homepage, but the wiki will actually land on a different page when accessed. This configuration could be done in the preferences of the wiki. The case of including pages in the home could be limiting for the panels or space specific skin (if the application has specific panels, like the blog, then the same panels would need to be configured on the whole wiki in order for the usecase "land directly in application blog" to be fulfilled). This would mean http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageProposal4Setthispage... . Note that this proposal does not collide with the proposal I made above about the dashboard.

Thanks, Anca

...

...

I need to think a little more about this in order to make a complete answer, but I read the list of usecases and I remarked one thing:

In all UC1 to UC5, I think your "user" is more of an "admin" than a

user. I

...

see the following flow in working with a wiki: Alice downloads the wiki and plays around with it locally, tests it and checks its features. Then, she is convinced by the tool and decides to move this to the next level and install the wiki on a server (or get it installed) so that she can collaborate with her colleagues, Bob, Billy and Bogdan. To me Alice is not a user, she's more like a wiki admin. Then when the wiki is installed on the server, the three B boys are the users and Alice might become a user as well, or might always stay a little more admin. When she moves from her private tests to a public tool, Alice prepares the homepage of the wiki so that it matches the purpose of the wiki and the B boys. Alice will need to "UC3: The user needs to be able to easily replace the home page with his content" but the B boys won't.

I think you`ve perfectly described what we want to do with the homepage (*in this proposal*), and yes, the user we are interested in in this case is the admin (Alice) that we want to encourage to take ownership of the wiki she is going to present to the wiki's users (B-boys) instead of offering them a vanilla "Untitled Document" experience :)

I think that the admin (Alice) homepage needs cannot be analysed

...

independently from the user (Bob, Billy and Bogdan) homepage needs, because we risk to provide the admin with customization tools that they will never need because the user will never need such a customization.

In a way, that is exactly what the Dashboard is doing: it is *a tool* that the user is presented with by default and which he might not need (and has no idea how to get rid of).

This proposal was about promoting more the wiki itself (not customization tools) and empowering the user that will deploy it so that he can provide an optimum experience to his users. We can`t really do much for the variety of use cases and users out there that might be using XWiki, but the admin can (*if he is able to*, and this is what this proposal is pushing for).

The Dashboard is nice, no argument there, but it is just *a tool*, among others, that the admin could choose to use or not.

Still, this is currently just one proposal amongst others [1].

Thanks, Eduard

---------- [1] http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageProposals

...

Thanks, Anca

...

Thanks, Eduard

[1] http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageUseCases

...

In this case, we improve the way we modify this dashboard, to allow people to change

the

...

...

...

"default" overview which guides the user through the wiki with an overview that is more adapted to the user's usecase. 2/ we change the homepage and we remove the dashboard from it and implement an overview of the wiki differently (which would still be a dashboard at the conceptual level but implemented differently). In this case, the Dashboard.WebHome should be removed completely from the menu, because the dashboard _is_ the home page (see my remark above) :) . We can make the homepage a regular page so that users can edit it very easily by default, but we also allow them to easily make it a dashboard with gadgets and drag & drop, so that they can organize their content. I am thinking for example of a button on the homepage, in view mode injected with javascript or UI extension or I don't know, which runs a script that creates a new version of the homepage which contains a dashboard macro call and a default gadget and the user is taken to the edit mode of the homepage, with the dashboard editor in it.

The only reason why the dashboard is separate now, in Dashboard.WebHome, is for legacy reasons, because it used to be included as the homepage of all sort of default spaces, so we needed something that can be re-used for spaces homes as well. Otherwise, from my point of view, it does not need to be a separate entity. I mean, one should be able to create as many dashboards as they'd want (on any page they want), but by default the dashboard of the wiki is only one, the homepage of the wiki.

Anca

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 3:23 PM, [email protected] < [email protected]> wrote:

...

Hi devs,

As you know I started working on a Home Page Application, see: - JIRA with screenshots: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-10586 - Discussion thread: http://markmail.org/message/ghelufamwucog46x

I have it all done locally but I refrained from committing it because on the email thread some expressed their doubts.

I started thinking about it and I expressed some idea in the thread started by Caty about "Wiki - Space - Page concepts pitch": http://markmail.org/message/jefze7nvprz36pkw

I’m pasting it here again for discussion (with some edits):

" BTW concerning the home page, I’m more and more leaning towards removing the dashboard from it (it’s accessible from the App panel anyway) and instead have it contain: - explanation about how the wiki is organized (wikis, spaces, pages) - explanation about base concepts (editing, saving, etc) - encourage the user to edit this home page to make it his own and put the content he wishes instead

I think this would solve the following issues: - users always want to customize the home page and this makes it easy (it’s a standard page, no dashboard). This is also a way for them to take ownership of the wiki as theirs. - explains the main concepts of wiki, space, page

Of course, we also need to provide a navigation panel for easy navigation in the wiki/spaces/pages. “

If we agree about the idea of removing the dashboard and instead have a simple page then we’ll need to discuss the exact content and for that I’m proposing to discuss with Caty/GuillaumeD and make a proposal for further discussion. Of course any idea in reply to this email would also be much appreciated.

But first things first! We first need to decide if this is a good idea or not.

WDYT?

Thanks -Vincent _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

Basically if I got your point, you're saying that the home page should depend on the kind or flavor of wiki wanted by Alice, but though we have some ideas about it, we should let her choose by herself. It really looks like a last step of a wiki creation with flavor wizard, don't you think ? :) and if you want to switch home page concept completely later, you can just run the wizard again. That way it's integrated with a concept of flavor that you want to add in xwiki, and a concept of wizard that's already there, it's not a brand new concept adding buttons in your everyday ui. If objective of Alice is to customize it to her needs, she can select "empty home page" during wizard. But it's not something that she wants to do frequently (switching home page). Like a space template, but for the home page of the home space of a wiki. Also I'm not sure if a dashboard is really limited to be an overview of a wiki. You can put any widget in it, and any macro can be a widget. To me it's more a highly flexible and extensible feature that is currently highly underused. I think it could be a great tool for home pages of application based flavors. Le 21 oct. 2014 19:53, "Anca Luca" <[email protected]> a écrit :

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 7:48 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

...

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 7:47 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

...

Hi Edi,

I sort of understand from this mail that you think I am "defending" the dashboard on the homepage. I cannot figure out how you got that idea.

The only thing I was saying in the previous mail is that 2 dashboards

by

...

...

default don't make sense for me, because dashboard means to me overview and I think we should rather make it easy for users to turn their homepage in a proper overview rather than have 2 overviews. Because if we have the dashboard separately (as today), then the Alices will create on the homepage their own overview of the wiki, and then Bob, Billy and Bogdan will have 2 of them. This is not necessarily bad, to be able to have multiple dashboards, because you can imagine multiple facets of the same wiki, but I think for a default wiki user is confusing (seeing the homepage which is an overview and having a link on the right that takes to an overview).

When I said that the 2 personas need to be analyzed together it was more about what kind of customization we promote to the admin (Alice). E.g. explaining as a generic thing that they could include another page and they could customize could be too generic for the need of Alice, which is to create a proper welcome page for the B-boys. If we knew / decided on what is a proper welcome page for the B-boys, then we could make a choice about how to allow Alice to take ownership, encourage editing, etc AND, in addition, go towards the "users oriented homepage".

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 3:32 PM, Eduard Moraru <[email protected]> wrote:

...

Hi Anca,

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 12:38 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

...

Hello Edi,

On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Eduard Moraru < [email protected]> wrote:

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On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 7:26 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hello all, > > so on the topic of "removing the dashboard from the homepage" and if people > need it they can access it independently. > > In my opinion, this dashboard does not really exist or have any value > beyond the homepage. I mean, what does it mean, what is it used for besides > the homepage? What would the dashboard be used other than having an > overview of the wiki? And if people remove it from the homepage of the > wiki, what would they put instead? An overview of the wiki? Isn't that what > dashboard means? >

The idea of this proposal was that the homepage should be customized by the admin. It should be a homepage. Instead of a Dashboard, it should contain information about the purpose of the wiki, information for newcomers, information about the organization, some video, etc. All of this we plan to encourage the admins to customize so that they "take ownership" of their wiki instead of seeing it as just a tool with default settings. Some may see disadvantages to this, and prefer default tools, but others may see the value of getting the user/admin involved.

The Dashboard should be seen as a place to go to in order to see what is going on. Dashboards in the wild also tend to be customizable per users (we technically support that as well, but it could be improved, i.e. have a default user dashboard in the 'My dashboard' section in the user profile instead of the empty space that is right now in view mode, promote it more, etc.). They also tend to be used by more technical people

Once the admin is involved and now aware of how to do things, he can easily include the dashboard on the homepage if that is his view on the purpose of his wiki. We can even propose it in the default content of the homepage.

What you choose depends a lot on the usecase you have for your wiki, i.e. what flavor you`re using. For example, a dashboard is good for intranet/groupware but not that good for public websites. We are considering here what we want the default experience to offer/encourage and maybe we should not really focus on/be influenced by any of the flavors/use cases we are having in mind.

> > By this logic, I would find it strange to have a homepage and a dashboard, > as 2 separate entities, because for me they would mean the same thing. So > multiple possibilities: > 1/ our _default_ dashboard displayed on the homepage (included or not, I > don't care) is not good enough because it does not offer a good _default_ > overview of the wiki. We need to change the dashboard.

This is not part of the use cases [1] extracted from previous discussions. Are you proposing that we add "offer a good overview of the wiki" as a new use case/goal or is this just a rewording of UC5 (navigation) ?

That would be proposal 1 here:

http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageProposal1Keepcurrent...

...

rather than a UC.

Since I don't know anymore what this mail is about and I am sure we're gonna get lost in details, here is my proposal (corresponsad to by option 2) expressed in the initial mail):

(corresponds to my option 2 expressed in my initial mail on this thread) -- just to make all crystal clear

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* By default the home page is a regular wiki page, with some text in it, that demonstrates all the features of the wiki, something like a Sandbox webhome. This should cover a couple of the usecases for Alice admin that needs to understand how wiki works. Also, she will be able to edit the homepage like a regular page. * Next to the edit button of this page, we add a button with an UIExtension which will say: "Turn this homepage in a dashboard with gadgets". Upon click, we open a wizard where we explain a bit what's gonna happen **and also that history rollback can always be used to fix whatever we might have done**. The wizard will put a dashboard macro on the homepage, force the default edit mode to be inline, add a couple of gadgets already (some of the most used, etc) and will take the admin back to edit mode of this page, which she will customize as she pleases. * There is no link to a dashboard in the menu, the dashboard on Dashboard.WebHome does not exist anymore. The homepage will be a dashboard itself (and not include a dashboard).

This homepage will be in one language only (we know how well translations for the homepage turned out, the last time we tried it) and it's language will be handled by the distribution wizard which will ask a question before doing anything. This language will be used for the DW itself + the homepage version to be installed.

Anca

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Ideally, the way I see this used is that when the admin is done experimenting and has full ownership, they will click this dashboard

button

...

...

and create a dashboard for the wiki to give to B users. Why dashboard and not any other thing, like a page include or free text? Mainly because I think the dashboard is an interesting usecase for the users (B), with the proper gadgets available, of course, and directing the Admin A towards that usecase could help noob admins that don't want to understand all the concepts of the wiki to have a nice homepage.

I just thought of another quite frequent usecase for the homepage for the users B, which is the homepage of an application (when the wiki is fully dedicated to an application). I think this should be a preference setting for admin A, not an include. As in, the Main.WebHome will not include the other application homepage, but the wiki will actually land on a different page when accessed. This configuration could be done in the preferences of the wiki. The case of including pages in the home could be limiting for the panels or space specific skin (if the application has specific panels, like the blog, then the same panels would need to be configured on the whole wiki in order for the usecase "land directly in application blog" to be fulfilled). This would mean

http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageProposal4Setthispage...

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. Note that this proposal does not collide with the proposal I made above about the dashboard.

Thanks, Anca

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I need to think a little more about this in order to make a complete answer, but I read the list of usecases and I remarked one thing:

In all UC1 to UC5, I think your "user" is more of an "admin" than a

user. I

...

see the following flow in working with a wiki: Alice downloads the wiki and plays around with it locally, tests it and checks its features. Then, she is convinced by the tool and decides to move this to the next level and install the wiki on a server (or get it installed) so that she can collaborate with her colleagues, Bob, Billy and Bogdan. To me Alice is not a user, she's more like a wiki admin. Then when the wiki is installed on the server, the three B boys are the users and Alice might become a user as well, or might always stay a little more admin. When she moves from her private tests to a public tool, Alice prepares the homepage of the wiki so that it matches the purpose of the wiki and the B boys. Alice will need to "UC3: The user needs to be able to easily replace the home page with his content" but the B boys won't.

I think you`ve perfectly described what we want to do with the homepage (*in this proposal*), and yes, the user we are interested in in this case is the admin (Alice) that we want to encourage to take ownership of the wiki she is going to present to the wiki's users (B-boys) instead of offering them a vanilla "Untitled Document" experience :)

I think that the admin (Alice) homepage needs cannot be analysed

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independently from the user (Bob, Billy and Bogdan) homepage needs, because we risk to provide the admin with customization tools that they will never need because the user will never need such a customization.

In a way, that is exactly what the Dashboard is doing: it is *a tool* that the user is presented with by default and which he might not need (and has no idea how to get rid of).

This proposal was about promoting more the wiki itself (not customization tools) and empowering the user that will deploy it so that he can provide an optimum experience to his users. We can`t really do much for the variety of use cases and users out there that might be using XWiki, but the admin can (*if he is able to*, and this is what this proposal is pushing for).

The Dashboard is nice, no argument there, but it is just *a tool*, among others, that the admin could choose to use or not.

Still, this is currently just one proposal amongst others [1].

Thanks, Eduard

---------- [1] http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageProposals

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Thanks, Anca

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Thanks, Eduard

[1]

http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageUseCases

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> In this case, we > improve the way we modify this dashboard, to allow people to

change the

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> "default" overview which guides the user through the wiki with an overview > that is more adapted to the user's usecase. > 2/ we change the homepage and we remove the dashboard from it and implement > an overview of the wiki differently (which would still be a dashboard at > the conceptual level but implemented differently). In this case, the > Dashboard.WebHome should be removed completely from the menu, because the > dashboard _is_ the home page (see my remark above) :) . We can make the > homepage a regular page so that users can edit it very easily by default, > but we also allow them to easily make it a dashboard with gadgets and drag > & drop, so that they can organize their content. I am thinking for example > of a button on the homepage, in view mode injected with javascript or UI > extension or I don't know, which runs a script that creates a new version > of the homepage which contains a dashboard macro call and a default gadget > and the user is taken to the edit mode of the homepage, with the dashboard > editor in it. > > The only reason why the dashboard is separate now, in Dashboard.WebHome, is > for legacy reasons, because it used to be included as the homepage of all > sort of default spaces, so we needed something that can be re-used for > spaces homes as well. Otherwise, from my point of view, it does not need to > be a separate entity. I mean, one should be able to create as many > dashboards as they'd want (on any page they want), but by default the > dashboard of the wiki is only one, the homepage of the wiki. > > Anca > > On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 3:23 PM, [email protected] < [email protected]> > wrote: > > > Hi devs, > > > > As you know I started working on a Home Page Application, see: > > - JIRA with screenshots: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-10586 > > - Discussion thread: http://markmail.org/message/ghelufamwucog46x > > > > I have it all done locally but I refrained from committing it because on > > the email thread some expressed their doubts. > > > > I started thinking about it and I expressed some idea in the thread > > started by Caty about "Wiki - Space - Page concepts pitch": > > http://markmail.org/message/jefze7nvprz36pkw > > > > I’m pasting it here again for discussion (with some edits): > > > > " > > BTW concerning the home page, I’m more and more leaning towards removing > > the dashboard from it (it’s accessible from the App panel anyway) and > > instead have it contain: > > - explanation about how the wiki is organized (wikis, spaces, pages) > > - explanation about base concepts (editing, saving, etc) > > - encourage the user to edit this home page to make it his own and put > the > > content he wishes instead > > > > I think this would solve the following issues: > > - users always want to customize the home page and this makes it easy > > (it’s a standard page, no dashboard). This is also a way for them to take > > ownership of the wiki as theirs. > > - explains the main concepts of wiki, space, page > > > > Of course, we also need to provide a navigation panel for easy navigation > > in the wiki/spaces/pages. > > “ > > > > If we agree about the idea of removing the dashboard and instead have a > > simple page then we’ll need to discuss the exact content and for that I’m > > proposing to discuss with Caty/GuillaumeD and make a proposal for further > > discussion. Of course any idea in reply to this email would also be much > > appreciated. > > > > But first things first! We first need to decide if this is a good idea or > > not. > > > > WDYT? > > > > Thanks > > -Vincent > > _______________________________________________ > > devs mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > > > _______________________________________________ > devs mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

On Oct 21, 2014 11:22 PM, "Jeremie BOUSQUET" <[email protected]> wrote:

To clarify my point of view, I would say that:

- UC6 is not only a use-case, it's a proposal in itself

"Flavors need to be able to easily set/replace the homepage" I propose that flavors, and wiki creation wizard, should be the (first)

way

to set and replace the homepage. The second one being to customize it using the standard and natural features of the wiki (edit wiki/inline/wysiwyg/whatever), which is already feature-rich. If I'm not wrong it would cover UC2, UC3, UC4 and (obviously) UC6.

- I would say that UC1 and UC5 should be covered by a dedicated Help application (with a button in the applications panel) My argument is that using the home page content to cover those use-cases, would satisfy only the needs of Alice, and only just after she created her wiki. She wouldn't need help on xwiki concepts or navigation in each and every sub-wikis. Once she would master the wiki concepts, she would replace the home page with what she wants, and would have to choose between leaving the default helping content in it (instead of using all the room available to put her own content), or removing it - and so remove it for the B-Boys too. By the way, last wizard step may even present a question to user like "do you want to see some explainations about xwiki concepts ?" that would bring user to the help instead of directing him to the home page.

There were discussions about bootstrap being "mobile first",

I've always seen xwiki specifically "wiki first" ;-) , so in a sense I believe "edit" should remain an essential feature - it should be easy in any case and whatever is in a page.

+1 to this!

2014-10-21 21:04 GMT+02:00 Jeremie BOUSQUET <[email protected]>:

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Basically if I got your point, you're saying that the home page should depend on the kind or flavor of wiki wanted by Alice, but though we have some ideas about it, we should let her choose by herself. It really looks like a last step of a wiki creation with flavor wizard, don't you think ? :) and if you want to switch home page concept

completely

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later, you can just run the wizard again. That way it's integrated with a concept of flavor that you want to add in xwiki, and a concept of wizard that's already there, it's not a brand new concept adding buttons in your everyday ui. If objective of Alice is to customize it to her needs, she can select "empty home page" during wizard. But it's not something that she wants to do frequently (switching home page). Like a space template, but for the home page of the home space of a wiki.

Also I'm not sure if a dashboard is really limited to be an overview of a wiki. You can put any widget in it, and any macro can be a widget. To me it's more a highly flexible and extensible feature that is currently highly underused. I think it could be a great tool for home pages of application based flavors. Le 21 oct. 2014 19:53, "Anca Luca" <[email protected]> a écrit :

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 7:48 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

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On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 7:47 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

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Hi Edi,

I sort of understand from this mail that you think I am "defending"

the

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...

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dashboard on the homepage. I cannot figure out how you got that idea.

The only thing I was saying in the previous mail is that 2 dashboards by default don't make sense for me, because dashboard means to me overview and I think we should rather make it easy for users to turn their homepage in a proper overview rather than have 2 overviews. Because if we have the dashboard separately (as today), then the Alices will create on the homepage their own overview of the wiki, and then Bob, Billy and Bogdan will have 2 of them. This is not necessarily bad, to be able to have multiple dashboards, because you can imagine multiple facets of the same wiki, but I think for a default wiki user is confusing (seeing the homepage which is an overview and having a link on the right that takes to an overview).

When I said that the 2 personas need to be analyzed together it was more about what kind of customization we promote to the admin (Alice). E.g. explaining as a generic thing that they could include another page and they could customize could be too generic for the need of Alice, which is to create a proper welcome page for the B-boys. If we knew / decided on what is a proper welcome page for the B-boys, then we could make a choice about how to allow Alice to take ownership, encourage editing, etc AND, in addition, go towards the "users oriented homepage".

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 3:32 PM, Eduard Moraru <[email protected]

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wrote:

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Hi Anca,

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 12:38 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hello Edi, > > > On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Eduard Moraru < [email protected]> > wrote: > > > On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 7:26 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Hello all, > > > > > > so on the topic of "removing the dashboard from the homepage" and if > > people > > > need it they can access it independently. > > > > > > In my opinion, this dashboard does not really exist or have any value > > > beyond the homepage. I mean, what does it mean, what is it used for > > besides > > > the homepage? What would the dashboard be used other than having an > > > overview of the wiki? And if people remove it from the homepage of the > > > wiki, what would they put instead? An overview of the wiki? Isn't that > > what > > > dashboard means? > > > > > > > The idea of this proposal was that the homepage should be customized by > the > > admin. It should be a homepage. Instead of a Dashboard, it should contain > > information about the purpose of the wiki, information for newcomers, > > information about the organization, some video, etc. All of this we plan > to > > encourage the admins to customize so that they "take ownership" of their > > wiki instead of seeing it as just a tool with default settings. Some may > > see disadvantages to this, and prefer default tools, but others may see > the > > value of getting the user/admin involved. > > > > The Dashboard should be seen as a place to go to in order to see what is > > going on. Dashboards in the wild also tend to be customizable per users > (we > > technically support that as well, but it could be improved, i.e. have a > > default user dashboard in the 'My dashboard' section in the user profile > > instead of the empty space that is right now in view mode, promote it > more, > > etc.). They also tend to be used by more technical people > > > > Once the admin is involved and now aware of how to do things, he can > easily > > include the dashboard on the homepage if that is his view on the purpose > of > > his wiki. We can even propose it in the default content of the homepage. > > > > What you choose depends a lot on the usecase you have for your wiki, i.e. > > what flavor you`re using. For example, a dashboard is good for > > intranet/groupware but not that good for public websites. We are > > considering here what we want the default experience to offer/encourage > and > > maybe we should not really focus on/be influenced by any of the > flavors/use > > cases we are having in mind. > > > > > > > > > > By this logic, I would find it strange to have a homepage and a > > dashboard, > > > as 2 separate entities, because for me they would mean the same thing. > So > > > multiple possibilities: > > > 1/ our _default_ dashboard displayed on the homepage (included or not, > I > > > don't care) is not good enough because it does not offer a good > _default_ > > > overview of the wiki. We need to change the dashboard. > > > > > > This is not part of the use cases [1] extracted from previous > discussions. > > Are you proposing that we add "offer a good overview of the wiki" as a > new > > use case/goal or is this just a rewording of UC5 (navigation) ? > >

That would be proposal 1 here:

http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageProposal1Keepcurrent...

...

...

...

rather than a UC.

Since I don't know anymore what this mail is about and I am sure we're gonna get lost in details, here is my proposal (corresponsad to by option 2) expressed in the initial mail):

(corresponds to my option 2 expressed in my initial mail on this thread) -- just to make all crystal clear

...

* By default the home page is a regular wiki page, with some text in it, that demonstrates all the features of the wiki, something like a Sandbox webhome. This should cover a couple of the usecases for Alice admin that needs to understand how wiki works. Also, she will be able to edit the homepage like a regular page. * Next to the edit button of this page, we add a button with an UIExtension which will say: "Turn this homepage in a dashboard with gadgets". Upon click, we open a wizard where we explain a bit what's gonna happen **and also that history rollback can always be used to fix whatever we might have done**. The wizard will put a dashboard macro on the homepage, force the default edit mode to be inline, add a couple of gadgets already (some of the most used, etc) and will take the admin back to edit mode of this page, which she will customize as she pleases. * There is no link to a dashboard in the menu, the dashboard on Dashboard.WebHome does not exist anymore. The homepage will be a dashboard itself (and not include a dashboard).

This homepage will be in one language only (we know how well translations for the homepage turned out, the last time we tried it) and it's language will be handled by the distribution wizard which will ask a question before doing anything. This language will be used for the DW itself + the homepage version to be installed.

Anca

...

...

Ideally, the way I see this used is that when the admin is done experimenting and has full ownership, they will click this dashboard

button

...

...

and create a dashboard for the wiki to give to B users. Why dashboard and not any other thing, like a page include or free text? Mainly because I think the dashboard is an interesting usecase for the users (B), with the proper gadgets available, of course, and directing the Admin A towards that usecase could help noob admins that don't want to understand all the concepts of the wiki to have a nice homepage.

I just thought of another quite frequent usecase for the homepage for the users B, which is the homepage of an application (when the wiki is fully dedicated to an application). I think this should be a preference setting for admin A, not an include. As in, the Main.WebHome will not include the other application homepage, but the wiki will actually land on a different page when accessed. This configuration could be done in the preferences of the wiki. The case of including pages in the home could be limiting for the panels or space specific skin (if the application has specific panels, like the blog, then the same panels would need to be configured on the whole wiki in order for the usecase "land directly in application blog" to be fulfilled). This would mean

http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageProposal4Setthispage...

...

...

...

. Note that this proposal does not collide with the proposal I made above about the dashboard.

Thanks, Anca

...

> > I need to think a little more about this in order to make a complete > answer, but I read the list of usecases and I remarked one thing: > > In all UC1 to UC5, I think your "user" is more of an "admin" than a user. I > see the following flow in working with a wiki: > Alice downloads the wiki and plays around with it locally, tests it and > checks its features. Then, she is convinced by the tool and decides to move > this to the next level and install the wiki on a server (or get it > installed) so that she can collaborate with her colleagues, Bob, Billy and > Bogdan. To me Alice is not a user, she's more like a wiki admin. Then when > the wiki is installed on the server, the three B boys are the users and > Alice might become a user as well, or might always stay a little more > admin. When she moves from her private tests to a public tool, Alice > prepares the homepage of the wiki so that it matches the purpose of the > wiki and the B boys. Alice will need to "UC3: The user needs to be able to > easily replace the home page with his content" but the B boys won't. > > I think you`ve perfectly described what we want to do with the homepage (*in this proposal*), and yes, the user we are interested in in this case is the admin (Alice) that we want to encourage to take ownership of the wiki she is going to present to the wiki's users (B-boys) instead of offering them a vanilla "Untitled Document" experience :)

I think that the admin (Alice) homepage needs cannot be analysed > independently from the user (Bob, Billy and Bogdan) homepage needs, because > we risk to provide the admin with customization tools that they will never > need because the user will never need such a customization. >

In a way, that is exactly what the Dashboard is doing: it is *a tool* that the user is presented with by default and which he might not need (and has no idea how to get rid of).

This proposal was about promoting more the wiki itself (not customization tools) and empowering the user that will deploy it so that he can provide an optimum experience to his users. We can`t really do much for the variety of use cases and users out there that might be using XWiki, but the admin can (*if he is able to*, and this is what this proposal is pushing for).

The Dashboard is nice, no argument there, but it is just *a tool*, among others, that the admin could choose to use or not.

Still, this is currently just one proposal amongst others [1].

Thanks, Eduard

---------- [1] http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageProposals

> > Thanks, > Anca > > > > > > Thanks, > > Eduard > > > > [1] http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageUseCases > > > > > > > In this case, we > > > improve the way we modify this dashboard, to allow people to change the > > > "default" overview which guides the user through the wiki with an > > overview > > > that is more adapted to the user's usecase. > > > 2/ we change the homepage and we remove the dashboard from it and > > implement > > > an overview of the wiki differently (which would still be a dashboard > at > > > the conceptual level but implemented differently). In this case, the > > > Dashboard.WebHome should be removed completely from the menu, because > the > > > dashboard _is_ the home page (see my remark above) :) . We can make the > > > homepage a regular page so that users can edit it very easily by > default, > > > but we also allow them to easily make it a dashboard with gadgets and > > drag > > > & drop, so that they can organize their content. I am thinking for > > example > > > of a button on the homepage, in view mode injected with javascript or > UI > > > extension or I don't know, which runs a script that creates a new > version > > > of the homepage which contains a dashboard macro call and a default > > gadget > > > and the user is taken to the edit mode of the homepage, with the > > dashboard > > > editor in it. > > > > > > The only reason why the dashboard is separate now, in > Dashboard.WebHome, > > is > > > for legacy reasons, because it used to be included as the homepage of > all > > > sort of default spaces, so we needed something that can be re-used for > > > spaces homes as well. Otherwise, from my point of view, it does not > need > > to > > > be a separate entity. I mean, one should be able to create as many > > > dashboards as they'd want (on any page they want), but by default the > > > dashboard of the wiki is only one, the homepage of the wiki. > > > > > > Anca > > > > > > On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 3:23 PM, [email protected] < > [email protected]> > > > wrote: > > > > > > > Hi devs, > > > > > > > > As you know I started working on a Home Page Application, see: > > > > - JIRA with screenshots: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-10586 > > > > - Discussion thread: http://markmail.org/message/ghelufamwucog46x > > > > > > > > I have it all done locally but I refrained from committing it because > > on > > > > the email thread some expressed their doubts. > > > > > > > > I started thinking about it and I expressed some idea in the thread > > > > started by Caty about "Wiki - Space - Page concepts pitch": > > > > http://markmail.org/message/jefze7nvprz36pkw > > > > > > > > I’m pasting it here again for discussion (with some edits): > > > > > > > > " > > > > BTW concerning the home page, I’m more and more leaning towards > > removing > > > > the dashboard from it (it’s accessible from the App panel anyway) and > > > > instead have it contain: > > > > - explanation about how the wiki is organized (wikis, spaces, pages) > > > > - explanation about base concepts (editing, saving, etc) > > > > - encourage the user to edit this home page to make it his own and > put > > > the > > > > content he wishes instead > > > > > > > > I think this would solve the following issues: > > > > - users always want to customize the home page and this makes it easy > > > > (it’s a standard page, no dashboard). This is also a way for them to > > take > > > > ownership of the wiki as theirs. > > > > - explains the main concepts of wiki, space, page > > > > > > > > Of course, we also need to provide a navigation panel for easy > > navigation > > > > in the wiki/spaces/pages. > > > > “ > > > > > > > > If we agree about the idea of removing the dashboard and instead > have a > > > > simple page then we’ll need to discuss the exact content and for that > > I’m > > > > proposing to discuss with Caty/GuillaumeD and make a proposal for > > further > > > > discussion. Of course any idea in reply to this email would also be > > much > > > > appreciated. > > > > > > > > But first things first! We first need to decide if this is a good > idea > > or > > > > not. > > > > > > > > WDYT? > > > > > > > > Thanks > > > > -Vincent > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > devs mailing list > > > > [email protected] > > > > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > devs mailing list > > > [email protected] > > > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > devs mailing list > > [email protected] > > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > > > _______________________________________________ > devs mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs > _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

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Hi Anca, On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 8:47 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

Hi Edi,

I sort of understand from this mail that you think I am "defending" the dashboard on the homepage. I cannot figure out how you got that idea.

The only thing I was saying in the previous mail is that 2 dashboards by default don't make sense for me, because dashboard means to me overview and I think we should rather make it easy for users to turn their homepage in a proper overview rather than have 2 overviews. Because if we have the dashboard separately (as today), then the Alices will create on the homepage their own overview of the wiki, and then Bob, Billy and Bogdan will have 2 of them. This is not necessarily bad, to be able to have multiple dashboards, because you can imagine multiple facets of the same wiki, but I think for a default wiki user is confusing (seeing the homepage which is an overview and having a link on the right that takes to an overview).

When I said that the 2 personas need to be analyzed together it was more about what kind of customization we promote to the admin (Alice). E.g. explaining as a generic thing that they could include another page and they could customize could be too generic for the need of Alice, which is to create a proper welcome page for the B-boys. If we knew / decided on what is a proper welcome page for the B-boys, then we could make a choice about how to allow Alice to take ownership, encourage editing, etc AND, in addition, go towards the "users oriented homepage".

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 3:32 PM, Eduard Moraru <[email protected]> wrote:

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Hi Anca,

On Tue, Oct 21, 2014 at 12:38 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

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Hello Edi,

On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 12:34 PM, Eduard Moraru <[email protected]> wrote:

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On Fri, Oct 17, 2014 at 7:26 PM, Anca Luca <[email protected]> wrote:

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Hello all,

so on the topic of "removing the dashboard from the homepage" and if people need it they can access it independently.

In my opinion, this dashboard does not really exist or have any value beyond the homepage. I mean, what does it mean, what is it used for besides the homepage? What would the dashboard be used other than having an overview of the wiki? And if people remove it from the homepage of the wiki, what would they put instead? An overview of the wiki? Isn't that what dashboard means?

The idea of this proposal was that the homepage should be customized by the admin. It should be a homepage. Instead of a Dashboard, it should contain information about the purpose of the wiki, information for newcomers, information about the organization, some video, etc. All of this we plan to encourage the admins to customize so that they "take ownership" of their wiki instead of seeing it as just a tool with default settings. Some may see disadvantages to this, and prefer default tools, but others may see the value of getting the user/admin involved.

The Dashboard should be seen as a place to go to in order to see what is going on. Dashboards in the wild also tend to be customizable per users (we technically support that as well, but it could be improved, i.e. have a default user dashboard in the 'My dashboard' section in the user profile instead of the empty space that is right now in view mode, promote it more, etc.). They also tend to be used by more technical people

Once the admin is involved and now aware of how to do things, he can easily include the dashboard on the homepage if that is his view on the purpose of his wiki. We can even propose it in the default content of the homepage.

What you choose depends a lot on the usecase you have for your wiki, i.e. what flavor you`re using. For example, a dashboard is good for intranet/groupware but not that good for public websites. We are considering here what we want the default experience to offer/encourage and maybe we should not really focus on/be influenced by any of the flavors/use cases we are having in mind.

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By this logic, I would find it strange to have a homepage and a

dashboard,

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as 2 separate entities, because for me they would mean the same thing. So multiple possibilities: 1/ our _default_ dashboard displayed on the homepage (included or not, I don't care) is not good enough because it does not offer a good _default_ overview of the wiki. We need to change the dashboard.

This is not part of the use cases [1] extracted from previous discussions. Are you proposing that we add "offer a good overview of the wiki" as a new use case/goal or is this just a rewording of UC5 (navigation) ?

That would be proposal 1 here:

http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageProposal1Keepcurrent... rather than a UC.

Since I don't know anymore what this mail is about and I am sure we're gonna get lost in details, here is my proposal (corresponsad to by option 2) expressed in the initial mail):

This thread is about Proposal3: Simplified Home Page, as the subject of the OP suggests. It would be awesome if we could keep discussions on topic for the future, on their separate threads. It's already hard to manage as it is, but no harm done.

* By default the home page is a regular wiki page, with some text in it, that demonstrates all the features of the wiki, something like a Sandbox webhome. This should cover a couple of the usecases for Alice admin that needs to understand how wiki works. Also, she will be able to edit the homepage like a regular page. * Next to the edit button of this page, we add a button with an UIExtension which will say: "Turn this homepage in a dashboard with gadgets". Upon click, we open a wizard where we explain a bit what's gonna happen **and also that history rollback can always be used to fix whatever we might have done**. The wizard will put a dashboard macro on the homepage, force the default edit mode to be inline, add a couple of gadgets already (some of the most used, etc) and will take the admin back to edit mode of this page, which she will customize as she pleases. * There is no link to a dashboard in the menu, the dashboard on Dashboard.WebHome does not exist anymore. The homepage will be a dashboard itself (and not include a dashboard).

Thanks! Adding your proposal to the http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageProposals list.

Ideally, the way I see this used is that when the admin is done experimenting and has full ownership, they will click this dashboard button and create a dashboard for the wiki to give to B users. Why dashboard and not any other thing, like a page include or free text? Mainly because I think the dashboard is an interesting usecase for the users (B), with the proper gadgets available, of course, and directing the Admin A towards that usecase could help noob admins that don't want to understand all the concepts of the wiki to have a nice homepage.

Indeed, whatever we go with, we need to be careful not to bother lazy admins too much.

I just thought of another quite frequent usecase for the homepage for the users B, which is the homepage of an application (when the wiki is fully dedicated to an application).

Sounds a lot like "UC4: (optional) The user needs to be able to easily set an application as his homepage (i.e. use a dashboard, user directory, etc.; mostly the case for subwikis)"

I think this should be a preference setting for admin A, not an include. As in, the Main.WebHome will not include the other application homepage, but the wiki will actually land on a different page when accessed. This configuration could be done in the preferences of the wiki. The case of including pages in the home could be limiting for the panels or space specific skin (if the application has specific panels, like the blog, then the same panels would need to be configured on the whole wiki in order for the usecase "land directly in application blog" to be fulfilled). This would mean

http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageProposal4Setthispage... . Note that this proposal does not collide with the proposal I made above about the dashboard.

I agree about Proposal 4 that it can also be seen as a new feature to be implemented in the future that can be done independently on what we choose for the default homepage approach. Added this note on the proposal's analysis page. Thanks, Eduard

Thanks, Anca

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I need to think a little more about this in order to make a complete answer, but I read the list of usecases and I remarked one thing:

In all UC1 to UC5, I think your "user" is more of an "admin" than a

user. I

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see the following flow in working with a wiki: Alice downloads the wiki and plays around with it locally, tests it and checks its features. Then, she is convinced by the tool and decides to move this to the next level and install the wiki on a server (or get it installed) so that she can collaborate with her colleagues, Bob, Billy and Bogdan. To me Alice is not a user, she's more like a wiki admin. Then when the wiki is installed on the server, the three B boys are the users and Alice might become a user as well, or might always stay a little more admin. When she moves from her private tests to a public tool, Alice prepares the homepage of the wiki so that it matches the purpose of the wiki and the B boys. Alice will need to "UC3: The user needs to be able to easily replace the home page with his content" but the B boys won't.

I think you`ve perfectly described what we want to do with the homepage (*in this proposal*), and yes, the user we are interested in in this case is the admin (Alice) that we want to encourage to take ownership of the wiki she is going to present to the wiki's users (B-boys) instead of offering them a vanilla "Untitled Document" experience :)

I think that the admin (Alice) homepage needs cannot be analysed

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independently from the user (Bob, Billy and Bogdan) homepage needs, because we risk to provide the admin with customization tools that they will never need because the user will never need such a customization.

In a way, that is exactly what the Dashboard is doing: it is *a tool* that the user is presented with by default and which he might not need (and has no idea how to get rid of).

This proposal was about promoting more the wiki itself (not customization tools) and empowering the user that will deploy it so that he can provide an optimum experience to his users. We can`t really do much for the variety of use cases and users out there that might be using XWiki, but the admin can (*if he is able to*, and this is what this proposal is pushing for).

The Dashboard is nice, no argument there, but it is just *a tool*, among others, that the admin could choose to use or not.

Still, this is currently just one proposal amongst others [1].

Thanks, Eduard

---------- [1] http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageProposals

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Thanks, Anca

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Thanks, Eduard

[1] http://design.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Proposal/HomepageUseCases

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In this case, we improve the way we modify this dashboard, to allow people to change

the

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"default" overview which guides the user through the wiki with an overview that is more adapted to the user's usecase. 2/ we change the homepage and we remove the dashboard from it and implement an overview of the wiki differently (which would still be a dashboard at the conceptual level but implemented differently). In this case, the Dashboard.WebHome should be removed completely from the menu, because the dashboard _is_ the home page (see my remark above) :) . We can make the homepage a regular page so that users can edit it very easily by default, but we also allow them to easily make it a dashboard with gadgets and drag & drop, so that they can organize their content. I am thinking for example of a button on the homepage, in view mode injected with javascript or UI extension or I don't know, which runs a script that creates a new version of the homepage which contains a dashboard macro call and a default gadget and the user is taken to the edit mode of the homepage, with the dashboard editor in it.

The only reason why the dashboard is separate now, in Dashboard.WebHome, is for legacy reasons, because it used to be included as the homepage of all sort of default spaces, so we needed something that can be re-used for spaces homes as well. Otherwise, from my point of view, it does not need to be a separate entity. I mean, one should be able to create as many dashboards as they'd want (on any page they want), but by default the dashboard of the wiki is only one, the homepage of the wiki.

Anca

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 3:23 PM, [email protected] < [email protected]> wrote:

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Hi devs,

As you know I started working on a Home Page Application, see: - JIRA with screenshots: http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-10586 - Discussion thread: http://markmail.org/message/ghelufamwucog46x

I have it all done locally but I refrained from committing it because on the email thread some expressed their doubts.

I started thinking about it and I expressed some idea in the thread started by Caty about "Wiki - Space - Page concepts pitch": http://markmail.org/message/jefze7nvprz36pkw

I’m pasting it here again for discussion (with some edits):

" BTW concerning the home page, I’m more and more leaning towards removing the dashboard from it (it’s accessible from the App panel anyway) and instead have it contain: - explanation about how the wiki is organized (wikis, spaces, pages) - explanation about base concepts (editing, saving, etc) - encourage the user to edit this home page to make it his own and put the content he wishes instead

I think this would solve the following issues: - users always want to customize the home page and this makes it easy (it’s a standard page, no dashboard). This is also a way for them to take ownership of the wiki as theirs. - explains the main concepts of wiki, space, page

Of course, we also need to provide a navigation panel for easy navigation in the wiki/spaces/pages. “

If we agree about the idea of removing the dashboard and instead have a simple page then we’ll need to discuss the exact content and for that I’m proposing to discuss with Caty/GuillaumeD and make a proposal for further discussion. Of course any idea in reply to this email would also be much appreciated.

But first things first! We first need to decide if this is a good idea or not.

WDYT?

Thanks -Vincent _______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

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_______________________________________________ devs mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs

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