[xwiki-users] Idea collection minimal xwiki configuration
Hi Users, After some mails with Vincent and Scott the idea was born to make a strip-down-xwiki guide. The reason for this is the fact that for a lot of novice users, xwiki seems at the first glance to complex to handle. By making a strip-down Guide we hope to make Xwiki more accessible for a broader audience, and thus generate more users worldwide. In order to make this strip-down Guide as complete as possible, I would like to ask all of you to post your thoughts and ideas on this. For starters, here are mine, if they are allready easily solved, let me know: -Make the search function easier to adapt. For instance, I have multiple spaces, and i want that the search function only searches in certain, predifened spaces and shows the results within the space the search was started from. -An easy way to create a template so that users cannot copy paste in whatever form and shape they want, but it shows a line where they can type in the header, and below the content. All in the same style. -An easy way to show-hide the comments box on the bottom of the page. At the moment I use a solution where I include a document with the script to do this in, in every page. This should be dealt with globally, and possible for people without a lot of programming knowledge. -The sandgrains work, but not from one space to another, at the moment I use the include Makro to maintain my saindgrain navigation intact, but it would be far easier if documents from other spaces where I link to, adapt the parent from the space where I started from. -The Logo has a predefined link to the main wiki, which causes endusers in a space, when they click on this, to get to the main wiki page, and it confuses them. I would like an easy way (not by editing the global.vm template!) to personalize this. -A wide spread opinion says, that you can just give users rights to certain documents. But if an enduser can see a document, but not open it, the endusers feels as if there are secrets kept from him. I want an easier way to hide these documents completey, but show them to other users who are allowed to see them in the same space. -Expand and collaps user generated panels If I create panels, their initial state is allways open, I can close them, but when I go to anothere page, it shows the panels open again. Is it possible to make check box within each panel in the panel wizard that allows me to change this? Many of these points here may seem irrelevant to many of the longtime developers, but a lot of questions within this userlist have to do with the usability. For your understanding, I come from a total different corner then most of you. I come from CM, not from programming. But I think if we can work together on this, Xwiki will gain more users in the end. If anyone sees this different, let me know, lets communicate so I can start working on the Strip down Guide. And to all you programming masterminds out there, keep up the great work, it made Xwiki to that what is today, thank you so much for all the efforts. With Kind regards, Wouter
Hi, On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 12:04, Wouter de Vos <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Users,
After some mails with Vincent and Scott the idea was born to make a strip-down-xwiki guide. The reason for this is the fact that for a lot of novice users, xwiki seems at the first glance to complex to handle. By making a strip-down Guide we hope to make Xwiki more accessible for a broader audience, and thus generate more users worldwide.
I think this relates to an older XWiki Flavors idea http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-356 where XWiki should adapt and serve just a specific need*: - Public Website; - CMS; - Simple Wiki; - Structured Wiki; - Advanced Enterprise Wiki; - Dev Platform; - Administrable System. * categories provided by Sergiu Dumitriu What would be interesting regarding this topic is that each one responding to this mail should select a category where he fits and talk about the configuration, features he needs in order for XWiki to be the perfect tool for that case.
In order to make this strip-down Guide as complete as possible, I would like to ask all of you to post your thoughts and ideas on this. For starters, here are mine, if they are allready easily solved, let me know:
-Make the search function easier to adapt. For instance, I have multiple spaces, and i want that the search function only searches in certain, predifened spaces and shows the results within the space the search was started from.
Could be resolved by having an "advanced search" tool based on filters.
-An easy way to create a template so that users cannot copy paste in whatever form and shape they want, but it shows a line where they can type in the header, and below the content. All in the same style.
http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Features/Forms ?
-An easy way to show-hide the comments box on the bottom of the page. At the moment I use a solution where I include a document with the script to do this in, in every page. This should be dealt with globally, and possible for people without a lot of programming knowledge.
Hide the entire comment tab or just the box? http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XAADMINISTRATION-239
-The sandgrains work, but not from one space to another, at the moment I use the include Makro to maintain my saindgrain navigation intact, but it would be far easier if documents from other spaces where I link to, adapt the parent from the space where I started from.
Not sure what you are talking about: backlinks mechanism? breadcrumbs? page parent?
-The Logo has a predefined link to the main wiki, which causes endusers in a space, when they click on this, to get to the main wiki page, and it confuses them. I would like an easy way (not by editing the global.vm template!) to personalize this.
Having the logo point to the homepage is a well known, globally used pattern http://www.welie.com/patterns/showPattern.php?patternID=home . I wouldn't want to change that.
-A wide spread opinion says, that you can just give users rights to certain documents. But if an enduser can see a document, but not open it, the endusers feels as if there are secrets kept from him. I want an easier way to hide these documents completey, but show them to other users who are allowed to see them in the same space.
Yes, this could be improved.
-Expand and collaps user generated panels If I create panels, their initial state is allways open, I can close them, but when I go to anothere page, it shows the panels open again. Is it possible to make check box within each panel in the panel wizard that allows me to change this?
This depends on the situation. Maybe it should remember the state if expanding is allowed, but actually I think panels should be better integrated in the skin (not with such an independent feel) and be more related to the content (having this way no need to collapse them).
Many of these points here may seem irrelevant to many of the longtime developers, but a lot of questions within this userlist have to do with the usability.
I think that the problems you mentioned are just specific use cases and do not actually creates a minimal list of things that can be configurable and selected within XWiki. I would rather be interested in the things you use and could be part of the configuration. Thanks, Caty
For your understanding, I come from a total different corner then most of you. I come from CM, not from programming. But I think if we can work together on this, Xwiki will gain more users in the end. If anyone sees this different, let me know, lets communicate so I can start working on the Strip down Guide. And to all you programming masterminds out there, keep up the great work, it made Xwiki to that what is today, thank you so much for all the efforts.
With Kind regards,
Wouter _______________________________________________ users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
On Sep 8, 2011, at 3:15 PM, Ecaterina Moraru (Valica) wrote:
Hi,
On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 12:04, Wouter de Vos <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Users,
After some mails with Vincent and Scott the idea was born to make a strip-down-xwiki guide. The reason for this is the fact that for a lot of novice users, xwiki seems at the first glance to complex to handle. By making a strip-down Guide we hope to make Xwiki more accessible for a broader audience, and thus generate more users worldwide.
I think this relates to an older XWiki Flavors idea http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XWIKI-356 where XWiki should adapt and serve just a specific need*: - Public Website; - CMS; - Simple Wiki; - Structured Wiki; - Advanced Enterprise Wiki; - Dev Platform; - Administrable System. * categories provided by Sergiu Dumitriu
This notion of flavors is going to become possible/interesting as soon as we have our Extension Manager working. My vision is that XE would be relatively empty by default with a minimal set of extensions installed and when started for the first time, the user will get shown flavors to pick (a flavor is simply a predefined set of extensions), which the ability to not choose a flavor and instead hand-pick the list of extensions to install. Note that flavors should be defined as extensions (they are simple extensions having dependencies on other extensions) and as such the community will be able to publish flavors on extensions.xwiki.org and these flavors would get available when starting xwiki for the first time. Thanks -Vincent
What would be interesting regarding this topic is that each one responding to this mail should select a category where he fits and talk about the configuration, features he needs in order for XWiki to be the perfect tool for that case.
In order to make this strip-down Guide as complete as possible, I would like to ask all of you to post your thoughts and ideas on this. For starters, here are mine, if they are allready easily solved, let me know:
-Make the search function easier to adapt. For instance, I have multiple spaces, and i want that the search function only searches in certain, predifened spaces and shows the results within the space the search was started from.
Could be resolved by having an "advanced search" tool based on filters.
-An easy way to create a template so that users cannot copy paste in whatever form and shape they want, but it shows a line where they can type in the header, and below the content. All in the same style.
http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Features/Forms ?
-An easy way to show-hide the comments box on the bottom of the page. At the moment I use a solution where I include a document with the script to do this in, in every page. This should be dealt with globally, and possible for people without a lot of programming knowledge.
Hide the entire comment tab or just the box? http://jira.xwiki.org/browse/XAADMINISTRATION-239
-The sandgrains work, but not from one space to another, at the moment I use the include Makro to maintain my saindgrain navigation intact, but it would be far easier if documents from other spaces where I link to, adapt the parent from the space where I started from.
Not sure what you are talking about: backlinks mechanism? breadcrumbs? page parent?
-The Logo has a predefined link to the main wiki, which causes endusers in a space, when they click on this, to get to the main wiki page, and it confuses them. I would like an easy way (not by editing the global.vm template!) to personalize this.
Having the logo point to the homepage is a well known, globally used pattern http://www.welie.com/patterns/showPattern.php?patternID=home . I wouldn't want to change that.
-A wide spread opinion says, that you can just give users rights to certain documents. But if an enduser can see a document, but not open it, the endusers feels as if there are secrets kept from him. I want an easier way to hide these documents completey, but show them to other users who are allowed to see them in the same space.
Yes, this could be improved.
-Expand and collaps user generated panels If I create panels, their initial state is allways open, I can close them, but when I go to anothere page, it shows the panels open again. Is it possible to make check box within each panel in the panel wizard that allows me to change this?
This depends on the situation. Maybe it should remember the state if expanding is allowed, but actually I think panels should be better integrated in the skin (not with such an independent feel) and be more related to the content (having this way no need to collapse them).
Many of these points here may seem irrelevant to many of the longtime developers, but a lot of questions within this userlist have to do with the usability.
I think that the problems you mentioned are just specific use cases and do not actually creates a minimal list of things that can be configurable and selected within XWiki. I would rather be interested in the things you use and could be part of the configuration.
Thanks, Caty
For your understanding, I come from a total different corner then most of you. I come from CM, not from programming. But I think if we can work together on this, Xwiki will gain more users in the end. If anyone sees this different, let me know, lets communicate so I can start working on the Strip down Guide. And to all you programming masterminds out there, keep up the great work, it made Xwiki to that what is today, thank you so much for all the efforts.
With Kind regards,
Wouter
Hi Wouter, On Sep 8, 2011, at 11:04 AM, Wouter de Vos wrote:
Hi Users,
After some mails with Vincent and Scott the idea was born to make a strip-down-xwiki guide. The reason for this is the fact that for a lot of novice users, xwiki seems at the first glance to complex to handle. By making a strip-down Guide we hope to make Xwiki more accessible for a broader audience, and thus generate more users worldwide.
In order to make this strip-down Guide as complete as possible, I would like to ask all of you to post your thoughts and ideas on this. For starters, here are mine, if they are allready easily solved, let me know:
I wasn't expecting this kind of feedback. For me the idea of this thread was to discuss things that the user could want to hide. A lot of what you mention isn't about hiding. Let's take them one by one.
-Make the search function easier to adapt. For instance, I have multiple spaces, and i want that the search function only searches in certain, predifened spaces and shows the results within the space the search was started from.
This isn't about hiding. The search can already filter the spaces to search into (there's a combo box on the search page for that. Can you tell us precisely what doesn't work with the current solution?
-An easy way to create a template so that users cannot copy paste in whatever form and shape they want, but it shows a line where they can type in the header, and below the content. All in the same style.
I'm not sure what you call "template". We already have the notion of page templates, see the Administration application documentation on extensions.xwiki.org.
-An easy way to show-hide the comments box on the bottom of the page. At the moment I use a solution where I include a document with the script to do this in, in every page. This should be dealt with globally, and possible for people without a lot of programming knowledge.
Yes we need this. The solution to this is what Marius is currently working on in the context of App Within Minutes, i.e. the ability to specify for any page what sheet it uses to display its content. Marius can probably elaborate more on this.
-The sandgrains work, but not from one space to another, at the moment I use the include Makro to maintain my saindgrain navigation intact, but it would be far easier if documents from other spaces where I link to, adapt the parent from the space where I started from.
I have no clue what sandgrain means. What is it?
-The Logo has a predefined link to the main wiki,
Not true. It has a link to the current wiki.
which causes endusers in a space, when they click on this, to get to the main wiki page, and it confuses them. I would like an easy way (not by editing the global.vm template!) to personalize this.
I'm not convinced at all by this. I think you might be wanting to use XEM instead of XE since you seem to be using spaces to completely segment projects. Please confirm.
-A wide spread opinion says, that you can just give users rights to certain documents.
I don't understand why you're talking about opinion and widespread. This is well documented.
But if an enduser can see a document, but not open it, the endusers feels as if there are secrets kept from him.
Well that's exactly what it is about! Putting rights so that only some people can see some documents means keeping secrets inside so that others don't see them. Otherwise just use the default right which is wiki-oriented and which allows people to view/edit all documents… ;)
I want an easier way to hide these documents completey, but show them to other users who are allowed to see them in the same space.
Yes. It's a big change to do but we already discussed this in the past and agreed that document names shouldn't be visible when the user doesn't have view rights on the document. There might even be a jira issue about this but I can't find it. You could create a new one so that we remember it.
-Expand and collaps user generated panels If I create panels, their initial state is allways open, I can close them, but when I go to anothere page, it shows the panels open again. Is it possible to make check box within each panel in the panel wizard that allows me to change this?
I thought this was already implemented using cookies but can't find it anymore in the code. Found this in jira: http://jira.xwiki.org/jira/browse/XE-325 http://jira.xwiki.org/jira/browse/XWIKI-1308
Many of these points here may seem irrelevant to many of the longtime developers, but a lot of questions within this userlist have to do with the usability. For your understanding, I come from a total different corner then most of you. I come from CM, not from programming. But I think if we can work together on this, Xwiki will gain more users in the end. If anyone sees this different, let me know, lets communicate so I can start working on the Strip down Guide.
These are interesting questions but I had a different vision for the strip down guide. My idea was only to list ways to hide/remove parts of the default UI. I think what Caty mentioned in her response email s interesting, i.e. defining some flavors precisely in term of both UI and extensions they should contain. Thanks! -Vincent
And to all you programming masterminds out there, keep up the great work, it made Xwiki to that what is today, thank you so much for all the efforts.
With Kind regards,
Wouter
Hi All, First of all thanks for all the replys filled with helpful advices, this is greatly appreciated, I will try out the solutions the next days an post feedback. Second, I must have misunderstood the point, sorry for this, I think Caty was right there first of all stating the points I made where very specific, this is true and does not make any sense to use for a simplify my wiki page. I think the Extensions Manager in XE 3.2 sounds good, since it gives users the choice form scratch to define some complexity., I will Install and try it out ASAP and give feedback. I think it would be good to have examples in the wiki as well, lets take the forms, the page http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Features/Formsexplains how to do this, but it would it not be far easier to have one or two forms already build in, that users can than adapt, personalize, like with the panels? Is this possible or are forms to individual? The flavors idea sounds good, I was not aware of this before, we should look at the needs for each config indeed I believe the categories provided by Sergui suffice. Thanx again for the feedback, I will go and try out all the advices now… Wouter On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 4:51 PM, Vincent Massol <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Wouter,
On Sep 8, 2011, at 11:04 AM, Wouter de Vos wrote:
Hi Users,
After some mails with Vincent and Scott the idea was born to make a strip-down-xwiki guide. The reason for this is the fact that for a lot of novice users, xwiki seems at the first glance to complex to handle. By making a strip-down Guide we hope to make Xwiki more accessible for a broader audience, and thus generate more users worldwide.
In order to make this strip-down Guide as complete as possible, I would like to ask all of you to post your thoughts and ideas on this. For starters, here are mine, if they are allready easily solved, let me know:
I wasn't expecting this kind of feedback. For me the idea of this thread was to discuss things that the user could want to hide. A lot of what you mention isn't about hiding. Let's take them one by one.
-Make the search function easier to adapt. For instance, I have multiple spaces, and i want that the search function only searches in certain, predifened spaces and shows the results within the space the search was started from.
This isn't about hiding. The search can already filter the spaces to search into (there's a combo box on the search page for that. Can you tell us precisely what doesn't work with the current solution?
-An easy way to create a template so that users cannot copy paste in whatever form and shape they want, but it shows a line where they can type in the header, and below the content. All in the same style.
I'm not sure what you call "template".
We already have the notion of page templates, see the Administration application documentation on extensions.xwiki.org.
-An easy way to show-hide the comments box on the bottom of the page. At the moment I use a solution where I include a document with the script to do this in, in every page. This should be dealt with globally, and possible for people without a lot of programming knowledge.
Yes we need this. The solution to this is what Marius is currently working on in the context of App Within Minutes, i.e. the ability to specify for any page what sheet it uses to display its content. Marius can probably elaborate more on this.
-The sandgrains work, but not from one space to another, at the moment I use the include Makro to maintain my saindgrain navigation intact, but it would be far easier if documents from other spaces where I link to, adapt the parent from the space where I started from.
I have no clue what sandgrain means. What is it?
-The Logo has a predefined link to the main wiki,
Not true. It has a link to the current wiki.
which causes endusers in a space, when they click on this, to get to the main wiki page, and it confuses them. I would like an easy way (not by editing the global.vm template!) to personalize this.
I'm not convinced at all by this. I think you might be wanting to use XEM instead of XE since you seem to be using spaces to completely segment projects. Please confirm.
-A wide spread opinion says, that you can just give users rights to certain documents.
I don't understand why you're talking about opinion and widespread. This is well documented.
But if an enduser can see a document, but not open it, the endusers feels as if there are secrets kept from him.
Well that's exactly what it is about! Putting rights so that only some people can see some documents means keeping secrets inside so that others don't see them. Otherwise just use the default right which is wiki-oriented and which allows people to view/edit all documents… ;)
I want an easier way to hide these documents completey, but show them to other users who are allowed to see them in the same space.
Yes. It's a big change to do but we already discussed this in the past and agreed that document names shouldn't be visible when the user doesn't have view rights on the document. There might even be a jira issue about this but I can't find it. You could create a new one so that we remember it.
-Expand and collaps user generated panels If I create panels, their initial state is allways open, I can close them, but when I go to anothere page, it shows the panels open again. Is it possible to make check box within each panel in the panel wizard that allows me to change this?
I thought this was already implemented using cookies but can't find it anymore in the code.
Found this in jira: http://jira.xwiki.org/jira/browse/XE-325 http://jira.xwiki.org/jira/browse/XWIKI-1308
Many of these points here may seem irrelevant to many of the longtime developers, but a lot of questions within this userlist have to do with the usability. For your understanding, I come from a total different corner then most of you. I come from CM, not from programming. But I think if we can work together on this, Xwiki will gain more users in the end. If anyone sees this different, let me know, lets communicate so I can start working on the Strip down Guide.
These are interesting questions but I had a different vision for the strip down guide. My idea was only to list ways to hide/remove parts of the default UI.
I think what Caty mentioned in her response email s interesting, i.e. defining some flavors precisely in term of both UI and extensions they should contain.
Thanks! -Vincent
And to all you programming masterminds out there, keep up the great work, it made Xwiki to that what is today, thank you so much for all the efforts.
With Kind regards,
Wouter
users mailing list [email protected] http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/users
On Sep 11, 2011, at 12:41 PM, Wouter de Vos wrote:
Hi All,
First of all thanks for all the replys filled with helpful advices, this is greatly appreciated, I will try out the solutions the next days an post feedback.
Second, I must have misunderstood the point, sorry for this, I think Caty was right there first of all stating the points I made where very specific, this is true and does not make any sense to use for a simplify my wiki page.
I think the Extensions Manager in XE 3.2 sounds good, since it gives users the choice form scratch to define some complexity., I will Install and try it out ASAP and give feedback.
Thanks that'll be useful for the devs. Just keep in mind that we haven't started working on the UI part (which is planned for 3.3) so the current UI is very very rough but this is "normal"… :) Thanks -Vincent
I think it would be good to have examples in the wiki as well, lets take the forms, the page http://platform.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Features/Formsexplains how to do this, but it would it not be far easier to have one or two forms already build in, that users can than adapt, personalize, like with the panels? Is this possible or are forms to individual?
The flavors idea sounds good, I was not aware of this before, we should look at the needs for each config indeed I believe the categories provided by Sergui suffice.
Thanx again for the feedback, I will go and try out all the advices now…
Wouter
On Fri, Sep 9, 2011 at 4:51 PM, Vincent Massol <[email protected]> wrote:
Hi Wouter,
On Sep 8, 2011, at 11:04 AM, Wouter de Vos wrote:
Hi Users,
After some mails with Vincent and Scott the idea was born to make a strip-down-xwiki guide. The reason for this is the fact that for a lot of novice users, xwiki seems at the first glance to complex to handle. By making a strip-down Guide we hope to make Xwiki more accessible for a broader audience, and thus generate more users worldwide.
In order to make this strip-down Guide as complete as possible, I would like to ask all of you to post your thoughts and ideas on this. For starters, here are mine, if they are allready easily solved, let me know:
I wasn't expecting this kind of feedback. For me the idea of this thread was to discuss things that the user could want to hide. A lot of what you mention isn't about hiding. Let's take them one by one.
-Make the search function easier to adapt. For instance, I have multiple spaces, and i want that the search function only searches in certain, predifened spaces and shows the results within the space the search was started from.
This isn't about hiding. The search can already filter the spaces to search into (there's a combo box on the search page for that. Can you tell us precisely what doesn't work with the current solution?
-An easy way to create a template so that users cannot copy paste in whatever form and shape they want, but it shows a line where they can type in the header, and below the content. All in the same style.
I'm not sure what you call "template".
We already have the notion of page templates, see the Administration application documentation on extensions.xwiki.org.
-An easy way to show-hide the comments box on the bottom of the page. At the moment I use a solution where I include a document with the script to do this in, in every page. This should be dealt with globally, and possible for people without a lot of programming knowledge.
Yes we need this. The solution to this is what Marius is currently working on in the context of App Within Minutes, i.e. the ability to specify for any page what sheet it uses to display its content. Marius can probably elaborate more on this.
-The sandgrains work, but not from one space to another, at the moment I use the include Makro to maintain my saindgrain navigation intact, but it would be far easier if documents from other spaces where I link to, adapt the parent from the space where I started from.
I have no clue what sandgrain means. What is it?
-The Logo has a predefined link to the main wiki,
Not true. It has a link to the current wiki.
which causes endusers in a space, when they click on this, to get to the main wiki page, and it confuses them. I would like an easy way (not by editing the global.vm template!) to personalize this.
I'm not convinced at all by this. I think you might be wanting to use XEM instead of XE since you seem to be using spaces to completely segment projects. Please confirm.
-A wide spread opinion says, that you can just give users rights to certain documents.
I don't understand why you're talking about opinion and widespread. This is well documented.
But if an enduser can see a document, but not open it, the endusers feels as if there are secrets kept from him.
Well that's exactly what it is about! Putting rights so that only some people can see some documents means keeping secrets inside so that others don't see them. Otherwise just use the default right which is wiki-oriented and which allows people to view/edit all documents… ;)
I want an easier way to hide these documents completey, but show them to other users who are allowed to see them in the same space.
Yes. It's a big change to do but we already discussed this in the past and agreed that document names shouldn't be visible when the user doesn't have view rights on the document. There might even be a jira issue about this but I can't find it. You could create a new one so that we remember it.
-Expand and collaps user generated panels If I create panels, their initial state is allways open, I can close them, but when I go to anothere page, it shows the panels open again. Is it possible to make check box within each panel in the panel wizard that allows me to change this?
I thought this was already implemented using cookies but can't find it anymore in the code.
Found this in jira: http://jira.xwiki.org/jira/browse/XE-325 http://jira.xwiki.org/jira/browse/XWIKI-1308
Many of these points here may seem irrelevant to many of the longtime developers, but a lot of questions within this userlist have to do with the usability. For your understanding, I come from a total different corner then most of you. I come from CM, not from programming. But I think if we can work together on this, Xwiki will gain more users in the end. If anyone sees this different, let me know, lets communicate so I can start working on the Strip down Guide.
These are interesting questions but I had a different vision for the strip down guide. My idea was only to list ways to hide/remove parts of the default UI.
I think what Caty mentioned in her response email s interesting, i.e. defining some flavors precisely in term of both UI and extensions they should contain.
Thanks! -Vincent
And to all you programming masterminds out there, keep up the great work, it made Xwiki to that what is today, thank you so much for all the efforts.
With Kind regards,
Wouter
participants (3)
-
Ecaterina Moraru (Valica) -
Vincent Massol -
Wouter de Vos