06 October 2009, 13:19

I agree about the access.  But what we're really saying is that we want a quick ability to see critical information like access and pages without having to go into edit mode.  But we don't always want to see all of it ... and we don't always want to see all of it for every site.  This implies we need to carefully look at layering the information.  If 40 sites are likely, that just reinforces my point.

I would point out that we don't need one huge explorer control per se, but ostensibly only for within each site.

Also, it's not a problem to have an edit mode for the screen or for a portion within the screen (in this instance, perhaps a given site hierarchy) ... that's a lot easier concept than two separate main navigation points ... when do I go to which for what?  It's intuitive to find the "thing" you want to edit and on the "thing" or list of such "things" to find an edit button or link ;-) 

We need to be careful though, in that the site is fairly consistent that there are edit, add, and delete links ... so we need to balance some consistency in appearance and operation.  That doesn't mean we can't break consistency ... but when you do it should be either (a) of necessity or (b) more intuitive than if we kept consistency.  Sometime consistency actually can cause a far more confusing design for a given screen ;-)

Let me ponder and sketch an alternative(s).

06 October 2009, 17:16

The reason for wanting one huge explorer screen, is to make moving pages between sites easier . The idea being that moving files between folders is a very similar operation. But if you can think of a sneaky way to achieve something similar, then that would be great!

Looking forward to the sketches  

01 December 2009, 5:22

Hi Ray

This theme is pretty awesome Is this theme ready for release for v1.2? Or is it still in early stages of development?

 Cheers

Ali.

01 October 2009, 4:34

Hello,

Thank you very much for your feature suggestions, Penny, and the resulting discussion. In general, I find the suggestions very useful and they will allow students to work more flexible with their portfolio. In my comments I will try to keep the discussion in mind and not repeat what has already been stated, but only add my impressions where I agree strongly / differ / wish to make a statement beyond what has been written down already.

Multipage Views

Your feature, Penny, goes way beyond what I had suggested with the view sorting and it is more elegant.

I quite like the concept of differentiating between artefacts that first need to be in Mahara (My Files, My Blogs etc.) and views in which the artefacts are only displayed but not created. This distinction is very good to explain to the students and it makes it easy to understand that anything you upload or write in a blog on Mahara can be used in any view. Thus, I would like to keep the word "View" somewhere and not go entirely to regular web site terminology of "Site" and "Pages". As your initial wiki title says: multipage views and as Ray also suggests.

I agree with Ray that granting access should be kept simple and be down per view / site and not the subpage. Otherwise it could be rather confusing for the students and they would get lost.

Being able to re-order pages within a view is extremely useful and necessary to avoid long titles in which students try to create an order by using numbers or the alphabet as they have to do currently. If I read correctly, views can also be sorted, right?

Having the "gentle reminder" that a page is shared and changes will also be visible on the other sites is necessary for the reasons Ray stated. We intend to use Mahara with our students for 4 years and that's a long time to remember things. Furthermore, they may continue working with it...

I would be in favor of having a "sitemap" where I can see in which views which pages are. That way it would be easier, I think, to decide whether to leave the structure as it is or whether I should make changes to my views and maybe even create a new one with a set of pages that I did not see emerging earlier.

Site and institution tags

@Mark: You may not have seen yet that Richard completed the tag search for individual tags. This feature will already be available in version 1.2and can be expanded for the site and institution tags.

Having pre-defined site / institution tags cannot only help in the portfolio work at that level, but also users who are new to tagging. They could start with these tags and later add their own.

Nigel raises an important issue that I also wanted to mention: "ponies" may have a different meaning on site level than on individual level. Thus, converting user tags into site tags when the name matches or converting institutional tags into user tags when the institutional tag is deleted may not be ideal unless the meanings match.

This brings us to the question of whether the tags should have a meaning / description attached like in semantic tagging, e.g. http://zigtag.com

If an institutional tag matches a user tag, the user could be made aware of that fact and be asked if he agrees with the description. Only then wil lthe tag be converted into an institutional tag. I am not sure though, as this would involve knowledge of tagging, if that is a good workflow or demands too much of the default user.

Text block

In general, I very much like the idea of making text blocks available across views and caling them notes and being able to add images etc. in them. 

Mark commented on adding attachments to the text block and how cumbersome it is for a blog post. I like how WordPress handles that procedure: You can either upload a file in the Media Library beforehand or click on the media icon while you edit a blog post and then either choose a file / URL or upload a file immediately to place it in your post or just in your library. And multiple files can be uploaded immediately (true: only for the flash upload).

I agree with Nigel that tons of very short notes may be difficult to manage as they are missing their context. Currently, as the text block is not transferable to another view, we use it mainly only to add short descriptions to YouTube videos etc., but I advise the students not to use it for a reflection (which should go into a blog post or if it is very long, a file) as it is lost if they delete the block.

The notes could get tags which would allow for some way of finding them and giving them some context. Furthermore, maybe there could be a "note browser" in which students can see where they used that note. But that could then actually go for any artefact.

As I mentioned useing the text block for brief annotations for external videos, would it be possible to include a description field in the external video block in case somebody wants to write something short there?

Kristina

01 October 2009, 11:25

At the risk of sounding too contrarian, I'll add a couple of my thoughts on tags and notes.

Tags

I would emphasize Nigel's comment that some sites use the multiple institution membership option.  So how do you distinguish between an instituion wanting certain tags for certain things, but some things are not associated with that institution and shouldn't be forced?  Especially if they have competing meanings for the same tag.

I confess I can't think of a solution to propose, except perhaps the thoroughly inadequate idea that an institution can't require tags if we're in multi-institution configuration.  That with two settings that allow us to configure whether the institutions tags are either (1) optional or (2) mandatory ... AND ... whether the institution tags (1) are the only option - no personal tags or (2) offered in addition to personal tags.

Notes

The word "notes" implies a common construct (mental model) that is not the same as you are proposing (if I understand the proposed change correctly).  I take notes about and during a subject, class.  I take notes about and during an event or meeting.  I take notes about what I am reading or studying.  I take notes how to operate the View construction screen or how to enter my resume into Mahara.  I take notes about the how well a student is performing at a given time. 

So I seriously caution your use of "My Notes" in the context of what I believe to be your intended purpose ... which is a sub-assembly (custom block) for use on a number of views / view pages.  As soon as you say "My Notes" a substantial number of users will be expecting something far different than what is there.  Although I know this can easily be changed in the language file (like web site versus view) ... but I'd caution you to consider something like "My Web Construction Blocks" or "Custom Blocks" with a nice description at the top of the listing that says this is for making blocks for use on your web/view pages.  This however, will cause task / best practice confusion with some users who might put things there that should be in other portfolio areas using the artefacts.  So maybe it really belongs there ... titled something more like ... custom artefact?  My intuition cringes because it's really associated with web/view construction.  Could you add it as an option (tab) in the blocktype options ... "Custom" tab?  Then under that tab it has buttons to create a new one, delete and edit them.  Allows users to drag and drop it onto the page their constructing, etc.  This way we avoid the need for another major navigation element for something that maybe is only contextually relevant to views?  If you detect doubt in my writing its because I'm not convinced of any of these ideas as yet ... I'm brainstorming ideas ... not able to propose a solution as yet.

I'd be interested to know if the result of this project will be a common, generic file upload and attachment mechanism for any/all artefacts.  For our LeaderTracker PathPlan artefact I had to mimic the file upload code in the blog/post artefact.  Perhaps that was a common, generic mechanism and I simply didn't realize it at the time.

10 May 2010, 7:29

Hey folks,

At the time that this was raised I had a potential funding source to make this work occur, in particular the multipage views work, but unfortunately it fell through, the conversations stopped, and that's where we stand.

It seems a shame that so much good analysis went into this and yet the lack of funds has made it stall, particularly when the desire for multi-page views is the single thing that I can be guaranteed I will hear about when I show Mahara to a potential client. The lack of this feature has made one Uni client discount Mahara completely from its evaluation, which means less income for the Mahara project in the long run...

With that in mind, I'm wondering if there is any chance that this change is going to get bumped up the development roadmap, and if partial funding could assist in getting it moving quicker?

Discussions welcome,

Mark.

10 May 2010, 11:35

Hi Mark

While not the ambitious architectural level solution that has been discussed in this thread there is a development targeted for 1.3 that will answer some of the multi-page view use cases that have been encountered.

What's being developed is a navigation block that essentially automates several of the steps being performed by users who are currently setting up hand made menus in text/html boxes. See "Best practice example - multi-page view" on page 99 of Mahara 1.2 ePortfolios: Beginner's Guide for a good example of this practice.

The feature will allow the user to create a collection* of views, where views can be added and ranked. The user will then be able to drag a navigation block into each view which will display this collection as a series of (theme-able) links - thus allowing the creation of a linked set of views which contain a common menu.

In addition to this, there will be a mechanism to apply the same access permissions to each view within the collection - to save having to go into each successive view and ensure everything is synced up. There's an unresolved issue here of what happens if a view is in multiple collections - which might be solved if we simply limit a view to being in only one collection at a time.

The aim here is to add a feature that will solve some people's immediate work flow hassles while not interfering with the work flows of users who have no need for it. It is a pretty basic answer and does not create proper multi-page views, and not the fundamental architectural level solution Penny was aiming for here, but it's something achievable quickly and will hopefully make life a little easier for people wanting to set up basic navigation between views.

* appropriate name still to be finalised

10 May 2010, 19:39

Hi David,

Great news! True, while it might not be the 'Rolls Royce' solution that was proposed earlier, if it provides a solution that is workable then I'm all for it, and it will be great to let some current (and potential) clients know that it is on the horizon.

Next questions then - how far off is 1.3, how likely is it that this feature will be included, and how can the community help make it happen (and if its money, then how much is needed to accelerate this)?

Best Mahara news I've heard this year :)

Mark.

11 May 2010, 9:01

This feature is generously being funded by Birmingham City University.  That will cover "phase 1", although I'm sure there will be ideas for enhancements that will need funding down the line.

In terms of how the community can help in the short term I'm sure there will be a spec posted on the wiki sometime soon for which feedback will be welcome.  I will post back here when that happens.  The key features are pretty much decided as above but the interface to deliver it has not been finalised yet.

I am not sure exactly when 1.3 is due myself.

29 June 2010, 21:12

Hi David,

Just wondering if there is any progress on this development. I'm presenting on the future directions of Mahara at www.moodlemoot.org.au in a couple of weeks and I'd love to show some mock ups of this, unless of course a demo site is up with the new code included so I can show off the real thing...

Any help welcome :)

Mark.