06 January 2011, 5:02

;)

A challenge for you Mike... Actually admins can also create  Site skins. So, actually we have: Themes, Site Skins and User Skins.

Regards, Gregor

06 January 2011, 10:37

Hmm. Is a Site Skin any different from a Theme, aside from the process of authorship? If not, I would suggest just calling it a Site Theme. I don't suppose the end user would be much bothered by how the theme was created?

I should probably wait until I have seen the feature properly before commenting :)

06 January 2011, 15:28

Hello,

Actually, themes can also apply to only one view / page. A site can have a theme, but a user can still choose to have another theme show up when somebody views their portfolio.

Maybe, especially if skins can go into core, we can merge themes and skins? I don't know if that is possible / advisable from a dev point of view, but it would avoid confusing on the user side. There could be built-in skins (the current themes), user-created skins and institution skins (institution themes and skins).

Cheers

Kristina

06 January 2011, 17:48

One of the ui recommendations we've had for 1.4 (which I agree with) is to turn off the 'users can choose view themes' and 'small headers' options by default. Skins are a much better way to customise the look of individual views, because they don't mess with the site header.  Once skins are in, my preference would be to phase out the 'users can choose view themes' option altogether in the following release.

05 January 2011, 21:36

Very well done!

Would love to see this in a 1.4 even before changes to menu system etc as our users get the views concept and are asking why they can't make it nice as they could in Wordpress-I know different tools but that's the questions they ask.

06 January 2011, 2:52

Thank you, Dirk. Thumbs up...

Regards, Gregor

12 January 2011, 20:35

I also agree that  skins matter a lot, particularly to younger users. Sorry I have entered this discussion late (after a mainly computer free December) but all these issues have been discussed so well by everyone. Terminology in navigation does matter a lot, and I realise familiarity also makes the complex seem very simple sometimes. I refer to terms such as View. I know it and love it and feel regret at its passing, BUT on reflection  I also realise that every new group I speak to has no idea what it means. I usually resort to - its like a web page i.e. page.

Looking through our site at the main mistakes/complaints of our users I find the following -

Profile - often used as an (entire) portfolio in entirety, rather than a profile. I like the term profile, but  I have often thought it should be an 'about me' page.

Views - often views are built in the 'Edit title and description'  section rather than in edit content and layout. The new navigation should fix this.

Overall I think the new navigation looks great, but I will still mourn the passing of views! The focus on usability is really important, critical even, but just a final word on functionality as well.  Every upgrade is a stressful time because we worry about what new bugs will emerge. A critical one has been published (secret URL) views not being accessible (e.g. &login bug). Another the text box resize issue. Direct image upload is more of a wishlist item not a bug, but very much a usability issue that is constantly raised by students. We know what these regular bugs are, it would be great to get rid of the 'buggers'  for once and for all.

Cheers, Ian

18 January 2011, 21:54

Hi Ian,

If you can link to the issues you describe on the Mahara bug tracker (have they been reported there?), I'll make sure they are scheduled to be fixed before 1.4 is released.

Cheers,

Francois

20 January 2011, 16:42

Hello Ian,

Thanks for your feedback. I've also seen on portfolios when people have questions that they choose to put everything on their profile instead of creating different views. Maybe that's the influence of social networking sites where you only have one "page" to present yourself.

On the language view vs. page: You could create your own language file and continue using "views". You could offer this to your FolioSpaces users as a choice in the language drop-down menu: "English using Pages" and "English using Views".

Cheers

Kristina

17 December 2010, 19:56

Hi Kristina,

First thoughts;

I would prefer 'Manage' rather than 'Create' as this makes it clear that creating can take place outside of Mahara.

I'm not convinced on the change from 'Views' to 'Pages'. A page (whether it be physical in a book or web) tends to suggest a fixed set of objects, only used on that page. View emphasizes  that it is a method of looking at objects, like a window.

Andy