19 December 2010, 18:26

Hello,

If it's going to be a verb, I'd prefer "Manage" over "Create" because creating blog posts is not even in that tab. And as Andy wrote, the content creation can take place outside of Mahara. That may be true for a lot of times esp. when content is aggregated in a view / page from many online resources.

Cheers

Kristina

19 December 2010, 23:33

To me the following makes sense: Replace all menu items with the terms that are used on the image of the default home page-Three tabs: 'Create and Collect', 'Organize' and 'Share and Network' each with the corresponding sub choices. I think it could be good if after clicking 'Organize' all a user would see is 'Create a new view' 'edit an existing view' and lists of existing views. Lists of existing views could be 'drafts' 'last worked on' and user defined such as 'school x' 'year y' ' subject z' 'Share and Network' would have the blog and forum stuff but could focus on setting access to existing views. There could be lists of 'Views shared with friends' , ' views not shared at all' ' views recently shared' and other user defined lists My 2 cents

20 December 2010, 4:23

Hello,
I have played with 1.4 preview and let play my students with it and here are some remarks:

* In Education and Employment, there is still no way to edit the description with a WYSIWYG editor. This is an important drawback to present nice curriculum with format, bullet points, etc. This was a request in the Bug Tracker by the way.

* The new "Create" button instead of "Profile" is not directly understood by my users. In fact, under "create" we could put everything (Profile, CV, Porfolio, etc). My users still prefer the "Profile" button which describes best what they expect to find under it

* If you are reorganizing things, I think it would be more logical to have the "Files" management button under "My Porfolio". In there we manage everything that has to appear on a view. All artifacts are there, so there has be the "Files" management.

* In "Plans" it would be great to be able to sort tasks by completion date (asc and desc) and by the "completed" criteria

* I think that "Page" instead of "View" is better (and the translation in French will be maybe Page certainly. At the moment a discussion is running about the difficulty to translate the "View" concept. Page is then better to get.

* You have begun to change "action" text to buttons (e.g., "Edit content and layout" button in the "Pages" section). You should continue this in the whole site. This is more coherent and follows user interface guidelines. For example you may think what to do with the link "Show my tags" and transform it into a button or an icon-button (same thing with the "Select all" link among others buttons in the "InBox" window).

* Nice idea to have added "Edit content" and "Edit layout" on the top of the editing views section.

* I agree with "Journal" instead of "Blog". In the reflexive process, literature speaks more often about "Reflexive journal" instead of "Blogs" which are more for publishing information to the outside world.

* I have found a string error in "Groups->Share" for a new group I have created : [[youhaventcreatedanyviewsyet/view]]

So, great job ! and continue to improve this fabulous piece of software. I am very proud to advocate regularly about Mahara. The community has, with it, a powerful tool for the future of learning/teaching and assessing students, in a new way, for the lifelong learning trend.

20 December 2010, 4:31

Reading others' posts, I noticed that my remarks agree with some of the points already made.

I also like the Image gallery, I missed before I read about its existence in the forum.

Cheers,

-dajan

 

20 December 2010, 6:41

Hi Dominique,

The item about Plans ordering isn't actually anything to do with the changes heading for 1.4 but I've created a bug report for it as a wishlist item so it's recorded. :) 

https://bugs.launchpad.net/mahara/+bug/692541

Just wanted to let you know.

Stace

20 December 2010, 6:26

I do like the idea of separating your private content area from the portfolio (i.e. shared) content.  I echo the feeling that "create" is the wrong title for that though.  Something like "My Stuff", makes more sense, although that might be a little informal.  "My Repository" perhaps?  That might be TOO formal.

Also much prefer the "view"  descriptor to "page".  Unsure the motivation to change this as it's always been a key Mahara concept.

 

20 December 2010, 6:30

Although there is a strong argument for My Files warranting top level placement imo

20 December 2010, 8:50

In fact, what is listed under "My Portfolio" should really be under "Create" and vice versa  "Create" menu element is confusing, perhaps it should stay with the name "Profile"?

My subjective view, it become less intuintive than it was before. Did someone try to ask opinion from someone who never saw Mahara before?

20 December 2010, 12:56

My first thoughts on the changes would be:

Views to Pages.  Agree with David on this:

1. page for me is closely related to paper - i.e. something from a physical book. In Mahara they're more than this - views are easily edited, can contain interactive content and access to them can be specifically defined. 

2. 'page'  is too similar to 'web page' (although I understand how this may be considered a minor usability advantage).

3. 'View' seems to work fine because it encompasses the concept of sharing / showing off what you have created. Page on the other hand is too printing press, books and libraries.

4. It is a core concept that has been around from the beginning.

'Create' Menu Item.

I would agree with the comment about this not being exactly right because you are 'creating' views and groups etc. elsewhere. I would favour this to stay as it currently is, 'Profile' - with files moved to the top level or into My Portfolio. This way you are separating all the 'private / about you' things away from the 'your portfolio / your stuff' things.

My Portfolio -> Publish Menu Item.

Some comments on this:

1. I'm not sure about the use of a verb here. It implies that you are going to do something when you click and that's not strictly true. This works for export - because you ARE exporting your portfolio. Here, you aren't publishing your portfolio (as a whole), you are editing the access settings for any views / collections in your portfolio.

2. Perhaps there should be a consistency between the terms 'edit access' when you first create your view and 'publish' which is now in the menu bar. This is the same thing, in different places.

3. Again, publish seems a bit too print press. It's ok for wordpress but I don't think it is for Mahara.

Maybe you could have 'share view/page' when creating the view/page and 'sharing' in the My Portfolio menu. 

All other changes look great! 

20 December 2010, 15:05

OK, Create is not a runner. What if Files were a top-level item with the profile elements within this section?