[xwiki-devs] [Proposal] Introduce a 'Create' entry in the menu
Hi devs, I'd like to introduce a 'Create' entry in the XWiki action menu. This would be the first entry (it would appear before 'Edit') and would have the following sub-menus: - Page - Page from Office Document - Space The "Page from Office document" entry replaces the "Import Office Document" entry from the "Actions" menu, which IMHO does not really fit there. This allows to also get rid of the "Create" panel, and have all the features available from the menu. We could include this only in the Colibri skin for the moment, experimentally, to see how it is received by the users. -- Sergiu Dumitriu http://purl.org/net/sergiu/
Hi, On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 12:12 AM, Sergiu Dumitriu <sergiu@xwiki.com> wrote:
Hi devs,
I'd like to introduce a 'Create' entry in the XWiki action menu. This would be the first entry (it would appear before 'Edit') and would have the following sub-menus: - Page - Page from Office Document - Space
I like the idea. I've got a couple remarks though. The action bar is meant to be contextual to the current page - to hold actions related to the current page. This will be made clearer once we move the action bar closer to the content area. Therefore we should make clear that the create button does stuff related to the current page by: - renaming "Page" into "Child page" - make sure that the created page has the current one set as its parent - renaming "Page from Office Document" into "Child page from Office Document" - make sure that the created page has the current page as its parent (might require a couple changes to the OOImporter XApplication) Making the created page a child of the current page has at least 3 benefits: - it respects the wiki philosophy that pages should always be linked together (no orphan pages) - it is consistent with other action bars action (creating a child page is related to the current page) - it makes it easier to create a tree-like navigation structure (we often do that on wiki pages: create a new page that links towards a set of pages) - we could also introduce a {{childrenpages /}} macro to make the creation of tree stuctures even easier I've purposedly not included the "Create space" button for 2 reasons: - it doesn't fit with the "related to the current page" rule - spaces are high-level items and they have a specific role in XWiki Creating a new space without knowing which spaces already exist makes it easy to create "Space clutter" (we experience it on our intranet for instance). Right now, the home page (through the Dashboard) already displays the list of spaces in the wiki and provides a "create new space" button. I think this button is enough to provide an interface for new space creation and that it doesn't have to be duplicated on every page for the reasons set out above.
The "Page from Office document" entry replaces the "Import Office Document" entry from the "Actions" menu, which IMHO does not really fit there. This allows to also get rid of the "Create" panel, and have all the features available from the menu.
I've got another semantic question: should we use "Create" or "Add" (or something else)? - Create - "create whild page" - "create child page from Office Document" - Add - "add child page" - "add child page from Office Document" My gut feeling is that "add" sounds better (I can't really give a rational reason) thus I'd like to get other people's feedback about it.
We could include this only in the Colibri skin for the moment, experimentally, to see how it is received by the users.
Definitely. Thanks, Guillaume
-- Sergiu Dumitriu http://purl.org/net/sergiu/ _______________________________________________ devs mailing list devs@xwiki.org http://lists.xwiki.org/mailman/listinfo/devs
-- Guillaume Lerouge Product Manager - XWiki Skype: wikibc Twitter: glerouge http://guillaumelerouge.com/
Hi, Guillaume Lerouge wrote:
I've got another semantic question: should we use "Create" or "Add" (or something else)?
- Create - "create whild page" - "create child page from Office Document" - Add - "add child page" - "add child page from Office Document"
My gut feeling is that "add" sounds better (I can't really give a rational reason) thus I'd like to get other people's feedback about it.
What about simply "New..."? Thunderbird and Firefox use this formula. This way we avoid to choose between "create" and "add". Let users to choose! :-) -- Ricardo Rodríguez Your EPEC Network ICT Team
Hi, i'd like ad somthing to that proposal. If you plan to intreduce something like "create page" it would be great to have "create page from template" to. I think in fact thats more important than create space. Guillaume Lerouge wrote:
Hi,
On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 12:12 AM, Sergiu Dumitriu <sergiu@xwiki.com> wrote:
The action bar is meant to be contextual to the current page - to hold actions related to the current page. This will be made clearer once we move the action bar closer to the content area. Therefore we should make clear that the create button does stuff related to the current page by:
- renaming "Page" into "Child page" - make sure that the created page has the current one set as its parent - renaming "Page from Office Document" into "Child page from Office Document" - make sure that the created page has the current page as its parent (might require a couple changes to the OOImporter XApplication)
Making the created page a child of the current page has at least 3 benefits:
- it respects the wiki philosophy that pages should always be linked together (no orphan pages) - it is consistent with other action bars action (creating a child page is related to the current page) - it makes it easier to create a tree-like navigation structure (we often do that on wiki pages: create a new page that links towards a set of pages) - we could also introduce a {{childrenpages /}} macro to make the creation of tree stuctures even easier
Taking that in account i think the create page should happen when you klick on a link pointing to a page that does not exist. That would be consequent and make the semantic question "create page" or "create child page obsolet". But i don't know if its possible. So you click the link, a dialog appears asking: - create page - create page from template - import from office and thats it. Cheers hel. ----- semantic-web.hel.at hel@hel.at -- View this message in context: http://n2.nabble.com/Proposal-Introduce-a-Create-entry-in-the-menu-tp3549387... Sent from the XWiki- Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
hel-o wrote:
Hi,
i'd like ad somthing to that proposal. If you plan to intreduce something like "create page" it would be great to have "create page from template" to. I think in fact thats more important than create space.
The problem is that we don't have yet a way to identify which documents are templates, but in the next release we should have a generic mechanism for identifying templates, which would populate the Create menu.
Guillaume Lerouge wrote:
Hi,
On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 12:12 AM, Sergiu Dumitriu <sergiu@xwiki.com> wrote:
The action bar is meant to be contextual to the current page - to hold actions related to the current page. This will be made clearer once we move the action bar closer to the content area. Therefore we should make clear that the create button does stuff related to the current page by:
- renaming "Page" into "Child page" - make sure that the created page has the current one set as its parent - renaming "Page from Office Document" into "Child page from Office Document" - make sure that the created page has the current page as its parent (might require a couple changes to the OOImporter XApplication)
Making the created page a child of the current page has at least 3 benefits:
- it respects the wiki philosophy that pages should always be linked together (no orphan pages) - it is consistent with other action bars action (creating a child page is related to the current page) - it makes it easier to create a tree-like navigation structure (we often do that on wiki pages: create a new page that links towards a set of pages) - we could also introduce a {{childrenpages /}} macro to make the creation of tree stuctures even easier
Taking that in account i think the create page should happen when you klick on a link pointing to a page that does not exist. That would be consequent and make the semantic question "create page" or "create child page obsolet". But i don't know if its possible.
So you click the link, a dialog appears asking:
- create page - create page from template - import from office
and thats it.
Yes, this is a good option too. -- Sergiu Dumitriu http://purl.org/net/sergiu/
Sergiu Dumitriu-2 wrote:
hel-o wrote:
Hi,
i'd like ad somthing to that proposal. If you plan to intreduce something like "create page" it would be great to have "create page from template" to. I think in fact thats more important than create space.
The problem is that we don't have yet a way to identify which documents are templates, but in the next release we should have a generic mechanism for identifying templates, which would populate the Create menu.
imho any page in the wiki could be a template. but a default space for templates and the possibility to make spaces unavailable as templates would be great. hel. ----- semantic-web.hel.at hel@hel.at -- View this message in context: http://n2.nabble.com/Proposal-Introduce-a-Create-entry-in-the-menu-tp3549387... Sent from the XWiki- Dev mailing list archive at Nabble.com.
Hi, Sergiu Dumitriu wrote:
Hi devs,
I'd like to introduce a 'Create' entry in the XWiki action menu. This would be the first entry (it would appear before 'Edit') and would have the following sub-menus: - Page - Page from Office Document - Space
The "Page from Office document" entry replaces the "Import Office Document" entry from the "Actions" menu, which IMHO does not really fit there. This allows to also get rid of the "Create" panel, and have all the features available from the menu.
We could include this only in the Colibri skin for the moment, experimentally, to see how it is received by the users.
This is the more frequent queries from people arriving to XWiki on their own here. How do I create a new page? Even though we usually provide "seed documents", thus people have only to edit them, it is rather frequent that people want to experiment with the system and use it to create their own pages to hold contents related with their daily work. At this point, the system must face another challenge: how to guide an user wanting to create content easing the decision about where create new pages? I could figure out some kind o method using Document Type and offering a set of templates based on user profiling. I guess templates will define the wiki/space where new documents will be created. To "create" is the action that satisfy the most any new user. It implies power to use the system to accomplish her/his objectives. A clear +1 to this option. As for creating pages from Office Documents. Well, it is an example about how things are doing around! Users frequently use Word to draft contents that will be copy/pasted in a xwiki page. I try to avoid this by putting a number of examples about how simpler tools will be more effective. I do need to come back on off-line edition of xwiki pages to be able to offer a reliable solution. Just my two cents by gathering some users experiences from my environment. Greetings, Ricardo -- Ricardo Rodríguez Your EPEC Network ICT Team
On Aug 31, 2009, at 10:04 AM, [Ricardo Rodriguez] Your EPEC Network ICT Team wrote:
Hi,
Sergiu Dumitriu wrote:
Hi devs,
I'd like to introduce a 'Create' entry in the XWiki action menu. This would be the first entry (it would appear before 'Edit') and would have the following sub-menus: - Page - Page from Office Document - Space
The "Page from Office document" entry replaces the "Import Office Document" entry from the "Actions" menu, which IMHO does not really fit there. This allows to also get rid of the "Create" panel, and have all the features available from the menu.
We could include this only in the Colibri skin for the moment, experimentally, to see how it is received by the users.
This is the more frequent queries from people arriving to XWiki on their own here. How do I create a new page?
Even though we usually provide "seed documents", thus people have only to edit them, it is rather frequent that people want to experiment with the system and use it to create their own pages to hold contents related with their daily work.
At this point, the system must face another challenge: how to guide an user wanting to create content easing the decision about where create new pages? I could figure out some kind o method using Document Type and offering a set of templates based on user profiling. I guess templates will define the wiki/space where new documents will be created.
To "create" is the action that satisfy the most any new user. It implies power to use the system to accomplish her/his objectives. A clear +1 to this option.
As for creating pages from Office Documents. Well, it is an example about how things are doing around! Users frequently use Word to draft contents that will be copy/pasted in a xwiki page. I try to avoid this by putting a number of examples about how simpler tools will be more effective. I do need to come back on off-line edition of xwiki pages to be able to offer a reliable solution.
Do you know that we have a MS Office plugin so that people can edit their wiki pages directly from word? Actually I don't know if this plugin supports offline writing or not. It's not listed on http://xoffice.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/ WebHome as a feature. Florin? Thanks -Vincent
Just my two cents by gathering some users experiences from my environment.
Greetings,
Ricardo
-- Ricardo Rodríguez Your EPEC Network ICT Team
Vincent Massol wrote:
Do you know that we have a MS Office plugin so that people can edit their wiki pages directly from word?
Actually I don't know if this plugin supports offline writing or not. It's not listed on http://xoffice.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/ WebHome as a feature.
Florin?
Thanks -Vincent
Thanks Vincent. Yeap, I've been following this development, but I've not tried it yet. In fact, I would prefer any option not involving Word. Word, what for? I know, I know, it could be a quite useful piece of software, but when writing scientific papers it is arguable its usefulness. I can easily figure out a much simple tool, a collaborative edition tool, focused on collaboration. Something like SPAWN (http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Design/SPAWN) will be greatly welcome although I would like to add off-line edition to the "Required Features" list. In any case, to have such an alternative will be great. But perhaps it will greatly rely on the Windows/Mac/Office releases installed on a given box. But of course I can not day that without testing it! Cheers, Ricardo -- Ricardo Rodríguez Your EPEC Network ICT Team
Hi, [Ricardo Rodriguez] Your EPEC Network ICT Team wrote:
Vincent Massol wrote:
Do you know that we have a MS Office plugin so that people can edit their wiki pages directly from word?
Actually I don't know if this plugin supports offline writing or not. It's not listed on http://xoffice.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/ WebHome as a feature.
Florin?
This seems a bit off-topic. There is no explicit offline support, but the user is free to save as many local drafts before publishing the page/document. Local path and document format changes are allowed. Regarding the menus, it would be great if we could add entries that could permit editing with XEclipse, XOffice or XOO depending on the user's system. Unfortunately I don't see how this can be done without some kind of bowser extensions.
Thanks -Vincent
Thanks Vincent. Yeap, I've been following this development, but I've not tried it yet. In fact, I would prefer any option not involving Word. Word, what for? I know, I know, it could be a quite useful piece of software, but when writing scientific papers it is arguable its usefulness.
I can easily figure out a much simple tool, a collaborative edition tool, focused on collaboration. Something like SPAWN (http://dev.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Design/SPAWN) will be greatly welcome although I would like to add off-line edition to the "Required Features" list.
In any case, to have such an alternative will be great. But perhaps it will greatly rely on the Windows/Mac/Office releases installed on a given box. But of course I can not day that without testing it!
Cheers,
Ricardo
Thanks Florin. Florin Ciubotaru wrote:
Hi,
[Ricardo Rodriguez] Your EPEC Network ICT Team wrote:
Vincent Massol wrote:
Do you know that we have a MS Office plugin so that people can edit their wiki pages directly from word?
Actually I don't know if this plugin supports offline writing or not. It's not listed on http://xoffice.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/ WebHome as a feature.
Florin?
This seems a bit off-topic. There is no explicit offline support, but the user is free to save as many local drafts before publishing the page/document. Local path and document format changes are allowed. Regarding the menus, it would be great if we could add entries that could permit editing with XEclipse, XOffice or XOO depending on the user's system. Unfortunately I don't see how this can be done without some kind of bowser extensions.
As said in a previous thread, the more ways we have to edit a document, the best! Concerning XOffice and even I contribute to go on off-topic, please, is it correct that it is only available for Windows+Office 2007 environments? I guess it is not an easy task to provided releases for any Office/SO combination. Let's say, Mac OS X 10.5.8 and Word 2008 for Mac. Thanks! -- Ricardo Rodríguez Your EPEC Network ICT Team
[Ricardo Rodriguez] Your EPEC Network ICT Team wrote:
Thanks Florin.
Florin Ciubotaru wrote:
Hi,
[Ricardo Rodriguez] Your EPEC Network ICT Team wrote:
Vincent Massol wrote:
Do you know that we have a MS Office plugin so that people can edit their wiki pages directly from word?
Actually I don't know if this plugin supports offline writing or not. It's not listed on http://xoffice.xwiki.org/xwiki/bin/view/Main/ WebHome as a feature.
Florin?
This seems a bit off-topic. There is no explicit offline support, but the user is free to save as many local drafts before publishing the page/document. Local path and document format changes are allowed. Regarding the menus, it would be great if we could add entries that could permit editing with XEclipse, XOffice or XOO depending on the user's system. Unfortunately I don't see how this can be done without some kind of bowser extensions.
As said in a previous thread, the more ways we have to edit a document, the best!
Concerning XOffice and even I contribute to go on off-topic, please, is it correct that it is only available for Windows+Office 2007 environments? I guess it is not an easy task to provided releases for any Office/SO combination. Let's say, Mac OS X 10.5.8 and Word 2008 for Mac.
Thanks!
Yes, the official release is available for Windows+Office 2007 only. There is also an Office 2003 add-in developed during this Google Summer of Code and we have full compatibility with the closed preview version of Office 2010. We use .net + vsto to create this add-ins, which is not available for the Mac version of Office. Thanks, Florin Ciubotaru
participants (6)
-
[Ricardo Rodriguez] Your EPEC Network ICT Team -
Florin Ciubotaru -
Guillaume Lerouge -
hel-o -
Sergiu Dumitriu -
Vincent Massol